Re: the Jerry & Ernie show
MEPIERCE (mepierce@sfasu.edu)
Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:36:16 -0600
>
> >Genuinely, if you're a young reader and you loved Catcher and you're
> >looking for something else that has a character with whom you might
> >empathize (in a way you may not yet empathize with Franny & Zooey,
> >depending on your age and your perspective), have a look at Hemingway's
> >Nick Adams stories, available at better book stores and libraries all
> >over. Especially "Indian Camp," "The Battler," "The Doctor and the
> >Doctor's Wife," and the extravagantly beautiful "Big Two-Hearted
> >River."
>
I didn't care a wit about these Hemingway posts until you mentioned "Big
Two-Hearted River" and a flood of memories came tumbling back all the
way from grad school. I read that story once-- but it stayed with
me--even the onion sandwiches! I don't know why I always remember those
onion sandwiches. It seems like such a man's kind of book--tents, and
grasshoppers, and pork and beans in cans. . .not at all what a fan of
emily dickinson and robert browning might treasure. . .but I do.
It struck something deep within me--I suppose it has something to do
with imposing order on the chaos--certainly that makes for a parallel to
Holden.
I do not care for Mr. Hemingway, himself-- his search for big game to
maim and hang, his need for crude banter, his love of the blood spilling
into the bullfighting arena, and all his womanizing,
but all that I forget when I read "A Clean Well-Lighted PLace"--
or "The Old Man And the Sea" --
too beautiful, too true, to articulate the meaning thereof.
>
--
M.E. Pierce
Dept. of English, SFASU
http://TITAN.SFASU.EDU/~f_pierceme/
"I loaf and invite my soul. . ." Uncle Walt