ABOUT THE BOOK

Across the River and Into the Trees is the sixth novel by American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway. It details the final living days of Richard Cantwell, an American Colonel living in Italy. Knowing a fatal heart attack is imminent, Cantwell spend his last weekend with a 19 year old Venetian countess in a search for the meaning of love, death, and the passing of time.

Hemingway composed the work in Italy, Cuba, and France, acquiring its premise from a relationship he had at the time with a young Italian countess named Adriana Ivancich. In his characteristic iceberg style, Hemingway offers readers only the surface details of the relationship and relies on careful diction and numerous allusions to build layers of underlying significance into ostensibly unrelated events and observations.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

The book opens with Richard on a Sunday morning duck shoot in the region of Veneto. After making his way into a frozen lagoon, he sets up in a duck blind and begins to think over the past few days. That flashback comprises the majority of the work.

On Friday, Richard is driven by a driver named Jackson from his home in Trieste to the city of Venice. Allusions are made to the fact that Richard was once a General, but was demoted to Lieutenant. He recounts historical facts and personal anecdotes to Jackson along the way, and remembers others without relating them. One of these is the reception of his first major injury at Fossalta di Piave.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Quicklet on Ernest Hemingway's Across the River and Into the Trees
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Ernest Hemingway's Across the River and Into the Trees