you can't improve on perfection.
Yesterday I finished reading the Hemingway novel that everyone says is his worst: To Have and Have Not. I've owned this book since at least '99, but hadn't read it. I originally bought it as a junior in high school for the huge research paper I had to write. It was one of three books I focused on, but I never actually read it. I just picked through it and pulled out quotes. Not the way to enjoy a book or write a paper.
I finally started reading it last week on a vacation with my mother-in-law, her two sisters, her mother, and a friend. We took a cruise from Miami to Calica, Mexico, by way of Key West, where we toured the Hemingway house. While it was interesting to be there, the house didn't feel very authentic. It felt more like a money-making scheme than a museum and our guide was just a little too practiced. A little too smooth. I'm not saying they shouldn't have a uniform speech that all the guides say, but this one made me feel like he wouldn't be able to answer any questions not covered by his spiel. That's probably not true, either, but that's how it felt.
I started reading To Have and Have Not on the plane to Miami because I knew it took place in Key West. Maybe it is his worst, but I really liked it, actually. My problem with it has nothing to do with the content, but with the synopsis on the back of the book. It ends by saying that Harry Morgan's "adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair." Doesn't that sound like he'll fall in love? Or maybe, I don't know, at least meet a woman? Well, Harry only talks to two women in the whole book, one of which is his wife. I have the sneaky suspicion that whoever wrote the synopsis read about as much of the book as I did in high school. Either that or they just watched the movie. I haven't seen the movie, but I did a little research on it yesterday and found out that it takes place about ten years later (present day for the year it was made) than the book and instead of smuggling Cubans in Key West, he's trying to get members of the French resistance away from the Nazis. Oh, and of course he isn't married yet. Lauren Bacall plays a character named Marie, which is the wife's name in the book.
Except for a stack of four, all my books are still in boxes, waiting for me to build shelves for them. As I sit here, anticipating what will feel like Christmas when I get to unpack my books and put them on new, custom shelving, Amazon.com, a.k.a. Enemy #1 for independent booksellers everywhere, is pushing its new ebook. For the record, I'm anti-ebook. I hate the idea completely. It was on the cover of Newsweek, with the subheading, "Amazon's Jeff Bezos already built a better bookstore. Now he believes he can improve upon one of humankind's most divine creations: the book itself." This annoys me on so many, many levels.
I finally started reading it last week on a vacation with my mother-in-law, her two sisters, her mother, and a friend. We took a cruise from Miami to Calica, Mexico, by way of Key West, where we toured the Hemingway house. While it was interesting to be there, the house didn't feel very authentic. It felt more like a money-making scheme than a museum and our guide was just a little too practiced. A little too smooth. I'm not saying they shouldn't have a uniform speech that all the guides say, but this one made me feel like he wouldn't be able to answer any questions not covered by his spiel. That's probably not true, either, but that's how it felt.
I started reading To Have and Have Not on the plane to Miami because I knew it took place in Key West. Maybe it is his worst, but I really liked it, actually. My problem with it has nothing to do with the content, but with the synopsis on the back of the book. It ends by saying that Harry Morgan's "adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair." Doesn't that sound like he'll fall in love? Or maybe, I don't know, at least meet a woman? Well, Harry only talks to two women in the whole book, one of which is his wife. I have the sneaky suspicion that whoever wrote the synopsis read about as much of the book as I did in high school. Either that or they just watched the movie. I haven't seen the movie, but I did a little research on it yesterday and found out that it takes place about ten years later (present day for the year it was made) than the book and instead of smuggling Cubans in Key West, he's trying to get members of the French resistance away from the Nazis. Oh, and of course he isn't married yet. Lauren Bacall plays a character named Marie, which is the wife's name in the book.
Except for a stack of four, all my books are still in boxes, waiting for me to build shelves for them. As I sit here, anticipating what will feel like Christmas when I get to unpack my books and put them on new, custom shelving, Amazon.com, a.k.a. Enemy #1 for independent booksellers everywhere, is pushing its new ebook. For the record, I'm anti-ebook. I hate the idea completely. It was on the cover of Newsweek, with the subheading, "Amazon's Jeff Bezos already built a better bookstore. Now he believes he can improve upon one of humankind's most divine creations: the book itself." This annoys me on so many, many levels.
Labels: books., family., travel/tourism.
<< Home