Damn you, Hemingway, II

To continue with the Hemingway theme, I find his novels very vivid and reflecting the times they were written in, similar to Steinbeck. Most of Steinbeck's novels I've read take place in the U.S. (usually California but not all) and Hemingway sets his in places he had lived or spent significant time in.

One can learn a lot about history from reading fiction. The stories told in novels like A Farewell to Arms and To Have and Have Not may indeed be fiction and the author may state so explicitly, but you learn something about the time and the people during the era the book was written. You just know that the events written about in the novel probably happened to somebody somewhere. You know there are deserters in war or smugglers who haul booze and people in the Caribbean. A good novel and a good author can certainly give you quite a history lesson. The exact events may not have ever happened but the themes portrayed were real in those times and places.