Lise Petrauskas's Reviews > In Our Time
In Our Time
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Lise Petrauskas's review
bookshelves: short-stories, bloom-western-canon, aint-that-america
Sep 11, 2013
bookshelves: short-stories, bloom-western-canon, aint-that-america
Wow. I am surprised by how much I enjoyed this. My favorite stories are the two Big-hearted River stories at the end.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
Since I wrote that, I have been trying to understand why this book has such meaning for me and I still don't have words. Hemingway gets me, I think. Or, his getting himself down on paper, the way his characters feel and react to both extreme and mundane circumstances, is fundamental to humanity, so fundamental that it's difficult articulate and seeing any approach to such articulation feels like a sudden intimacy between us, as though he really does get me. The feeling of interior similarity I get, especially in the last two stories, to Nick, is like a friendship. It makes me happy. To be happy in the circumstances in our time, after having experienced the extremities of what there is to experience in our time, is pretty freaking special and beautiful and rare and to be cherished. I think that's why I love this so much. Somehow the simplicity and accuracy of the language and the honesty of emotion without much extra cerebral interference has created a perhaps unlikely friendship between Hem and me.
Also, I really dig mountains and streams and trees and earth and Hem does too, so that helps.
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Reading Progress
September 11, 2013
– Shelved as:
to-read
September 11, 2013
– Shelved
October 4, 2013
–
Started Reading
October 4, 2013
– Shelved as:
short-stories
October 5, 2013
– Shelved as:
bloom-western-canon
October 18, 2013
– Shelved as:
aint-that-america
October 18, 2013
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-3 of 3 (3 new)
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Sera
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rated it 3 stars
Oct 18, 2013 12:12PM
Those two stories were my favorite, too, Lise. Outstanding!
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