In Our Time Essay, Research Paper

Half-way through reading Hemmingway’s collection

In Our Time I was interrupted by my roommate, George. He wanted to know

how I liked the story. He seems to be very impressed that I’m reading Hemmingway.

I explained to him that it was, in fact, not one story, but a collection

of short stories. He asked if they had a common theme or not, and I found

it difficult to answer. “Yeas and no,” I said. I then went on to explain

that although one character, Nick, appeared occasionally, the stories didn’t

flow as one large story. “It’s sort of like a painting,” I told him, “If

you could pick out any one individual brush-stroke and study it, it would

be meaningless. But if you pull back and see all the brush-strokes, you

can view the painting in its entirety.” He thought this was very wise and

went away, contented that I was a literate genius.

Myself, I didn’t really know what to gather

from the stories. I’ve never honestly read any Hemmingway previously. I’ve

started to read The Sun Also Rises about ten times and gotten waylaid by

Batman, Robert B. Parker, and the like each time. I think I read The Old

Man and the Sea ages ago in high school, but it was so long ago that it

has slipped completely from my memory. He is one of those authors that

I always connect with my father and his college years for some reason,

although I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve always wanted to read Hemmingway,

but I’ve always wanted to read all of Shakespeare, Homer, and Eliot, too.

The edition I’m reading has the short stories

separated by “Chapters” which do and don’t tell a story. The “Chapters”

strongly remind me of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I was also surprised at how

simple it is to read them. They are perfect examples of how Poe defined

the short story: quick, (sometimes) powerful, and written to evoke one

feeling. After reading The End of Something, for example, I was struck

by how easily Hemmingway made me sad. The ending to A Very Short Story

was pure torture. All the stories are simply constructed, no superfluous

words, no extra images to clutter the feeling. They seem to be written

with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style in mind. After not one of them

was I wanting for more. Each was a universe unto itself. Out of Season

was difficult because I wasn’t sure of how it made me feel, almost as if

it was beyond me to understand what was happening to the characters and

therefore I wasn’t supposed to have read it.

I enjoyed reading In Our Time, sitting

on a float in a pool in the sun. The whole time, though, I was worried

about what sort of “response” I was having to each story. I think it clouded

my mind while I was reading and I must try to avoid that. If I had simply

picked the book from a shelf and read it on a summer day, I think my responses

would have been subtly different, although I’m sure I don’t know in what

way. I am never sure what kind of “response” a professor is looking for

in these “response” papers, or how formal they should be, but this is obviously

the first of many and I will learn from your response to it.