On the Quai at Smyrna

by Ernest Hemingway

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction

Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros of this Hemingway short story:
1) It portrays the brutality of war without remorse or coddling.
2) The structure of the story mirrors war itself: dark, disorienting, and disturbing.

Cons of this Hemingway short story:
1) It is boring. Granted, I read this several decades after its initial publication, but my reaction remains. Some people praise Hemingway's sparse style; I wonder if they would still praise his writing if they read it without having his name attached.
2) It is short, which leaves little to no space for plot, character development, etc. I recognize that Hemingway most likely aimed for brevity with this story, but that does not make me like it any more than any other 2-star read.

Overall impression of Hemingway so far: unimpressed. Stay tuned for more in the upcoming months.

[Ian Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is young Ernest Hemingway’s fictionalised account of the burning of the Turkish port of Smyrna in September 1922 at the conclusion of the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922.

Only slightly fictionalised: Hemingway’s narrator is an officer from an unnamed, unidentified allied warship in the harbour, attempting to evacuate some of the thousands of screaming refugees crowding the quai, trapped as the city burns behind them.

While Smyrna had been part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, the Greek and Armenian presence in the city had been of even longer standing. After the end of World War One, Smyrna was occupied by the Greeks until Kemal Ataturk recaptured the city in September 1922. Days later the fire started in the Greek and Armenian sector, and thousands of refugees (reported numbers vary from 80,000 to 400,000) crowded the port to escape the flames.

Hemingway’s narrator sees women refusing to let go of their dead babies; reports that at one stage a Turkish officer orders no more refugees to be evacuated and Greeks fleeing, unable to take their baggage animals with them ‘so they just broke their forelegs and dumped them into the shallow water.’ (p2) Estimates of those killed at Smyrna vary between 10,000 and 125,000.

[نازنینا · Rating 3 out of 5]

کلّاً دو صفحه بود ولی جوری تاریکی، بی‌رحمی و گیج‌کنندگی جنگ رو نشون آدم می‌ده که نفست تند می‌شه از وحشت.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hemingway's narrator is almost unbearably brutal because he's simply a camera recording what humans let happen. We cannot stomach seeing what we let happen unless it is heavily edited, and this narrator won't edit us for us so we can stand us.
This uncompromising stance that Hemingway's narrators take in this and other stories changed the nature of the short story.
In "On the Quai at Smyrna," the narrator sees dead babies and their mothers unwilling to part from them. Women and their dead babies form part of the tableau of suffering and dying people and animals. Some men have large animals that can't fit aboard the ship, so the men take the animals, break the animals' forelegs, and push them overboard to drown.
The narrator says it's a very pleasant business.
Of course, it's not. That line is the twist of a cold knife at the end of the scene. The narrator is being honest; he can't be any more disillusioned than he is. He's seen it all, and he understands what he sees. He sees humanity and animals being treated with complete indifference for the profit and pleasant business of other human beings.

[Sofia Silverchild · Rating 3 out of 5]

Το βιβλίο περιέχει τρία μικροσκοπικά διηγήματα. Το "Στην προκυμαία της Σμύρνης" περιγράφει λίγα από τα όμορφα που συνέβαιναν εκεί και σε αντίθεση με όσα ξέρουμε, λέει ότι ένα αμερικανικό πλοίο έπαιρνε πρόσφυγες, τουλάχιστον στην αρχή. Θεωρείται μυθοπλασία. Δεν ξέρω αν είναι ανταπόκριση.
Τα άλλα δύο διηγήματα είναι το "Μια πολύ σύντομη ιστορία" και η "Γάτα στη βροχή". Μου άρεσε περισσότερο το τελευταίο, αν και δεν είναι τίποτα σπουδαίο.

[Anatoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"On the Quai at Smyrna" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway which was published in 1930. Hemingway described episodes of the Greek-Turkish war.

It is a documentary presentation featuring an eyewitness of the events and consequences that took place during the Greek-Turkish war. This is a narration about the suffering of the exiled Greeks awaiting evacuation - who endured unthinkable conditions, in a small area of ​​the port pier.

Literary critics, describing the short style of Hemingway's works, call it "telegraphic". The author wrote about various atrocities, but he told the story without emotions as if it was a narration from the outside. Hemingway left his readers to make their own opinion about the events that he witnessed.

This is a link to the text of the story:

https://eclass.upatras.gr/modules/doc...

[antoine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Τρεις μικρές ιστορίες που περιέχουν τρείς ολόκληρους κόσμους. Μόνο μια σκηνή του Hemingway είναι αρκετή για να αφηγηθεί τα γεγονότα ενός ολόκληρου αιώνα ή ακομα και μιας ολόκληρης ζωής.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

It gives glimpses of impressions of different things of the horrors of WWI. Confusion, horror, all parts of the experience of war.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hemingway’s “On the Quai at Smyrna” shows the lack of humanity when exposed to too much suffering, it becomes a common place, like too much violence bring apathy.


“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 into the shallow water. All those mules with their forelegs broken pushed over into the shallow water.”

[Darinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories.

The narrator reports the brutal and tragic things he witnesses at Smyrna.

[Claire]

I remember liking this one. Hemingway's medical stories--those relating to doctors, in war or other contexts--bother me in a good way. They force their way into my mind, and their details and emotions stay there.

[yasmine skalli · Rating 3 out of 5]

certainly not Hemingway's best, but pretty alright nonetheless

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some brutal imagery and nothing else.

[Clifford II · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of a bigger story. Unfortunately read it as an excerpt and didn't get (or particularly like) what I read.

[molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

that was brutal

[poema · Rating 3 out of 5]

yeah i liked it a bit

[Nesrine Laraba · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very confusing one

[Izar · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Will Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This appeared to mostly be a grim portrayal of life during war. The unsettling part about it is how nonchalant the narrator is in describing what is going on with the people in the story.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this story!
Though, it’s incredibly short….

[Mr. Slammers · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s very powerful - but it took me a while to get it.

[ExeDavid · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t like this one Ernie.

[Necla Bolat · Rating 1 out of 5]

« "Yunanlılar da hoş insanlardı. Kenti boşalttıklarında yanlarına alamayacakları yük hayvanlarının ön ayaklarını kırıp hepsini sığ sulara attılar. Ön ayakları kırık sığ suyun içinde tepinen o katırlar. Çok hoş bir şeydi doğrusu. Her şey o kadar hoştu ki! "

Çok kötüydü!

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disorientation of war manifest.

[Desirae · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another Hemingway story where little to nothing happens.