Farwell to Hemmingway

Sat down in the park today with a bottle of water and this most famous of book.

I have been waitng quite long for this moment - having left King Lear and Mother Courage behind me - back in Montreal and finally there was this first (and long overdue) meeting with master Hemmingway.

And I started reading. The famous opening lines. Something about a tree and mountains and soldiers marching by.

I thought that maybe I had missed something. Maybe there was something wrong with the printing. That they had forgotten to print the opening; this amazing opening which has brought shivers to strong hearts and tears to stony faces. This beginning was totally lost on me.

So I read on - in hope of proving myself wrong. That I would wake up to the fact that I had misunderstood something and that this really was a great great book.

One fourth through and I could not stop thinking about how much better "Catch 22" or "Live and Fate" were. At least there was real take on the absurdity of war in one and the terror of the war in the other.

Farewell is just about this rather boring man and his rather uninteresting relationship to ms. Barkeley. All rather dull - really.

Would take Stefans Zweig "the World of Yesterday" over "Farewell" any day.

So - for now - the only farwell I am saying is "Farwell to Hemmingway".

Thor