I just want to say, having taken another stroll through these comments, how heartening and impressive these thoughts are. Really amazing. Thanks for your seriousness and positivity.
Haha. Typewritten, typo-free. And if you mess that up, the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, complete with musical notation, five times. (Twelve years of Catholic school nurtured the fiend in me.)
Roberta, maybe it means you are opening up! I was always so careful, too, as we hand-wrote our drafts when I was young and I didn't want to rewrite endlessly; I edited in my head. It was a crabbed, painful process.
Punk. Soldier. Noodge. I tripped over last clause in the bold print of story start ("out of the empty square.") and noticed in the reading you said "out at the empty square." Thank you so much for giving us your reading. What a difference --
Who are the two Americans? Guessing they are a couple. Because it’s Hemingway (bringing my preconceptions) I assume the couple is having issues and a sad bedraggled cat in the rain is somehow emblematic.
The description with sea and brightly colored hotels makes me think Positano. Artists like the view, including the writer, who’s chosen to depict it.
We see the view in good weather, but then are told it’s actually raining, like a smash cut. Why set this sunny scene only to snatch it away? What happens if you omit “In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea”. The contrast makes it seem more sad? The current scene is out of the ordinary? Maybe there’s just no better place to put this information?
Are we seeing the view through the Americans’ eyes? Or one of them? Or an omniscient narrator, who can describe this view when they are not present.
The repetition of “in a long line in the rain” mimics the motion of the waves on the shore.
Doesn’t describe the war monument. Picturing a statue of a soldier, but maybe it’s just an obelisk with names on it. Why do Italians come from a long way off to see it? As opposed to the things tourists come to see. Are Americans taking holidays in other peoples’ misery? What war? How long ago was the war? What year is it now? Because it’s Hemingway, we can guess it’s a monument to WWI.
Style is very Hemingway. Plain words, clean sentences. Variation in rhythm so it doesn’t feel monotonous. Vivid picture with economy of words. Would probably have guessed this was Hemingway without being told.
It feels lonely and sad. Rain, the cars are gone, it’s empty, the waiter has no customers. Is it empty because of the rain, or because the season is over? But the hotel seems to be busy, so probably the rain.
Am I interested? Sort of. Want to find out who the Americans are, and what the cat is about. Guessing it will still be sad by the end.
At this point, just having had sight of the opening paragraph we know that there are two Americans staying in the hotel. What's more we also know they are the 'only' Americans staying at the hotel. Two firm facts that we can expect the story to hold firm on, but otherwise apart from the further fact that they at least sometimes walk through the hotel together the author has wide options as to who these characters will be, what the relationship is between them, why they are staying at the hotel: who knows they may only just have met at the reception desk when booking in? This exercise really is fascinating isn't Mia? I'm now wondering, If we had been just been given the text extract without attribution to Hemingway, what differences there might be in the way(s) we we are thinking about it? [Please ignore the two deletions, errors made because I'm still learning about how the Comments facility functions. The texts were the same as this post]
I like this idea of author's building credit with their reader. I think George mentions something similar in 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain' - maybe regarding 'The Singers'? - where we forgive an author a digression or a even perhaps an N reading, if they have given us something earlier that makes us hold out for them to give us a P reading (i.e. maybe we forgive a lengthy digression because we've seen them pay off a shorter digression earlier, or maybe we forgive a para of excessively purple prose because everything else up to that point has been sharp and precise -- i.e. we forgive them a bump in the road if they've built up some sort of credit/credibility with us and we expect both that the deviation is for a good reason *and* that they'll return us to the P momentarily). But that credit can be sparse or generous - it's easier to forgive a bump later in the story than in the opening, it's easier to forgive a small deviation than a large one. I think that credit extends beyond a single piece - i.e. I register my dissatisfaction with Hemingway's factual descriptions, the repetition, the lack of anything happening, but I don't abandon the story (just yet) because he's given me something in the story to pique my interest (the mood/tone shift and subtle sense of menace) *and* because he's built up credit with all the other books and stories of his that I have read and loved (i.e. despite my moments of resistance, I have faith he'll make it worth the wait). So, I think you're right that we may approach this story if we didn't know who wrote it, if only because that anonymous author would not have the same credit with us to spend...
