To Have and Have Not

On the back of my copy of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT there is a blurb which reads; "This is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat."Well...not exactly, and therein lays some of the problem with this novel, but I'm getting ahead of myself. TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT is indeed the story of Harry Morgan, a charter fisherman who, after resisting initial temptations in the criminal direction, is cheated so badly by a customer that he is financially ruined. In the hopes of making fast money he agrees to begin running contraband -- first illegal immigrants, then liquor, and finally revolutionaries, with each successive trip sinking him deeper into a world of criminality, violence, and deceit. In contrast with Morgan is Richard Gordon, a successful writer moving in a set of dissipated yachtsmen and their equally dissipated wives, who is just beginning to examine Key West's seamy underbelly -- a world of embittered war veterans who spend their evenings drinking and fighting. At first this is merely research for a novel, but as his marriage cracks under the strain of an affair, this "Have" gets a bloodier taste of how the "Have-Nots" live.When I was in college, I remember someone saying this novel is Hemingway's most clumsy in terms of construction. It switches back and forth from first to third person point of view, introduces important characters rather late in the book, and only dubiously succeeds in joining the two disparite story arcs -- that of Morgan, who is supposed to represent the desperate working man forced by circumstance into criminality, and Gordon, who serves as a kind of analogy for the bored, morally decayed rich people who lounge on their yachts drinking and fornicating while the locals scrabble out desperate half-lives in the sand. All of this is true. The book is disjointed, and at the end indulges in one of Hemingway's least attractive pastimes -- endless Joyce-like stream-of-consciousness internal monologues that test the reader's patience if not his sanity ("Oh he is sweet, no he isn't, I'm sweet, yes you are lovely, oh, you're so lovely, and I didn't want to, but I am, now I am really, he is sweet, no he's not, he's not even here, I'm here, I'm the one that's always here, and cannot go away, no never.") Furthermore, I had a great problem with Harry Morgan himself. As I noted above, he's described as "an honest man," but in actuality he's anything but. In fact, from the very first illicit deal he carries out, it's clear he's a liar, double-crosser and murderer who has only refrained from criminality in the past because he didn't need it to make a living. There is never the slightest sense of moral conflict within him (not for breaking the rich man's laws, for which he could be excused, but for the things he does to people, or causes to happen to people, so he can make money, which is harder to swallow). Because of this I found him somewhat unsympathetic, and began only to care about him in context with what his incarceration or death would mean to his pathetic wife, Marie.On the plus side: this is easily one of Hemingway's most readable novels. It lacks the triviality of THE SUN ALSO RISES or the vein of silliness and self-pity that marred A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and while it is not as consistently action-packed as THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, it has plenty of drama and conflict to keep the story moving. It also provides an interesting picture of life in Key West during the Depression, a time when masses of desperate, half-starving people seethed in the background, almost unnoticed by a crowd of ultra-wealthy playboys scooting past them in yachts, and indeed, this sharp contrast is the whole raison d'etre of the novel. Hemingway seems to have enjoyed using his characters as analogies for whole populations and the spirits of the eras in which they lived, and if this book has anything profound to say about the dilemma of the poor, the way they are perpetually ground between the rich man's laws and the terrible alternative of revolution, it perhaps can be found in the chapters involving Morgan and the Cuban revolutionaries: "What the hell do I care about his revolution," Harry thinks. "F--- his revolution. To help a working man he robs a bank and kills a working man never did him any harm. That's a working man he kills. He never thinks of that....The hell with their revolutions. All I got to do is make a living and I can't do that."

