An essay on To Have and Have Not by David Gagne
This is something I wrote for AML 4133 on October 26, 1995 …
Harry Morgan is dead. Whew! Have I mentioned that I am really enjoying this Hemingway dude? Unbelievable, just amazing. This book was so much different from the previous ones. It seemed like it was written in this generation, if that makes any sense. Until To Have and Have Not all the Hemingway books we’ve read, although good reads, were from a different time, y’know? They seemed to be written for a different generation, the Roaring Twenties maybe. But this one was much closer to now, to my time. I shouldn’t have read probably the teaser on the back cover, because of course I read Harry as Humphrey the entire time, but that’s not so bad I guess. Humphrey was probably a damn good Harry. I’ll have to see it now, you realize. Casablanca, well, is it cliche to say it’s a classic? So maybe that’s part of why it seemed like a now book instead of a then book. Plus I kept thinking of Mel Gibson‘s role in Tequila Sunrise, almost the same character. Just a completely wild read…and the ending! Whoa-man what the hell was going on there? If that wasn’t 1995 style writing what is? It was just like something you’d read by Robert B. Parker or a Batman novel. (Of course I mean the “serious” Batman novels, not the pop/pulp crap that the kids read nowadays with an armorcladguncarryingtechnoBatman. ) Or maybe a Pulp Fiction movie set in the 30s and a book instead of a movie…damn good book. Suicide! What the hell, man, why the hell would he do it? That’s what I kept thinking while reading it, how could he do it? I didn’t know he committed suicide until this course. He’s such a good writer…but then how else could he have died? Mickey Mantle? Tragic, classic tragic. Classic, GAP chinos, Coca-Cola, Budweiser America tragic. Response? This is response. I tell you, the bit at the end, the whirlwind of lives, it was brilliant(?)/no it was nuts/no it was WRITING. It was Writing like only a Writer can do. How the hell did he do it? I would kill for that, y’know? Response? It was a Bogart movie, that’s what it was. Some things are just born amazing.
Switching from first to third person and switching narrators was freaky there in the beginning, I was confused. And there was the now commonplace disconcertion of not knowing who is speaking quotes when a few people are in the scene and no he saids or she saids are there to guide you. And at first I was upset when we left Harry and switched to other characters, but then I didn’t mind so much, it was okay, I gave in and let Hemingway do what he wanted and just let the story go, y’know? Funny, there’s a news clip on TV right now about illegal immigrants from Cuba in Miami. THAHN was just like a Spenser novel. There were a few bar scenes from Freddy’s that were almost carbon copies of a few scenes I remember from Parker. Spenser’s almost the same character as Harry, too. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to read – I flew through it. They’ve all been quick reads, even FTA, but this one just zipped, it couldn’t have taken an hour and a half. It’s also maybe a bit easier to read because I’m also supposed to be reading Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Matthew (as in The Book of…) (should that be in quotes, italics, underlined? no clue), and about fourteen chapters of Linguistics (that I hate and can’t see why I have to read or even take a class in speaking and knowing the language in order to get an English degree..jesus if you don’t know it yet why the hell did you get to college aren’t they required to teach anything in high school anymore???). But as I may have said already, this is the only class I’m taking by choice, the rest are just filler so I advance ponderously towards graduating in this decade and so I can get financial aid. The schedules are out and I have no idea what I need to take to graduate this damn place is so un-user-friendly, y’know? Sorry, it’s not your fault and I should stay on the topic at hand, but what can I say that’s not been said? When Hemingway nodded… I don’t know. It was a damn good book and I am very glad I read it and I’ll probably read it again before the summer. Oh, and I’m sorry the last paper was late. No disrespect to you intended.