Yes - I can relate to prejudice aforethought when we know something or think we do about the author! or if the author maybe says something about the place we grew up which strikes an off note - or etc - that shakes that trust. If we trust the author, we'll forgive an N or look for a P spin on it!
Weirdly enough, I think part of the P reading for me is how accurately this story captures what it's like to be looking out at the rain. My brain says "yes, this is true" and I'm willing to continue to read because I want more true stuff.
I like credit too. This story gets a little credit and then blows it almost immediately. I find this fascinating. Two nameless, non-gendered Americans in a place that smells in everything like off-season is a ploy to make me read the next paragraph to see if the narrative will yield names, genders, or something more explicit about the absence of foreigners and natives, even motor cars for crumb sake and the ploy works as long as he keeps doling out crumbs.
It's borderline annoying but I suspect he will continue to blow his credit as soon as he gets any. Reminds me of how I play Monopoly.
I also took it that they have a relationship with each other (couple or friends), because the third sentence seems to say that they are sharing a room. As their Americanness is stated in the first sentence, I take it that their nationality will be important to the story in some way.
I agree about the weather contrast. I think the sense of loss is more palpable - the 'what could have been'.
I love your insight about the repetition in the line about the sea breaking mimics the actual motion of the sea. I'll read it differently now that you've said that :)
Mia, I'm with you. Those are all questions I had, especially about POV. Who is telling us what 'the artists' liked? And why? Trying hard to get over my preconceived notions about Hemingway (over-rated; over-interpreted; not as genuine as he'd like his readers to believe; skilled at trickery)... But I do trust George Saunders to enlarge our imaginations and minds...Must open mine....
I really like your point about the repetition of "in a long line" mimicking the motion of the waves. I was so struck by that repetition in otherwise very spare prose, but couldn't work out why it was there.
This is a new story by Hemingway for me despite having read his other works (and not recently by any means).
In your book you approached the line-by-line reading method and it worked and made sense. As a reader.
However, that approach is most certainly having a different impact now since this “practice” is in installments and I don’t have the rest of the story; all I have is this paragraph dangling one jingle at a time and the rationale for why & how of the sentence-by-sentence has genuinely clicked for me (as a writer; as a reader I think most of us have always loved writing at the sentence-level).
As an educator I utilize Professor Louise Rosenblatt‘s “reader response” pedagogy (reading is a transaction between reader and writer) for my students’ reading experiences; you have taken her practice to another level for me. It’s really affirming (as a teacher, not just as a reader or writer!).
Oh, I hadn't realized the light had turned green on Paragraph 1. Not that I have much to say:
It sets a mood of something ranging nebulously between ennui and melancholy: the rain, the tableau, the lack of action and interaction. Most interesting (though still not very, yet) are the people who are not mentioned past the second sentence, and about whom nothing is revealed other than them being American.
Part of me is thinking back to the whole gestalt of Swim/Pond and trying to “predict” where George might takes this in discussion, but it’s even too early for that. It’s too early to feel or think much of anything, and were I reading this by my own choice, I’d be eager to get more, not because some stage is set and questions raised, but precisely because that has NOT happened yet for me. Rather than reading a first P which intrigued me to read the next one, I’ve here read a first P that makes me only hope the second one will intrigue me.
Honestly, the “old” (pre-SwimPond) reading me (and still the instinctive one, for better or worse) would feel like "three more paragraphs like this and I’m bailing on this story”. SwimPond has given me more patience and perspective, but not tons more. And admittedly in SwimPond much of the discussion about the stories was far more interesting to me than the story themselves. That alone is interesting and alters my reading of anything henceforth, but….well, we’ll see where this goes. I remember the enlightening lesson of The Singers which startled me when dissected.
As far as where this P puts me or what it tells me about the forthcoming story: not a lot. A nameless, almost featureless place. Some nameless featureless people. A hint of a mood. That's fine, it's earl;y, but a few more like this one, and my interest wanes.
