Marita told him, "Your wife is wonderful and I'm in love with her."
She was sitting beside him and David did not look to see if she blushed.
"I'm in love with her too," he said.
"I'm in love with you also," she said. "Is that all right?"
He dropped his arm and closed his hand on her shoulder and she leaned close against him.
"We'll have to see about that," he said.
"The Garden of Eden" takes place in both the French Rivera and Spain during the 1920's. David Bourne and his newly married wife, Catherine, are on their honeymoon, visiting various places in Europe. Their days are spent lavishly, and are filled with lots of sunbathing, swimming, and a plethora of alcohol and delectable food. When Catherine meets and befriends the beautiful Marita, and suggests they bring her into their relationship, they both fall in love with her and their lives (and marriage) take a dangerous turn.
I’ve always been a sucker for Ernest Hemingway, having read a few of his more popular titles in high school. "The Garden of Eden" was not one I had sampled before, however. So when I came across it in the store recently, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the provocative cover and blurb. I think what struck me most about this story at first was how very unlike Hemingway it seemed. While he does involve romance in many of his stories, this is the first one I came across that featured a relationship involving polyamory, which I found especially captivating since it’s hard to find even contemporary books that focus on these types of relationships.
Hemingway writes in a style that is both down to earth and utterly hypnotic. His short, declarative sentences have a way of grounding you to reality. His descriptions of physical sensations - the view of the ocean, the crisp taste of wine, the smell of salt air - are so repetitive that they seem to mesmerize the reader and draw them even further into the story. This type of writing style really works for a book like this, since it allows the story to not get bogged down with questions of morality/guilt/shame. There is not a whole lot of soul searching here, which is actually kind of refreshing.
The themes of gender in this novel are particularly compelling. Catherine and David constantly change which one of them is the dominant partner and which is the submissive. Catherine also goes back and forth between thinking of herself as a boy and a girl. She cuts her hair very short and dyes it bleach blonde, and urges David to do the same so that they can ‘be twins’. Psychologically, this is a very fascinating book.
The only downside is that the book ultimately demonstrates that polyamorous relationships are flawed at the core and cannot hold themselves together. David seems mentally obligated to choose one woman or the other, rather than trying to find a way to love them both. This may or may not come down to the fact that Catherine was portrayed throughout the story as mentally unstable. I would be interested to see what Hemingway would do with three characters in this situation who were all on the same page in terms of needs, wants, and mental capacity. This book was published posthumously, and I am desperately curious to know how Hemingway would have performed his own editing of this book if he had been alive to do so.
Overall, I found this book to be pretty amazing and absolutely entertaining and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to read a classic book with a contemporary twist.
“When you start to live outside yourself, it's all dangerous.”
