In my Advanced 11 class, we’re reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. I went into this novel as a skeptic — I can’t say Hemingway stuck out as a favorite writer of mine. But as we get further into the text, I’m beginning to dig his style of writing — especially because he demands so much more from his reader. Where most [American] authors spent their pages showing the reader what was happening, Hemingway forced the reader to use their imagination.
Reading is an inherently creative process, insomuch as words are just ink on a page. It’s not until the reader processes those marks into images that it comes to life– and this, for me, is the beauty of literature. Unlike movies, where the story’s images are streamed at 24FPS in front of us, reading demands that our minds be in a constant state of creativity.
And this is what makes Hemingway so refreshing–especially after reading The Great Gatsby and 1984 (Where Orwell goes on at exhaustive lengths to spell everything out for readers). When he describes scenes, he tends to be as succinct as possible- no exhaustive adjectives, no flowery, romantic descriptions: just the bare essentials.
So in today’s class, we presented our students with the E. Hemingway challenge: Write a story in 10 words or less. This ‘challenge’ became famous because Hemingway has been quoted as saying that his best work was the story: “For Sale: Baby clothes, never used.” Within those six words, there is an entire back story that can be filled in almost instantly (Was it a miscarriage? A young couple? Did the wife die? There is certainly heartbreak involved) — you see how the mind can fill in the cracks easily.
We had students give it a go, and my absolute favorite ended up coming from a student who has struggled with writing (and the class in general) thus far. I could tell that she was visibly proud when I selected her work as the one that suited the ‘prompt’ the best.
She wrote: His face was rough, like grandpa’s beard.
Perhaps the immature, Blink 182 influenced “me” came out– but I found this to be absolutely brilliant — and totally in true Hemingway fashion. Just to give you an idea of where I went with that, here’s a glimpse at my thought process: The “his” in this sentence implies a male relationship, possibly a suitor. But what freaks me out is that she likens “his” face to grandpa’s beard. Is this a Proustian madeleine response? Is she suddenly a young child again, but instead of the mixture of tea and cake, it’s a rough surface? I don’t think so. For me, this implies that she is familiar with the way grandpa’s beard feels in an intimate way. Because if she’s touching ‘his’ face in that way–how might she be touching grandpa’s face? Additionally, she refers to his face being rough, not his beard. What does this say about “his” face?
Of course, this is only one way to look at this–and probably a very immature one. Regardless, there are many ways it could be interpreted, which is the purpose of the assignment in the first place. Meaning is constructed on prior knowledge–and this activity reinforces that. I’m certain that we’ll continue to do short, creative exercises like this one, as everyone had fun with it, and it leads to great reflection about style.
Never thought I’d be saying this, but thanks Earnie.