I'm so glad for your honest response and really that was my feeling about Hemingway till I lived with this para for a while - now I'm gobsmacked and awed! I'm ready to take on short stories. I think for me it's partly that I don't care for the man. The bullfighting the hunting the search for some experience I can't empathize with. Maybe there's something for me in revisiting that revulsion!
well, I'm far from gobsmacked by this paragraph, but certainly not writing off the rest of the story (which I haven't read yet). Still, to my point in one of my earlier comments, the discussion of material is sometimes more interesting and insightful to me than the source materiel. That's fine, but I'm always more enamored of the work that gets into my soul without any discussion or dissection required. I'm not down on Hem, and not up on him either. This will be an interesting story. I was also neither down nor up on the Russians represented in SwimPond, and was similarly very poorly read in Russian fiction, but that book (SwimPond) was life altering for me. I'm not writing off anything, at least not until I feel it's just not worth my time, and I'm a long long way from that with anything, including Hem.
I can see the dangers of looking too closely, contributing maybe too much of self and not listening to other. But it's definitely my way in to things, and to each their own way! SwimPond (I like this abbreviation) was also a life marker for me - I was different after.
I hope you and others will come back to look for more comments. I posted mine just now and am beginning to read others.... I've never "gotten into" Hemingway, put him aside.. Didn't even finish the Ken Burns documentary. I'm going to revisit esp. the short stories now. Thank you for holding my eyes to the text! Wow!
I try to keep up with comments ,though there are so many, but all have merit. It's a gift being part of this group.
I never came to appreciate much Hemingway. Didn't try hard, and when I did, there were some stories I liked, some I didn't. Never read any of the novels. Shame on me, I suppose, literarily.
Pardon the marketing here, but George has kindly given his approval and blessing to the Story Club merch I’ve added to my Teespring page, the proceeds from which will go to the Story Club Scholarship Fund. Shirt, totes, and mugs are priced to generate 7-8 dollars per item. Roughly every 7 items sold will generate a year subscription for an aspiring writer.
I love your friendly two-headed dog! When I first read the two-headed dog sentence, I pictured them as aggressive, then immediately wondered why and started to think about a friendly two-headed dog, with one perky wagging tail and two happy, drooling dog mouths. Maybe I had the first reaction because a two headed dog sounds alien or scary to me; I'm not sure. I am curious about whether you pictured them friendly from the start.
WOW! Adoring praise from me. Thank you for designing these. My only complaint is that I want all of them, and I’m not sure that my entire wardrobe should be made of Story Club Tees.
You’re very welcome - we’re already halfway to a full year membership for a fortunate writer. I’m getting for myself the cat swim tee and a mug. Cheers
I’m struck by the way Hemingway uses repetition (the sea…the water…and the rain…the rain…the rain…) so, in effect, the rain is falling all through the paragraph. The rain even makes the war monument glisten, providing movement even in something as still as a monument. Then, after all that rain and sea and glistening monument, we zero in on a waiter looking out on the square. Now we have a human being, an observer like us, a person who can take the focus of the story.
Love how you've characterised the rain 'falling all through the paragraph'. The more I think about it, the more the repetition creates this sense of the rain being oppressive - it's everywhere, you can't escape it. (Which I didn't get in the first reading, maybe because it is so passively described - it's not a wailing storm or angry quall or any of those things - it's just rain, and it's everywhere you look).
The scene is saturated with moisture from falling rain but does that glistening monument suggest that while it is raining maybe it is easing (rain dripping from palms) and maybe also the sunshine will be breaking out as the story unfolds? I'm now looking forward to finding out.
Here again, that conundrum I cited earlier: your insightful interpretation, which can't exist without the paragraph, is more interesting to me than the paragraph.
I don't know about any others here, but my first inclination when I read does not have as much to do with the content of the sentences as it does the rhythm of the words. I mean, I do comprehend the content and it goes into my brain, but it seems like the thing that really enchants me about certain writers--Hemingway in particular--is the unique personal rhythm they bring to their sentences. In this story, there's the war monument and the garden, and its all there clear in my head, but its all colored by Hemingway's sardonic tone, and that's what makes it come alive for me. It's like he sees the thing, the object of description, and it's so obvious to him, and he subtracts all the pretense that's a part of normal speech in describing it, so that every detail comes off the page as this new thing for you to rediscover, sometimes the smallest thing. It's really wonderful.
There are some writers who 'sing' for me, but in my very limited experience Hemingway was never one of them. I did like that very specific and vivid (yet strangely efficient) image about the waves breaking.
I think I figured it out, while handwriting this piece.
It is much like how George is encouraging us to write.
