The Garden of Eden

One of my all-time favorite books was written by the author of this book, Ernest Hemingway.  This read, The Garden of Eden, was published posthumously after his wife delivered it to his editor with a box of other works not completed.  This could lead one to believe that the final “touches” may be missing in the book.  Nonetheless, I realize once again why Hemingway is an outstanding novelist.  In Garden of Eden, we find David and Catherine as newlyweds with the backdrop of Cote d' Azur, the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France.  A beautiful location for a married couple to fall in love with the same woman who comes into their life as Catherine searches for whom she is sexually.  Catherine has had traumatic family experiences, where her father commits suicide and simultaneously kills his wife.  The reader is left to figure out if this background has left scars on Catherine, or whether this erotic adventure into a three way love affair is already a part of what she has become.  David, an American writer, is left trying to struggle understanding his wife’s preoccupation with looking like a man (as she constantly wants to get her hair cut like his), using David’s barber.  The sexual tensions and complicated psychological depths of the characters are real and ask the reader to seek a tender understanding of Catherine’s development as a person, which she herself seems to be struggling with.  Her journey seems to be much ahead of her time.  The Garden of Eden, a fitting name for this novel as we see Marita, the new object of attention for both Catherine and David, as the forbidden fruit which Catherine (ie Eve) has taken a bite and now wants her husband to have this forbidden fruit.  Hemingway is a master and this one won’t let you down.  Oh, and yes, For Whom the Bell Tolls is in my top 5.