Hemingway’s great novels, which all revolve around journeys, bear ominous witness; for it can be argued that each journey is a quest for death. A Far… - William T. Vollmann

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Hemingway’s great novels, which all revolve around journeys, bear ominous witness; for it can be argued that each journey is a quest for death. A Farewell to Arms details desertion to, flight with and death of the beloved; For Whom the Bell Tolls asserts the impossibility of escape even though it beautifully lengthens into fullness the last moments and days of its doomed hero. In both To Have and Have Not and Islands in the Stream, unlucky sailors of Cuban waters flee domestic loneliness to win death from the bullets of bad men. Finally, The Old Man and the Sea, whose protagonist completes an arduous circle from poverty and failure to the same, with only the skeleton of his once-in-a-lifetime fish to show for it, spells out the paradigm: It was the journey itself, with its hardships, triumphs, puzzles and unexpected joys, that made these books alive in the first place.