The road ran on, dipping occasionally, but always climbing. He went on up. Finally after going parallel to the burnt hill, he reached the top. Nick leaned back against a stump and slipped out of the pack harness. Ahead of him, as far as he could see, was the pine plain. The burned country stopped off at the left of a range of hills. All ahead islands of dark pine trees rose out of the plain. Far off to the left was the line of the river. Nick followed it with his eye and caught glints of the water in the sun.
There was nothing but the pine plain ahead of him, until the far blue hills that marked the Lake Superior height of land. He could hardly see them faint and far away in the heat-light over the plain. If he looked too steadily they were gone. But if he only half-looked they were there, the far-off hills of the height of land.
-Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time
-Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time
{image credit: prasanth p joseph on Flickr}
I was hoping to 'read' some of Hemingway's work through audiobooks [librivox]...as it turns out, his copyrights have been extended another couple of decades. But after reading your excerpt, I'm thinking it would be well worth my time to just check a book out of the library and read! :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I like him. I didn't until college-- his writing style is so different than most of the other authors I enjoy. And of course, he can be quite a downer, so I wouldn't recommend a steady diet of Hemingway unless you punctuate it with belly laughs from PG Wodehouse. :)
ReplyDeleteMy brother decided to read some Hemingway this summer. He's currently on Farewell to Arms. He reads it to me sometimes. It's liberally spiced with great humor. "The Austrian army was created to give Napoleon victories; any Napoleon. I wished we had a Napoleon, but instead we had Il Generale Cadorn."
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