At first glance, the short stories in Men Without Women are a collection of brief tales about bullfighters, con artists, bribed boxers, junkies, and soldiers in hospitals.
What makes them stand out, however, is not their subjects, but the way they are written, which will prove crucial for all of Ernest Hemingway's later work. For here, one can hear the marvelous organized dialogue crafted by the author among the people of the streets, the neighborhood, those living on the edge between law and madness, with a language that resembles their very lives: lacking deep meanings, moral weight, and elaborate appearance.
This different stance of Hemingway towards the language of narration also reflects his view on the role of the writer. He does not seem to be enchanted by the career of a novelist who recreates the world from his office, but simply by the effort to use writing as clearly and concisely as possible to objectively describe, with the most minimal means of expression, events or to recreate the feeling of fear and violence with greater authenticity.
[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]
