In Our Time Essays - Amazon.com, Ur, , Term Papers

In Our Time Half-way through reading Hemmingway's collection In Our Time I was interrupted by my roommate, George. He wanted to know how I liked the story. He seems to be very impressed that I'm reading Hemmingway. I explained to him that it was, in fact, not one story, but a collection of short stories. He asked if they had a common theme or not, and I found it difficult to answer. "Yeas and no," I said. I then went on to explain that although one character, Nick, appeared occasionally, the stories didn't flow as one large story. "It's sort of like a painting," I told him, "If you could pick out any one individual brush-stroke and study it, it would be meaningless. But if you pull back and see all the brush-strokes, you can view the painting in its entirety." He thought this was very wise and went away, contented that I was a literate genius. Myself, I didn't really know what to gather from the stories. I've never honestly read any Hemmingway previously. I've started to read The Sun Also Rises about ten times and gotten waylaid by Batman, Robert B. Parker, and the like each time. I think I read The Old Man and the Sea ages ago in high school, but it was so long ago that it has slipped completely from my memory. He is one of those authors that I always connect with my father and his college years for some reason, although I'm not entirely sure why. I've always wanted to read Hemmingway, but I've always wanted to read all of Shakespeare, Homer, and Eliot, too. The edition I'm reading has the short stories separated by "Chapters" which do and don't tell a story. The "Chapters" strongly remind me of Pink Floyd's The Wall. I was also surprised at how simple it is to read them. They are perfect examples of how Poe defined the short story: quick, (sometimes) powerful, and written to evoke one feeling. After reading The End of Something, for example, I was struck by how easily Hemmingway made me sad. The ending to A Very Short Story was pure torture. All the stories are simply co nstructed, no superfluous words, no extra images to clutter the feeling. They seem to be written with Strunk and White's Elements of Style in mind. After not one of them was I wanting for more. Each was a universe unto itself. Out of Season was difficult because I wasn't sure of how it made me feel, almost as if it was beyond me to understand what was happening to the characters and therefore I wasn't supposed to have read it. I enjoyed reading In Our Time, sitting on a float in a pool in the sun. The whole time, though, I was worried about what sort of "response" I was having to each story. I think it clouded my mind while I was reading and I must try to avoid that. If I had simply picked the book from a shelf and read it on a summer day, I think my responses would have been subtly different, although I'm sure I don't know in what way. I am never sure what kind of "response" a professor is looking for in these "response" papers, or how formal they should be, but this is obviously t he first of many and I will learn from your response to it.

The Book Of Nod essays

The Book Of Nod essays The preface to this book is very cool. I know that this book is totally fictional, and is in no way real, but the preface makes the book sound like it was written from ancient scrolls and manuscripts that were uncovered through his journies. The preface describes how he was able to get all of the material to write the book. It is incredibly detailed and extreamly vague at the same time if that is possible. With all of the history and this mans travels in the preface, it seems like the book is written from fact and really gives the book a nice read to it. Chapter Two: The Chronicals of Caine This is the begining of Caine's adventure, this story was written in a biblical type of story line. The diffrence from the bible and this book is that instead of focusing on the light, it focuses on the darker side. Instead of god, this book more or less deals and talks of the devil. Caine in this story, just as in the bible, starts off by sacrificing his most prised possetion to god, in this case it happens to be his brother Able. He thinks this to be a fitting sacrifice because he was told to sacrifice that which was most dear to him. Insted of the praise that he thought he would recieve, he was cursed by the god he loved so much. He was cursed into the land of NOD. The land of nothing, the land of balckness. Caine, in this new world, was completely helpless, until he came upon a woman named Lilith. Lilith was able to help him and give him comfort. In doing so, she fell in love with Caine. Caine, later, was vistited by the archangels of god. First was the archangel Michel. Micheal offered himforgiveness, Caine's responce was "I shall not be forgiven by god but by my own strength." With this responce Caine was further cursed. God set onto him the curse that "For ever more fire shall bite you and take thy flesh openly." Making him even more effected by fire than normal mortals. The next archangel to come was Rapheal. Again, Caine was...