Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway

First published in 1925; published as a Centennial Edition by Mariner Books on May 9, 2023

I probably read this story in college. I know I read In Our Time, the collection that featured this and one other Nick Adams story. I remember the other Adams story but not this one. That doesn't surprise me, as I don’t recall much about my college years. I attribute that to my declining memory rather than collegiate substance abuse, but the two might be related.

The story is well regarded by Hemingway fans. It is probably beloved by the editors of Field & Stream. Sports Illustrated praised it as the greatest story about the outdoors in literary history. I have a guarded appreciation of Hemingway, but I’m more of a Faulkner guy. This centennial edition includes some beautifully detailed pen-and-ink sketches/engravings of fishing and camping scenes by Chris Wormell, as well as a “revelatory forward” by John MacLean, whose dad wrote A River Runs Through It.

The story is simple. Nick backpacks his way into the woods, makes camp, catches soot-covered grasshoppers to use as bait, and fishes for trout. Sometimes he wins, sometimes the trout wins. That’s the story.

Along the way, Nick reports on his state of mind. Hiking induces weariness that helps him sleep despite his troubled thoughts. We don’t know why he’s troubled but in the context of other Nick Adams stories, he’s probably fretting about a girl. Nick becomes happy, or at least content, as the tranquility of solitude eases his mind. When a large fish gets away, he centers himself in nature, sitting on a log with the sun at his back, and waits until the feeling of disappointment leaves. “It was all right now.”

The revelatory forward explains that Hemingway wrote the story at the age of 25 when he was a struggling writer in Paris following his ambulance driving years in Italy. MacLean notes that critics at the time (but not the “perceptive” ones who were mostly Hemingway’s friends) complained that nothing happens. Far be it from me to echo that same unperceptive complaint. Critics apparently argue about the meaning of the story’s metaphors (grasshoppers are soot-covered because of a fire that represents, well, something). My heretical thought is that Hemingway described what he saw and wasn't being metaphonrical at all. Who knows? MacLean suggests that the story is about a journey of the spirit. I’ll buy that.

I can’t deny Hemingway’s impact on American literature, even if I don’t fully appreciate it. This book might be a good gift for true Hemingway admirers and for outdoorsy types who like to wade into frigid streams to fish for trout when they could get a tasty grouper in a seafood restaurant. Yeah, I know, it isn’t the same. It’s a big two-hearted world with plenty of room for readers who like Hemingway and readers who wonder what all the fuss is about.

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