In honor of my ability to once again read my beloved books with the help of a Merlin LCD Electronic Magnifier, I am determined to read some Classic literature. The only books of this kind I remember being assigned to read in school were J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
I just finished Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and I will admit it was somewhat lost on me. I kept waiting for something to happen and some epiphany as to what all the fuss was about. I even googled that very question and further researched Hemingway on the internet. I felt disappointed in the book but also in myself. What was I missing?
In discussing it with a few people, they suggested that other novels by this legendary author are, in their opinions, better. Although I appreciate and trust their judgement, I may call it A Farewell to Ernest and move on to another writer on my list.
I had gotten The Sun Also Rises from my local library. More than halfway through the pages I found another patron’s checkout receipt, used as a bookmark. It was dated 10/25/16 and I wondered if that reader was a student on assignment, a Hemingway devotee or another “literary agent” on a mission to read the Classics. Whatever their reason, it made me happy to see this book had been borrowed last October. Because even if it wasn’t my glass of absinthe, I know that these books are a part of any avid reader’s history. Without Hemingway, Salinger, Wharton, Austen and Fitzgerald, there would be none of the books we read today. And that would be a horror the likes of a Stephen King novel.