Okay so…once upon a time I was fourteen and I knew everything. I knew what I liked, what I didn’t like. I knew high school was not always fun but it was necessary and only temporary. I knew that I would never smoke weed.

Lol.

One of the first books we read in English 1 Honors was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. My classic literature journey really took off the year before in eighth grade, when we read classics in class and I would read them on my own (I was -this- close to stealing Mrs. DeVoy’s copy of A Room With a View by E.M. Forster, but it had her name and address stamped on the inside and I felt too weird taking it ((also what are you doing lending your students books out with your address in them, boo?))). I was excited to read Hemingway since I felt like I heard his name everywhere but I had never picked him up on my own.

Well, there was a reason. After a year of reading the the thick, flowery language of the Victorians, after falling in love with Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and A Christmas Carol, I felt like Hemingway reached out and smacked me across the face with his writing. Silly, foolish girl. You want too much. Here’s a story. You’ll read it. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t. I don’t care. I’m drunk.

Spoiler: I did not like it. I felt like it was just a bunch of men wandering around, getting drunk, and complaining about “loose” women, which I already resented without really grasping what that meant. Brett as a female character felt like cardboard cutout that Hemingway was mistaking as a full flesh and blood woman. On the other hand, we knew every dumb thought that went through the male character’s heads. To me the book read to me like, “Woke up. Drank. Met some friends at a bull fight. We cheered. I thought about the war. Brett’s a slut. Why are we here? Let me drink some more.” I was completely underwhelmed by the writing, but completely overwhelmed in my determination to never read anything by him again.

But then I got older. I realized that I knew nothing, which made life infinitely easier. And it made many more authors and their works more enjoyable.

In 2021 I could feel my Hemingway hatred thaw a bit into something that more closely resembled curiosity. Surely, The Sun Also Rises wasn’t that bad. I was fourteen, I knew nothing. Maybe if I try something else…Which is how I came to read A Moveable Feast.

I opened the book and was instantly met with Hemingway’s terse, sparse prose again. Maybe this was a mistake…But I forged on. And against my own ego and my silent protestations…I wound up loving the book. Something about Hemingway writing so candidly about his own life (and not masking it as a “semi-autobiographical” novel) was nice to me, even moving. I found the book moved with me effortlessly and I found it hard to put down.

I was now at least open to Hemingway conversion, I attended a session and took a pamphlet after. Kept it in my purse, but never attended another session. But it stayed in the back of my mind…

Reading along in this YouTube book club is good because the selections are completely out of my hands. And wouldn’t you know it, the selection for January was A Farewell to Arms. A couple of years ago I would have shunned this pick and skipped this month entirely. But this time I was actually looking forward to it. Opening to the first chapter, I again had to shift my brain into my “Hemingway brain,” where I have to read a lot quicker than with a Victorian because Hemingway will absolutely not wait for you, he’s already making moves to the next bar. But once I shifted into the right gear…

I found myself finishing the book in a week and sobbing on my couch.

That damn bastard. Through such careful selection of language, a graceful plot, and realistic characters, he got me to care. I never cared so much about a Hemingway novel. The horrors of war juxtaposed against peace and love, it was done so seamlessly. And it was the first time I realized how sneaky this man was! He will write quick, rapid fire dialogue between two characters, and then sneak in a stunning meditation on life, on beauty, on landscape that leaves you floored…and then jump right back into action. I think the subtlety of his meditations and the philosophy of his novels were lost on me when I was younger. I wanted the beautiful sentences and the absolute telenovela drama of the Victorians, that I missed how much was bubbling under the surface of his discomfited ex-patriots in Paris cafes. His characters desire just as hard as the Catherines and Heathcliffs, they’re just more subtle about it because they’re a little more real. It’s implied there are worlds within them.

I’m officially a Hemingway convert. I’ll continue to sing his praises. You should read him. Maybe you won’t. I don’t really care. Maybe I’m drunk. It’s cold outside and I think I’ll think about Hemingway until it is time for dinner.