Review: Islands In the Stream by Ernest Hemingway

Genre: Fiction 
Series: No 
Pages: 448
Copyright: 1997 for this edition. Originally 1970. 
Buy: Amazon

Summary:
This book tells the story of Thomas Hudson in three sections. Each section builds on his life. This is a hard book to create a summary of because it is the life story of one central character. It is a well told story with characters being an important part, even though there is very little that remains from one section to the next. Each section is a piece of Thomas Hudson's life: happiness, grief, and escape. Each is set in a different location and time.

Feelings:
This was a very frustrating book at times. It was divided into three sections, and at the beginning of every new section there were all new characters, or almost all new characters. For a while you were left wondering what happened to the old characters, but then you began to like the new characters. The entire book was very well written, and the sections were all very striking. They built on Thomas Hudson’s grief, making it greater after every section. The ending was very striking because you knew that there was nothing that would change what was happening, and it was very true for the main character.

“Oh shit.” Willie said. “You never understand people that love you.”

It made the end very final and sad. The character was never going to experience the one thing he loved any more, painting, and his joy, his children were dead. The anti-submarine activity he had to achieve was complete. This was a book I put off reading for a long time because it was about an artist and didn’t seem at first glance to be as well developed as the other Hemingway books. After reading Islands in the Stream, it seems more mature, but the main character was left with nothing at the end like in most of the books I’ve read by Hemingway.