Reading Hemingway Aloud

The Sun Also Rises has been on my shelf for almost two years now, ever since one of my camino friends declared it the best book of all time, and then took us to the Iruna, Hemingway's Pamplona pub, and the favourite haunt of Jake Barnes in the aforementioned novel.

I usually read books with an excess of words, superfluous adjectives, and a wealth of semi-colons - and that's the way I write, as well. Hemingway was a startling change: as the dust jacket explains, he "revolutionized American writing with his short, declarative sentences and terse prose." I found his style shockingly choppy, but clearly he made that into a style all its own. The only problem with his writing, then, is that I tend to read aloud a lot - at school I am constantly reading out loud, whether it be poetry, short stories, or even novels (Animal Farm being my favourite read-aloud). Hemingway, especially in his dialogue, sounds completely ridiculous out loud. Here is one of the best passages I read aloud to my roommate (because I just had to share it with someone, and if I read this aloud to my kids they would hate me). So, give it a try and read it out loud to anyone who will listen. Context is irrelevant: just look at these sentences.

"Bill," Edna looked at me. "Please don't go in again, Bill. They're so stupid."
"That's it," Mike said. "They're stupid. I knew that was what it was."
"They can't say things like that about Mike," Bill said.
"Do you know them?" I asked Mike.
"No. I never saw them. They say they know me."
"I won't stand it," Bill said.
"Come on. Let's go over to the Suizo," I said.
"They're a bunch of Edna's friends from Biarritz," Bill said.
"They're simply stupid," Edna said.
"One of them's Charley Blackman, from Chicago," Bill said.
"I was never in Chicago," Mike said.

To enhance this Hemingway experience, now watch Midnight in Paris, and imagine the great man himself reading this aloud to his friends...

A Searching Sonnet

I found my journal from 2010, and I got a lovely surprise in the form of a number of sonnets that I had written - now almost two years ago - and had completely forgotten. So many questions...

Is wisdom found just in the fear of God?
In learned obedience? In what is heard?
In small moments of grace when we are awed?
In what we read in life: the Living Word?

Can it be found without action or sound,
When life takes a quick second to be still?
When I have shut my eyes to all around,
Is that when I with wisdom will be filled?

Or should I leave the stillness far behind?
To not just be, but now also to do?
To act with love along the paths that wind,
And thus to search and learn all that is true?

But as these questions through my mind do flow
A message comes from God:"I'm here to know."