The joy of reading Hemingway

Recently, Kent had the misfortune of picking “A Moveable Feast”, by Ernest Hemingway, for a school assignment. I know I am not the right person¹ to judge anyone’s writing style, I am simply recollecting the comments Kent has made while reading the book.

So far, other than finding the book boring — mind it, he is barely 13 — he is puzzled at the use of French terms that he wonders how would the “everyday” American reader comprehend. Usage of French words such as “quais”, “sérieux”, “génération perdue”, “foie de veau”, “valet de chambre”, “fritures”, etc. throw him off, and make reading and overall comprehending difficult. But what has amused him the most is the way Hemingway writes some sentences, very long, and with a pronounced used of the word “and.” For example (emphasis mine):

“I knew several of the men who fished the fruitful parts of the Seine between the Île St.-Louis and the Place du Verte Galente and sometimes, if the day was bright, I would buy a liter of wine and a piece of bread and some sausage and sit in the sun and read one of the books I had bought and watch the fishing.”

Excerpt from: Ernest Hemingway, “A Moveable Feast”, iBooks.

Now, isn’t that amazing? Not only the sentence’s length, but the “ands!” The book has many more sentences like this, a one paragraph sentence. Anyway, I cannot tell you how sorry he is for picking this book.