To have and not to have (novel)

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Have and Have Not is a novel by Ernest Hemingway , who in 1937 under the title To Have and Have Not published by Scribner's Sons , New York, appeared. He is said to have written parts of the book at the Compleat Angler Hotel in Bimini , Bahamas . The only authorized translation into German comes from Annemarie Horschitz-Horst and was first published in parallel in 1951 by Steinberg Verlag Zurich and Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag Hamburg.

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The action is depicted from different perspectives alternately as first-person narration and authorial narrative , whereby the respective figure of the first-person narrator also changes.

The story begins one morning in Havana when the novel's protagonist , Harry Morgan, meets three local men at the Pearl of San Francisco café, who the night before made him an offer to pay him $ 1,000 each if he met them would smuggle his boat into the United States. Harry declines with the words "... I don't ship anything that can talk to the States". He's too afraid of the consequences if discovered. Although he used to smuggle alcohol, he has given up since his business as a skipper was good. Harry lives in Key West with his wife Marie and three daughters , but earns his living in Cuba. From autumn to spring he chartered his boat there to Americans who come to marlin fishing on the island.

However, when after a three-week fishing trip his current client disappears without paying the outstanding $ 825, Harry is forced to somehow still make some money. He cannot go back to his wife and daughters penniless and spend the summer there.

He decides to smuggle twelve of his compatriots to the Tortugas for $ 100 a head on behalf of a Chinese . After completing the assignment, he will return to the States.

The following autumn, due to the economic depression, there is no longer any money to be made from fishing boat trips and Harry starts smuggling alcohol again. During one of his tours he was involved in an exchange of fire with Cubans and was so badly injured that his right arm had to be amputated. In addition, his boat is confiscated by customs, so that Harry is left with no income.

Since, unlike his friend, he is not ready to take on poorly paid odd jobs, but he has to support his family, he takes on another dubious assignment after his recovery. Through a lawyer friend he receives an offer to take four Cubans across the Gulf to Cabanas. When they meet in the café, the four Cubans do not know that Harry speaks Spanish, and so he learns that the four are planning to rob a bank and then flee to Cuba. Nevertheless, he accepts the offer, but is already working out his own plan.

He chartered a friend's boat and hid his gun in the engine compartment. Harry plans to get rid of the criminals in the course of the crossing. On the high seas, there is a shooting in which Harry kills all four Cubans, but is hit twice in the stomach himself. The boat will also be damaged. Severely wounded and delirious , Harry drifts in a boat in the gulf.

At midnight the next day, when the boat, which was reported by a passing tanker, is being towed into port by the coast guard, Harry is still alive. He is taken to the nearby military hospital, where he dies on the operating table.

The book also has several parallel storylines about people who live or vacation in Key West.

History of origin

To Have and Have Not is the result of two short stories that form the opening part of the novel that was published later. In September 1933 Hemingway wrote a long short story in Madrid, which was published in April 1934 in Cosmopolitan under the title One Trip Across . In this story, Hemingway introduced the character of Harry Morgan, a former Miami police officer who lives with his family in Key West and works as a skipper. He smuggles alcohol to feed his wife and daughter. In November 1935, in Key West, Hemingway wrote a second story with Harry Morgan as the main character, in which the latter lost his right arm in a shootout. His boat, which he used to smuggle alcohol out of Cuba, is confiscated. The story appeared in Esquire in February 1936 under the ironic title The Trademan Returns .

In the summer of 1936, Hemingway decided to turn the Morgan story into a novel. In the book the stark differences between Key West and Havana should be accentuated and the effects of the Cuban revolution on the people affected should be discussed. Another Morgan story was planned, which should be longer than the first two and should be enriched with additional Key West material to round off the character and biography of the protagonist.

According to Carlos Baker, however, Hemingway was unable to fully realize his original concept for the novel after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , as he wanted to return to Madrid as soon as possible to experience what was happening in Spain first hand. Hemingway, however, was well aware of the risks of staying in Spain during the civil war and for this reason did not want to leave an unfinished manuscript for a novel before his departure.

So he retired to Wyoming to quickly finish the draft of the novel. From August 1936 onwards, Hemingway worked incessantly on the third Morgan story, at the beginning of November 1936 the manuscript already comprised 353 pages. Hemingway completed the first draft on January 2, 1937, although he was not yet completely satisfied with the draft. Before he left for Spain on February 27, 1937, however, he did not have the time for a thorough overhaul; the printer's proof he could end in July 1937 only fleetingly proofreading . When the novel appeared on October 15, 1937, Hemingway was back in Spain.

Impact history

To Have and Have Not was judged very negatively by contemporary literary critics . In its review two days after its publication , the renowned New York Times described the novel as essentially an "empty book" that Hemingway would have better not published:

"Essentially, this new novel is an empty book. [...] Mr. Hemingway's record as a creative writer would be stronger if it had never been published. "

Despite a refinement of his storytelling skills, Hemingway has not developed spiritually since his previous novel A Farewell to Arms ; the new work in no way shows a deeper understanding of life:

“There is evidence of no mental growth whatever; there is no better understanding of life, no increase in his power to illuminate it or even to present it. "

In commercial terms, however, the novel was quite successful; Two weeks after it was first published, To Have and Have Not was in fourth place on the American bestseller lists; by March 10, 1938, six months after first publication, 36,000 copies had been sold.

Film adaptations

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Caribbean Travel: The Bahamas' Bimini still has that Hemingway mystique . In: Toronto Star , March 15, 2013. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  2. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Princeton University Press, 4th ed. 1972, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , pp. 203f.
  3. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Princeton University Press, 4th ed. 1972, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , pp. 204f.
  4. ^ Ernest Hemingway's First Novel in Eight Years . In: The New York Times , October 17, 1937. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  5. ↑ See Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist . Princeton University Press, 4th ed. 1972, ISBN 0-691-01305-5 , p. 205.