Write one sentence, and then write the next.
EH is thinking aloud as to what needs to follow one sentence after another. It is not pre-written or pre-thought about.
It is happening in real-time, he is writing it dynamically and the story is unfolding before his eyes as per lines added. He doesn't know what is the next sentence, till he writes it.
Much like the 3 quotes and Einstein says it best 'No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”
Donald Barthelme - "The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do."
I love your teaching -- helping me to think, explore, discover, learn. What fun!!! I am grateful for your giving yourself to this project. This experience is enriching my life as I become a more aware and appreciative reader and conscious human. Thank you, George.
I’m fascinated by this beginning. I am thinking and feeling all sorts of things, and I am very curious about how this story will unfold.
Some undeveloped ideas that came up:
It starts with the good weather and then informs us that right now it’s actually raining. I think this “good”/”bad” weather gives us a certain feel. The moment we find out it is raining is the moment the war monument is described, so it splits the paragraph in two, which seems very significant. War separates the sunny and rainy descriptions. I thought it was unexpected to use “glistening” for the war monument. Also, artists like the good weather and disappear in the rain.
Rain is mentioned 6 times (including the title). It’s a heavy presence. There is a lot of water everywhere: the sea, the puddles… Other words are repeated many times too: war monument, garden, sea, palm, facing/faced.
The following excerpt is the most beautiful to me. If you read it aloud you can hear the repetitive movement of the waves: “The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain”.
There is a feeling of loneliness and opposition between public/people and emptiness. The Americans don’t know anyone; it’s empty out there in the public space.
In terms of the plot, I expect two Americans and a waiter to be characters. They are in Italy. Let’s see what happens.
That sea image is really lovely. It really captures for me the unceasing movement of water in the paragraph, something that for the moment stands out above whatever human drama is going to come next.
I share many of these same thoughts. I counted the repetition of words too. And I do think this is only about the Americans. I read a paragraph of table setting. And this one is about secrecy in some way. The Americans are here, far from home, in a place in the off season, a sunny seaside place where it is now raining. There is no one here but strangers. The waiter, and extra in this film, is not waiting tables, he’s leaning in a doorway watching the rain. In the center of the scene, a war monument, a tribute to battle in the midst of what is generally a beautiful setting for tourists. And we are about to hear a story about a cat, stuck out in this rain. I assume this a couple trying to escape something, about to enter a battle of their own. They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Wait until we get George 'officially' firing the starters gun . . . comment looks set to be bursting out in so many directions and building quite a conversation thread . . . even though as yet we have only had mention of 'the rain' that might relate to the title, nothing about any cat never mind 'the cat'.
It's interesting to me that the opening of this story would be much less without the word 'only' in the first line. (I should say, I don't know the story and I'm playing by the rules and haven't read ahead). So the word makes me asks questions: 'Only' because there are usually more? And the town depends on more (the waiter especially perhaps)? And something, maybe the fact that it is off-season, is keeping the Americans away, but that the low number of Americans is more significant that the fact that the Italians are not present? 'Only' because that fact will make these two Americans feel cocooned in this unknown place? It will force the focus on them? To me, that word is the undressed-Christmas tree.
"The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come back up and break again in a long line in the rain."
This feels like a metaphor he’ll come back to: this pattern of coming back and breaking again, the tendency in relationships to repeat the same arguments, the same wounds.
Interesting expectation Darcy, that Hemingway may have actually established a recurrent pattern that will flow and ebb throughout the short story. It'll be just as interesting to see whether your expectation cashes out as we work on into an dthrough the story, extract by extract.
After reviewing this paragraph several times, reading it aloud and listening to George’s audio, and typing it out myself, I can clearly see the value of this exercise. I haven’t read any other responses yet, but I will after posting this.
I read this story decades ago (hate admitting that), in high school/college days when I was mightily impressed with Hemingway. I’m glad this exercise reminded me of his best writing --- unadorned, crystal clear, and exquisitely crafted, with none of that “A man ain't got no hasn't got any can't really isn't any way out” stuff that turned me away from him for a long time. Granted, it’s only the first paragraph, so it will be interesting to see where he takes us next.
Answering some of George’s questions:
Where am I (the reader) now?
• Somewhere on the Italian coast, either at the hotel, garden, or in the empty square watching along with the waiter, while trying to stay out of the rain.
