This is my first stab at reading Hemingway, and given his reputation I expected more. As it is, there is nothing about this book that I enjoyed. Part of that was the characters, who were uniformly tiresome and unpleasant with painfully repetitive dialogue, but most of it comes from the writing. I'd heard of Hemingway's prose being described as strong and muscular, devoid of description or emotion and privileging action, but really. Consider this, from the opening paragraph of chapter ten:

"Bayonne is a nice town. It is like a very clean Spanish town and it is on a big river. Already, so early in the morning, it was very hot on the bridge across the river. We walked out on the bridge and then took a walk through the town."

I mean, come on! I can appreciate clean, plain prose but this is one bare step up from "See Spot Run". Sorry, Mr. Hemingway, but this was achingly dull on all levels, and the most I can say for it is that at least it was over quickly.