“Reading Slowly to Make it Last”: Reading Readers in Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden

This article examines the many instances of readers reading in the Scribner edition of Hemingway’s uncompleted and fragmentary manuscript of The Garden of Eden. As critics have noted, the novel raises fascinating questions about authorship, authority, identity, sexuality, and the writing of narratives—especially in light what some have called the “Hemingway industry.” This essay argues not only that these questions should be explored within a greater appreciation for the novel’s general concern with reading and aesthetic reception, but also that doing so might challenge our assumptions about the making of art and our complicity in it.