Re: alien worlds

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Wed, 17 Feb 1999 08:01:20 -0500

At 11:18 AM +0000 on 2/17/99, you wrote:

>     Well, Matt.  If you say so.  But how depressing.

I think Matt was being ironic.  In some precincts, yes, Hemingway is a
greatly admired figure.  (Hint, hint.)  I love to immerelf in the stories
as much as -- sometimes more than -- I do Salinger, if only because they
are less neat, less tidy, and give more of a glimmer of the ugliness that
can be seen at the bottom of the pond.  Salinger's (metaphorical) ponds are
coolly constructed and meticulous.  Hemingway's have all the roughness and
horror and grim reality of the world.

I still sit there and think, though, "How the hell did he do that?"

I have read "Big Two-Hearted River" and "Fathers and Sons" countless times
and still have not figured out by which magic he made those worlds come to
life.

>     Finding out about all that stuff was simply an added
>     excitement to the electrification of discovering this wholly
>     new way the man had found to use words.

Precisely!  It wasn't a lot different in New York; being amid the
cosmopolitan atmosphere didn't guarantee that it would seep into your
blood.  And the language, well, there was not anyone who spoke in such
cadences.

How can anyone NOT read the opening of A FAREWELL TO ARMS without being
hypnotized?  Or read the stories about Nick Adams and not be drawn in?

Methinks Matt was both having a bit of fun with you and also, yes,
accepting that some of our readers here are still very young -- perhaps a
year or two away from reaching that stage of curiosity about the outside
world.

--tim