Thus, I begin. And the lines just jump off the page. The book, written in 1926, could have been written in 2013, other than a few phrases typical of the times. (You don't hear "swell" or "sore" much anymore). But the characters, their motives, the perspective...it could really be 2013. I think Hemingway may be the first rock and roll author.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Hunter Thompson and what a dynamite writer he is. Now I know why...it's Hemingway tweaked for the rock and roll era. I'm also listening, Books on Tape, to "The Corrections", by Jonathan Franzen. It's Hemingway again, this time with a touch of Toni Morrison. Rock and blues, with a little jazz thrown in, if you will.
I don't know why I haven't read Hemingway before. Probably because he's enormously popular and therefore someone I haven't investigated, until now.
I've always been very suspicious about superstars, or super-anything, be it Hemingway, Star Wars (yep, only saw the first one, and that was belatedly), even Apple stuff. It's some kind of variation of a line by Groucho Marx, "Whoever commenced it; I'm against it."
The whole idea of reading has got me reflecting on this summer. As of spring, I was looking at 3 sources of income to tide me over for the summer. All three fell through. Right around that time, "V" (sorry, darling, I can't use 'girlfriend who chooses to remain anonymous' or 'my girlfriend' anymore.) and I did our thing at the Book Barn and got enough summer reading to last us into 2015. All these books...when will I ever have the time to read them? Not to worry...as the jobs fell through, and the dollars dwindled away, I discovered that I had all the time I needed to catch up on my reading. No income, other than unemployment, but at least I'll be well-read.
So I got busy, searched for jobs high and low, and got myself a part time job at Home Depot. (Having blogged before about my home repair chops, this was pretty ironic). As it turned out, this wasn't a problem, as they trained me to be a head cashier, even offering me more money than if I was hired as a regular cashier. Turns out you don't have to be Bob Vila to do this job well.
The whole Home Depot gig has been weighing on my conscience, because it's a temp job, unbeknownst to them, as it was only until school began. It was less than 2 weeks into the job that I discovered, via my school email, that I've received an assistantship, to the tune of about 2000 dollars. I was fretting over how to give notice, what I would say, etc. The folks there are really quite nice and professional and treated me very well. My manager was fine with me quitting. This is retail, after all. This stuff happens all the time.
I'm more likely to shop there now (although I still don't know what 99% of the inventory is for. But at least now I know where to find the products that I'm clueless about). So I'll put in a plug for them...if you need home stuff, go there.
So what seems to have happened is that while I was trying to get a better financial package at SCSU, and being stonewalled by faceless bureaucrats, what was really happening was that a package actually was in the works, unknown to me. And this gift didn't reveal itself until after I worked a retail job, at $10.25/hour.
I think the God of my understanding is a drama queen/king (I don't have a gender). He/she seems to do things for me at the last minute. In fact, early last summer, as I was fretting again about how to make ends meet, I got a call out of the blue from a recruiting agency, resulting in a consulting gig that netted me some decent income. This agency didn't even have my recent address. It was, again, a last minute thing. And it happened shortly after I made the decision to structure my day in the hope that staying focused would result in some decent income.
I haven't sorted out the lessons yet, but one of them certainly is a classic. If I take action, an action is taken for me.
I don't know the rest yet, but I'm not going to sort it all out just yet. I want to curl up with Hemingway.
"V" also told me about this guy named Shakespeare. Maybe I'll check him out next.
No comments:
Post a Comment