• Awaiting the entrance of the only two Americans at the hotel, a couple (I remember that much of the story), and the entrance of the cat in the title.
What am I noticing?
• So much rain --- glistening on the war monument, dripping from palm trees, pooling on gravel paths, falling on the lines of surf surging up and down the beach.
• A growing sense of loneliness and quiet melancholy --- the only two Americans at the hotel not knowing anyone; the Italians coming from far away to pay respects at the war monument; the incessant rain; the motor cars that have gone away; and a lone waiter looking out at the empty square.
What bowling pins has Hemingway put into the air?
• The couple, which we know precious little about
• The waiter
• The rain
• And especially, that dang cat
The exercise definitely pushed me into a deeper sense of engagement with the story and a greater appreciation of the artfulness of Hemingway’s style and choices so far. The more I read it, the more I became aware of the effectiveness of the slow, steady pacing; the power of the simple phrasing, which brought to my mind the strength of sculpture; and how each sentence builds on its predecessor, layering on detail and creating vivid mental pictures with so few words --- for example, “It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees.”).
Every time I read the three-word sentence, “It was raining,” it made me pause, because it was such powerful leap into the “now” of the story after a few sentences of description of the garden and monument. I’m gushing now, but it seems like such mastery, and I felt like as a reader, I was being well taken care of. And to think Hemingway wrote this when he was only 25 or 26.
Yes! I also felt "it was raining" as a powerful yet brilliantly muted transition. I loved it - and I love that you did too! And that you are feeling gushy like I am about this mastery. also your response makes me feel like I'm not just making stuff up :-D
I really like what you said about the layering of detail: there's a kind of weaving of images in this paragraph that is so simple and yet so effective at creating both scene and feeling.
I totally agree. And don’t you find that the absence of figurative language sharpens the images even further? No clever similes or metaphors here to pad out the exposition - just crisp, concise description. I never really appreciated it until I listened to George’s audio clip…
There are already judgements about the nature of the bowling pins apparent in your spokenness vs. what mine would be. Wild. Truly no possibility of neutrality in the human voice.
I just want to say, having taken another stroll through these comments, how heartening and impressive these thoughts are. Really amazing. Thanks for your seriousness and positivity.
The next installment is coming tomorrow...
Forgive the typo in the last graph, in the email that went out - should be "small moves within it."
It's okay. Just don't let it happen again. ;)
Typos require 30 Hail Marys.
Oh Lord, I'm having a flashback.
Haha. Typewritten, typo-free. And if you mess that up, the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, complete with musical notation, five times. (Twelve years of Catholic school nurtured the fiend in me.)
I've been leaving typos all over my work lately and don't know where that comes from, I've always been so careful...
Roberta, maybe it means you are opening up! I was always so careful, too, as we hand-wrote our drafts when I was young and I didn't want to rewrite endlessly; I edited in my head. It was a crabbed, painful process.
I theorize that the speed and convenience features of current word processing/Social media deters typing excellence as much as it abets it.
I think I might have noticed one in the post about "The Falls."
"he decides to go for help, which the story has already told us, will come to late"
to late -> too late
Oh, and what a punk that Latessa guy is for pointing it out.
Not a punk - a soldier in the never-ending war against typos!
Punk. Soldier. Noodge. I tripped over last clause in the bold print of story start ("out of the empty square.") and noticed in the reading you said "out at the empty square." Thank you so much for giving us your reading. What a difference --
I was thrilled to see you type "form" instead of "from" in one of these posts—that's MY signature typo!
Yes, I think all should feel free to comment. The next post in this series will come out Dec 18 (Saturday).
Who are the two Americans? Guessing they are a couple. Because it’s Hemingway (bringing my preconceptions) I assume the couple is having issues and a sad bedraggled cat in the rain is somehow emblematic.
The description with sea and brightly colored hotels makes me think Positano. Artists like the view, including the writer, who’s chosen to depict it.
We see the view in good weather, but then are told it’s actually raining, like a smash cut. Why set this sunny scene only to snatch it away? What happens if you omit “In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea”. The contrast makes it seem more sad? The current scene is out of the ordinary? Maybe there’s just no better place to put this information?
