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''Across the River and Into the Trees'' is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in September 1950, first serialized in ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine. The title is derived from the last words of U.S. Civil War Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”〔("Thomas J. 'Stonewall' Jackson dies," May 10, 1863, ''This Day in History,'' History.com ) 〕 The novel opens with Colonel Richard Cantwell duck hunting in Trieste, Italy. It then presents his life in a protracted flashback, with Cantwell thinking about a young Venetian woman, Renata, and about his experiences during World War II. Not long before writing the novel during a trip to Italy, Hemingway met young Adriana Ivancich, with whom he became infatuated; he used her as the model for the female character in the novel. The novel's central theme is death, and, more importantly, how death is faced. One biographer and critic sees a parallel between Hemingway's ''Across the River and Into the Trees'' and Thomas Mann's ''Death in Venice''. The novel is built upon successive layers of symbolism, as in his other writing, Hemingway employs here his distinctive spare style (the iceberg theory), where the substance lies below the surface of the plot. Hemingway himself said of ''Across the River and into the Trees'', "Book start slow, then increase in pace till it becomes impossible to stand. I bring emotion up to where you can’t stand it, then we level off, so we won’t have to provide oxygen tents for the readers."〔Ross, 36〕 He wrote it in Italy, Cuba and France, and it was the first of his novels to receive bad press and reviews. It was nonetheless a bestseller in America, spending 7 weeks at the top of the ''New York Times'' bestseller's list in 1950. It was, in fact, Hemingway's only novel to top the list.〔John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times bestsellers since the first list, 50 years ago'', Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1992, pp. 47〕 Since its publication critics now believe it is an important addition to the Hemingway canon. == Plot summary == ''Across the River and Into the Trees'' begins in the first chapter with the frame story of 50-year-old Colonel Cantwell's duckhunting trip to Trieste set in time-present. In the second chapter, Hemingway moves Cantwell back in time with a stream of consciousness interior monologue, presenting an extended flashback and continues for 38 chapters. In the final six chapters Cantwell is presented again in the frame-story set in the time-present. Cantwell, who is dying of heart disease, spends a Sunday afternoon in a duck blind in Trieste. In the flashback he thinks of his recent weekend in Venice with 18-year-old Renata, moving backward in time to ruminate about his experiences during the war. The novel ends with Cantwell suffering a series of fatal heart attacks as he leaves the duck blind. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Across the River and into the Trees」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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