Across the River and Into the Trees

First American edition
Author	Ernest Hemingway
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Charles Scribner's Sons
Publication date	1950
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	320 pp
ISBN	NA

Across the River and Into the Trees is a novel by Ernest Hemingway. The title is derived from the last words of Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (451x650, 78 KB) Summary http://www. ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article is about the literary concept. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Charles Scribners Sons is a publisher that was founded in 1846 at the Brick Church Chapel on New Yorks Park Row. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... ISBN redirects here. ... Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... For other uses of Stonewall Jackson, see Stonewall Jackson (disambiguation). ...

Hemingway himself described the novel to reporter Lillian Ross in a famous 1949 interview, while he was preparing to revise the first draft: "Book start slow, then increase in pace till it becomes impossible to stand. I bring emotion up to where you can't stand it, then we level off, so we won't have to provide oxygen tents for the readers. Book is like engine. We have to slack her off gradually." Lillian Ross (born June 8, 1927) is an American journalist and author who has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1949. ...

Plot summary

The story follows the last three days in the life of a retired United States Army officer in Venice, Italy. The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ... For other uses, see Venice (disambiguation). ...

In the period just after the Second World War, a fifty-year-old American colonel pays a visit the site in Italy where he was nearly decapitated during the First World War. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see Colonel (disambiguation). ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

Cantwell (symbolic name) is a skilled soldier, having risen steadily through the ranks in his thirty-year career and having personally killed 122 men (one of them using a nail driven through a two-by-four.) However, these achievements aroused the envy and mistrust of his seniors, who had reached their ranks mostly by political maneuvers rather than martial prowess. Needing a scapegoat, the military demoted him to the rank of colonel after he, following his orders, had led his brigade into an impossible battle in the Hurtgen Forest and lost a large portion of the brigade. After his demotion, he becomes bitter, and criticizes most of the Allied generals, especially Eisenhower, Leclerc, Patton, and Bernard Montgomery. He feels that they have subjected him to friendly fire in doing what their enemy had not been able to do to him. This article is about a military rank. ... The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, 1854. ... In military science a brigade is a military unit that is part of a division and includes regiments (where that level exists), or (in modern armies) is composed of several battalions (typically two to four) and directly attached supporting units. ... Battle of Hurtgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) is name given to series of fierce battles fought between the Americans and the Germans during World War II in the Hürtgen forest (or Huertgen forest), afterwards known to both Americans and Germans simply as the Huertgenwald (Hürtgenwald). ... In general, allies are people or groups that have joined an alliance and are working together to achieve some common purpose. ... Dwight David Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American General and politician, who served as the thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953–1961). ... Philippe de Hauteclocque, often known by his French resistance alias Leclerc (November 22, 1902 - November 28, 1947), was a Marshal of France. ... George Patton redirects here. ... Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (November 17, 1887 - March 24, 1976) was a British military officer during World War II often referred to as Monty. ... For other uses, see Friendly Fire (disambiguation). ...

Cantwell passes his holiday in Venice hunting ducks, eating, drinking, dictating his memoirs to an aide, and having a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old Italian Venetian contessa, Renata. Renata is Hemingway's highly idealized portrait of a nineteen-year-old Italian girl he encountered during his 1948 visit to Venice. She suggests to the general that they "stay at the Muehlebach hotel which has the biggest beds in the world and we'll pretend that we are oil millionaires." You may have been looking for the pencil manufacturer Conté. Conte is a title of Italian nobility. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

His nostalgic liberty over, Colonel Cantwell proleptically anticipates his death by quoting the last words of rebel general Stonewall Jackson to his aide, and then crawls into the back seat of his staff car and dies of a heart attack. For other uses of Stonewall Jackson, see Stonewall Jackson (disambiguation). ... Heart attack redirects here. ...

Before his death, Cantwell gives orders for the return of some personal belongings to Venice, but his aide, angered by the colonel's criticism of his penmanship, decides to return the items "through channels", meaning that the honest colonel will still be the victim of politics even after his death. For other uses, see Venice (disambiguation). ...

Literary significance & criticism

Hemingway had difficulty during the 1940s in getting back into the swing of writing of fiction after his traumatic work as a war correspondent during World War II. Returning to his abode in Cuba, he began one project that would eventually be published posthumously as The Garden of Eden (1986), then shelved that manuscript to work on two others that would be known as Islands in the Stream and the unpublished Isle of Pines manuscript. During a trip to Italy in 1949, he began a new short story which promptly evolved into Across the River and Into the Trees. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... For other uses, see Fiction (disambiguation). ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... First Scribner trade paperback edition, © 2003 The Garden of Eden is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway. ... Islands in the Stream, published in 1970, was the first of Ernest Hemingways novels to be published posthumously. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

This novel was excoriated by critics and has generally been regarded as the low-water mark of Hemingway's career. Morton Zabel, writing for The Nation, declared it "the poorest thing its author has ever done – poor with a feebleness of invention, a dullness of language, and a self-parodying style and theme." A New Yorker review by Alfred Kazin expressed "pity and embarrassment" for an excellent writer who had produced such a poor work late in his career. Northrop Frye made the comparison between Hemingway's work and Mann's similarly-themed Death in Venice but wrote that Hemingway's effort was amateurish. Meanwhile, Across the Street and Into the Grill, a parody by E. B. White published in The New Yorker, skewered the novel mercilessly. This article is about the literary concept. ... The Nation logo The Nation is a weekly left-liberal periodical devoted to politics and culture. ... For other uses, see New Yorker. ... Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America. ... Herman Northrop Frye, CC, MA, D.Litt. ... For other persons named Thomas Mann, see Thomas Mann (disambiguation). ... The novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig. ... Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899, Mount Vernon, New York – October 1, 1985, North Brooklin, Maine) was a leading American essayist, author, humorist, poet and literary stylist. ...

External links

• Literary Encyclopedia Review
• An Analysis of Across the River and Into the Trees