Islands in the Stream

  For my taste and interest at this stage of my life, Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream is of much greater interest to me than his fiction.  Hemingway’s non- fiction, while he labeled it [my words] a fictionalization of Truth, carries the weight of his trademark esthetic style combined with an adroit juxtaposition of the biographical elements of his life, all embedded in three novelas called Bimini, Cuba, and At Sea.

Bimini was Hemingway’s first home in the Gulf Stream, which for decades played an important role in his search for worldclass sport.

   Bimini and Cuba became his long-term homes. At Sea is a rollicking, action packed tale of World War II sub-chasing. Bimini is a revealing picture of the inner life of Thomas Hudson, a painter, whose three sons are visiting him for the summer. Cuba follows Hudson on his move to Cuba and includes a vivid portrait of Hudson’s lifestyle and escapades with a cast of Hemingway-type characters. I have to say the portrait of Hudson in Cuba is replete with sketches of Hudson as an unadmirable soul who survives on alcohol. On the other hand, this book counts as another of Hemingway’s nonfiction books that is loaded with gems of literary and esthetic criticism. For someone who constantly put down critics throughout his life, Hemingway himself never stopped criticizing and dispensing corrective wisdom.