I haven't read any of the other reivews so I may be saying things that others have already said. If so, I apologise.The first thing that struck me is how raw and harsh the story is. It's not what I would have expected from an old novel. In this respect it's modern. It's as raw and straight in its violence as the film Pulp Fiction, for example.It has a kind of James Bond feel, Dr No in particular. It's very adventurous. The story plays out in and around Cuba and the scenes have that sinister events in a romantic setting feel. Hemingway also doesn't mess about with the descriptions. He's curt and brief but his descriptions put you there. I like that. He doesn't go on and on for pages but you're right there on his boat trafficing people.The story does hop around a bit. I didn't enjoy it is much as The Sun Also Rises which, for me, is so far his best book. I read recently that Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea in eleven days. It suggests that he liked to write in one go. My impression is that To Have and Have Not was written in the same way but with breaks in between because the mood and tone flips almost as if there are different stories glued in to one. This I found a little off-putting. I like the freedom of an adventure book and the fact that often the characters are sort of bullet proof. With serious literary books you'd expect the death and loss and heartche. So the two don't really mix for me however in this story they are and it leaves me a little disappointed. I'll explain what I mean.I've already said the book has a Bond feel. The main plot is an adventure story. SPOILER ALERT IN PARENTHESIS: (the story has a tragic ending where the main character and his co-star die which is a let down when you're expecting adventure story)On the literary level, the main character has a particular relationship with his wife. The type of relationship only really occured to me at the end of the book because that's where Hemingway really gets into it. There are some people on the planet that have experienced love, the movie cliche, and know that it's real. Hemingway, I believe, is one of those poeple. What he describes, for me, is the real thing. It's really good but somehow it's a little at odds with the adevnture story. It's too serious. There are other characters in and around the main character and his wife also going through different aspects of their relationships. This fits in with the literary portion of the story but not so the adventure.If you buy this one I'm quite confident it's going to be a story that brings something new for you on every page. You can't see where the story's going and I like that.On the whole it was a refreshing and entertaining book.

Maybe not Hemingway’s best but a very good book. A bit disjointed but an entertaining intriguing character development in Harry Morgan.

Me gusto mucho. Es un gran libro. Lo recomiendo

Was this the norm 80 years ago? This book is so full of anachronistic cliches that it’s almost comical. I can’t believe I wasted so much time reading it. Perhaps it has some limited value as a commentary on the desperation of the Great Depression, but it’s nearly incomprehensible. The stream of consciousness writing at the end is really the final straw. Absolute rubbish!

After failing to understand the point of The Old Man and the Sea I thought I'll give this a go just in case that was a one off. Wrong. I have loved the film for years and although I knew it was only loosely based on the film and despised by Hemingway, I thought what the hell I'll give it a go. Big Mistake. This purports to be a novel but is in fact a collection of three short stories about Harry Morgan pretending to be parts of the same book. True the three parts are set in spring, fall, and winter but there appears to be no reference to the situations in the previous parts. There are no female characters of note apart from Harry's wife! Seriously, how did the film makers get away with that change. In part two Harry is referred to as "the man" for the first two pages, and repeatedly after we know who he is, and his crew member as the ni**er. Difficult to even write that word today, different times. "The man steering approached the channel". Is this really the writing of a Nobel Laureate? I gave up and went back to reading for pleasure.

Boy, did EH get to hate the standard issue Yacht Club US wealthy....the action descriptions of gunfight are stunning, but the whole book is worth reading for his prose poem near the end describing the fate of those men ruined by a corrupt grain dealer. From Mansion to running a boarding house in Brooklyn. Better than Weldon Kees...surprisingly, there is a shockingly touching scene involving a shaking Helene, deserted by her lover in mid-orgasm. No plot spoiler here!....

A few things to keep in mind before reading this book:*The plot is very different to the popular Humphrey Bogart Film*The storyline is very exciting in parts - especially when Harry Morgan is the focus - but a little dull (almost pretentious when he is not)*Hemingway himself didn't like the book (so I have read) - but it did win literary awards when first published*It is a relatively short novel (more a novella)*The book is quite experimental - begins with first person but then points of view and perspectives change (I agree with the reviewer 'Mandrake' who says it has similarities or provided possible inspiration for Quentin Tarintino's work such as Pulp Fiction*It is fast paced and when Morgan is the key focus provided readers with a great intro to Hemingway - the dreary aspects that focus on the 'Haves' however is in my view quite tiresome and doesn't quite convince - the female characters seem a bit pathetic in nature and unrealistic*The audio version is great - though when the narrator reads out the female lines it really does accentuate the artificiality of the dialogue Hemingway gives to his female characters (who come across as ideals/superficial charactures rather than real people*In summary: part brilliance(hence the four stars) for a about two thirds of the book/ part dull and unconvincingfor about one third of the book and Hollywood were right to keep the focus on Harry Morgan and use the essence of his character and nature to drive the film. HOWEVER, I would love to see a director like Tarintino give this film a more modern rendition as the book definitely has something special in there.