(Actually, I would give this book 6 stars.) With all the controversy about "True at First Light" and the validity of posthumous works this book this is a clear, strong and memorable work. If it not exactly as Hemingway would have finished it I feel no remorse in loving this book. I think about it almost every day since I read it years ago. In the movie version Thomas Hudson was played by George C. Scott , but would have been better suited with Bill Holden. The Thomas Hudson character works off of strong contradictions, just as Holden's characters in "Sunset Boulevard" and "Stalag 17". As in "Sunset Boulevard" the main character falls, unwittingly, into a situation to which he is extremely ambivalent. Thomas Hudson is attracted and repulsed by his involvement in the war in the same way that the Bill Holden Character is attracted and repulsed by his involvement with Norma Desmond. It strikes me that this ambivalence is a very American trait, making "Islands in The Stream" and "Sunset Boulevard" two very American works of Art.