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The Garden of Eden

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The Garden of Eden

By: Ernest Hemingway
Narrated by: Patrick Wilson
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About this listen

 The last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, published posthumously in 1986, charts the life of a young American writer and his glamorous wife who fall for the same woman.

A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961. Set on the Côte d'Azur in the 1920s, it is the story of a young American writer, David Bourne, his glamorous wife, Catherine, and the dangerous, erotic game they play when they fall in love with the same woman. "A lean, sensuous narrative...taut, chic, and strangely contemporary," The Garden of Eden represents vintage Hemingway, the master "doing what nobody did better" (R. Z. Sheppard, Time). Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction

Critic reviews

"Hemingway's farewell, mannered, thrilling, spoiled, pure, loyal to its monumental maker and itself and with no knowledge of coming darkness." -- James Salter, The Washington Post Book World
"Hemingway gives you the look and feel of places, the sensuous brilliance of the world's offerings, the excitement of complex relationships, the precision of a hunt or a breakfast, the tensions of sexual intrigue . . . In short, The Garden of Eden is a feast." -- Richard Stern, Chicago Tribune Books
"A miracle, a fresh slant on the old magic." -- John Updike, The New Yorker
All stars
Most relevant
Really struggled to finish this. It felt like reading the same chapter over and over again.

Disappointing

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I'm a great fan of Hemingway and his masculine prose but I was very disappointed by this. I'm not blaming Papa, if he had been alive to finish it he might have licked it into shape but, as it is, I can understand why it was never published in his lifetime.

The female protagonist was repulsively vain and annoying in a way that I don't think was intended. I don't think I was supposed to hate her but I did. The only redeeming part of the story was the short interlude that describes the male protagonist boyhood adventures in Africa. And it was a good narrative effort I suppose.

Weedy.

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