"In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century.
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp” and “The Three Day Blow,” and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic. His writing suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of vision.
"On the Quai at Smyrna" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in the 1930 Scribner's edition of the In Our Time collection of short stories, then titled "Introduction by the author". Accompanying it was an introduction by Edmund Wilson. Considered little more than a vignette, the piece was renamed "On the Quai at Smyrna" in the 1938 publication of The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. When In Our Time was reissued in 1955, it led with "On the Quai at Smyrna", replacing "Indian Camp" as the first story of the collection.
The story is set in Smyrna in 1922 during the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War. A narrator describes the evacuation of refugees, where naval troops – possibly British – arrive to impose order at the docks. The narrator says about the civilian refugees, "The worst thing was … how they screamed every night at midnight. I do not know why they started screaming. We were in the harbor and they were on the pier and at midnight they started screaming." The narrator tells of the women who have dead infants and refuse to give them up for six days and that his men had to take them away. He mentions "the Turk", who is unpredictable, whose orders prevent rescuing the refugees. His men could have taken the pier, explains the narrator: "They would have blown us out of the water but we would have blown the town simply to hell." He asks his audience, "You remember the harbor. There were plenty of nice things floating around it. That was the only time in my life I got so I dreamed about things." The women who give birth were not as bad as the dead babies, he says; those women only need a dark place and a blanket. About the evacuation he says, "The Greeks were nice chaps too. When they evacuated they had all their baggage animals they couldn't take off with them, so they just broke their forelegs and dumped them in the shallow water."
“Indian Camp” is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's semi-autobiographical character Nick Adams—a child in this story—makes his first appearance in “Indian Camp”, told from his point of view.
In the story Nick Adams' father, a country doctor, has been summoned to a Native American or “Indian” camp to deliver a baby. At the camp, the father is forced to perform an emergency caesarean section using a jack-knife, with Nick as his assistant. Afterward, the woman's husband is discovered dead, having slit his throat during the operation. The story shows the emergence of Hemingway's understated style and his use of counterpoint. An initiation story, “Indian Camp” includes themes such as childbirth and fear of death which permeate much of Hemingway's subsequent work. When the story was published, the quality of writing was noted and praised, and scholars consider “Indian Camp” an important story in the Hemingway canon.
"The Three-Day Blow" is the fourth in the collection to feature Nick Adams,Hemingway's
autobiographical alter ego.
Nick and Bill and takes place at Bill's father's cottage, where the two get drunk. The story begins with Nick walking around the orchard near the cabin. He picks up a Wagner apple and puts it in his pocket. Nick climbs the stairs to the cottage and Bill meets him at the door, telling Nick that Bill's father is out in the woods with his gun. Bill and Nick stand together, looking out across the fields. They discuss the wind for the first time, with Bill saying “it will blow like that for three days.”
After they go inside the cottage, they decide to drink. The two begin to discuss a variety of topics while drinking, such as different books they're reading. Bill likes G. K. Chesterton, while Nick prefers Hugh Walpole. They also discuss baseball; apparently, the two of them are both fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, but Nick thinks that some of the games they lose are rigged, claiming “there’s always more to it than we know about.” They continue to drink and add logs to the fire. The topic of conversation moves onto their fathers and their differing occupations. Nick's dad is a doctor, while Bill's is a painter.
Finally, after many drinks, Bill mentions Nick's recent breakup. At first it seems to bother Nick a lot, claiming that everything was finished and gone and that he would never see her again. However, the two decide to “get really drunk,” and Nick changes his mind, claiming that “nothing was finished.” He resolves to go to town on Saturday because “there’s always a chance.”