Are we seeing the view through the Americans’ eyes? Or one of them? Or an omniscient narrator, who can describe this view when they are not present.
The repetition of “in a long line in the rain” mimics the motion of the waves on the shore.
Doesn’t describe the war monument. Picturing a statue of a soldier, but maybe it’s just an obelisk with names on it. Why do Italians come from a long way off to see it? As opposed to the things tourists come to see. Are Americans taking holidays in other peoples’ misery? What war? How long ago was the war? What year is it now? Because it’s Hemingway, we can guess it’s a monument to WWI.
Style is very Hemingway. Plain words, clean sentences. Variation in rhythm so it doesn’t feel monotonous. Vivid picture with economy of words. Would probably have guessed this was Hemingway without being told.
It feels lonely and sad. Rain, the cars are gone, it’s empty, the waiter has no customers. Is it empty because of the rain, or because the season is over? But the hotel seems to be busy, so probably the rain.
Am I interested? Sort of. Want to find out who the Americans are, and what the cat is about. Guessing it will still be sad by the end.
At this point, just having had sight of the opening paragraph we know that there are two Americans staying in the hotel. What's more we also know they are the 'only' Americans staying at the hotel. Two firm facts that we can expect the story to hold firm on, but otherwise apart from the further fact that they at least sometimes walk through the hotel together the author has wide options as to who these characters will be, what the relationship is between them, why they are staying at the hotel: who knows they may only just have met at the reception desk when booking in? This exercise really is fascinating isn't Mia? I'm now wondering, If we had been just been given the text extract without attribution to Hemingway, what differences there might be in the way(s) we we are thinking about it? [Please ignore the two deletions, errors made because I'm still learning about how the Comments facility functions. The texts were the same as this post]
I like this idea of author's building credit with their reader. I think George mentions something similar in 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain' - maybe regarding 'The Singers'? - where we forgive an author a digression or a even perhaps an N reading, if they have given us something earlier that makes us hold out for them to give us a P reading (i.e. maybe we forgive a lengthy digression because we've seen them pay off a shorter digression earlier, or maybe we forgive a para of excessively purple prose because everything else up to that point has been sharp and precise -- i.e. we forgive them a bump in the road if they've built up some sort of credit/credibility with us and we expect both that the deviation is for a good reason *and* that they'll return us to the P momentarily). But that credit can be sparse or generous - it's easier to forgive a bump later in the story than in the opening, it's easier to forgive a small deviation than a large one. I think that credit extends beyond a single piece - i.e. I register my dissatisfaction with Hemingway's factual descriptions, the repetition, the lack of anything happening, but I don't abandon the story (just yet) because he's given me something in the story to pique my interest (the mood/tone shift and subtle sense of menace) *and* because he's built up credit with all the other books and stories of his that I have read and loved (i.e. despite my moments of resistance, I have faith he'll make it worth the wait). So, I think you're right that we may approach this story if we didn't know who wrote it, if only because that anonymous author would not have the same credit with us to spend...
Yes - I can relate to prejudice aforethought when we know something or think we do about the author! or if the author maybe says something about the place we grew up which strikes an off note - or etc - that shakes that trust. If we trust the author, we'll forgive an N or look for a P spin on it!
Weirdly enough, I think part of the P reading for me is how accurately this story captures what it's like to be looking out at the rain. My brain says "yes, this is true" and I'm willing to continue to read because I want more true stuff.
I like credit too. This story gets a little credit and then blows it almost immediately. I find this fascinating. Two nameless, non-gendered Americans in a place that smells in everything like off-season is a ploy to make me read the next paragraph to see if the narrative will yield names, genders, or something more explicit about the absence of foreigners and natives, even motor cars for crumb sake and the ploy works as long as he keeps doling out crumbs.
It's borderline annoying but I suspect he will continue to blow his credit as soon as he gets any. Reminds me of how I play Monopoly.
I also took it that they have a relationship with each other (couple or friends), because the third sentence seems to say that they are sharing a room. As their Americanness is stated in the first sentence, I take it that their nationality will be important to the story in some way.
I agree about the weather contrast. I think the sense of loss is more palpable - the 'what could have been'.
I love your insight about the repetition in the line about the sea breaking mimics the actual motion of the sea. I'll read it differently now that you've said that :)
Mia, I'm with you. Those are all questions I had, especially about POV. Who is telling us what 'the artists' liked? And why? Trying hard to get over my preconceived notions about Hemingway (over-rated; over-interpreted; not as genuine as he'd like his readers to believe; skilled at trickery)... But I do trust George Saunders to enlarge our imaginations and minds...Must open mine....
I really like your point about the repetition of "in a long line" mimicking the motion of the waves. I was so struck by that repetition in otherwise very spare prose, but couldn't work out why it was there.
This is a new story by Hemingway for me despite having read his other works (and not recently by any means).
In your book you approached the line-by-line reading method and it worked and made sense. As a reader.
However, that approach is most certainly having a different impact now since this “practice” is in installments and I don’t have the rest of the story; all I have is this paragraph dangling one jingle at a time and the rationale for why & how of the sentence-by-sentence has genuinely clicked for me (as a writer; as a reader I think most of us have always loved writing at the sentence-level).
As an educator I utilize Professor Louise Rosenblatt‘s “reader response” pedagogy (reading is a transaction between reader and writer) for my students’ reading experiences; you have taken her practice to another level for me. It’s really affirming (as a teacher, not just as a reader or writer!).
Thank you!
Oh, I hadn't realized the light had turned green on Paragraph 1. Not that I have much to say:
It sets a mood of something ranging nebulously between ennui and melancholy: the rain, the tableau, the lack of action and interaction. Most interesting (though still not very, yet) are the people who are not mentioned past the second sentence, and about whom nothing is revealed other than them being American.
Part of me is thinking back to the whole gestalt of Swim/Pond and trying to “predict” where George might takes this in discussion, but it’s even too early for that. It’s too early to feel or think much of anything, and were I reading this by my own choice, I’d be eager to get more, not because some stage is set and questions raised, but precisely because that has NOT happened yet for me. Rather than reading a first P which intrigued me to read the next one, I’ve here read a first P that makes me only hope the second one will intrigue me.
Honestly, the “old” (pre-SwimPond) reading me (and still the instinctive one, for better or worse) would feel like "three more paragraphs like this and I’m bailing on this story”. SwimPond has given me more patience and perspective, but not tons more. And admittedly in SwimPond much of the discussion about the stories was far more interesting to me than the story themselves. That alone is interesting and alters my reading of anything henceforth, but….well, we’ll see where this goes. I remember the enlightening lesson of The Singers which startled me when dissected.
As far as where this P puts me or what it tells me about the forthcoming story: not a lot. A nameless, almost featureless place. Some nameless featureless people. A hint of a mood. That's fine, it's earl;y, but a few more like this one, and my interest wanes.
I'm so glad for your honest response and really that was my feeling about Hemingway till I lived with this para for a while - now I'm gobsmacked and awed! I'm ready to take on short stories. I think for me it's partly that I don't care for the man. The bullfighting the hunting the search for some experience I can't empathize with. Maybe there's something for me in revisiting that revulsion!
Haha. Same.
well, I'm far from gobsmacked by this paragraph, but certainly not writing off the rest of the story (which I haven't read yet). Still, to my point in one of my earlier comments, the discussion of material is sometimes more interesting and insightful to me than the source materiel. That's fine, but I'm always more enamored of the work that gets into my soul without any discussion or dissection required. I'm not down on Hem, and not up on him either. This will be an interesting story. I was also neither down nor up on the Russians represented in SwimPond, and was similarly very poorly read in Russian fiction, but that book (SwimPond) was life altering for me. I'm not writing off anything, at least not until I feel it's just not worth my time, and I'm a long long way from that with anything, including Hem.
I can see the dangers of looking too closely, contributing maybe too much of self and not listening to other. But it's definitely my way in to things, and to each their own way! SwimPond (I like this abbreviation) was also a life marker for me - I was different after.
Swim/Pond/Rain is a 'black box'! That on other side of, the reader cannot be unchanged, methinks...
I've met a couple people who didn't feel it, but I agree. Although I feel that way about much of Braindead Mega[hone too.
Amen (coincidentally or not, Kurt Vonnegut's favorite word!)
I hope you and others will come back to look for more comments. I posted mine just now and am beginning to read others.... I've never "gotten into" Hemingway, put him aside.. Didn't even finish the Ken Burns documentary. I'm going to revisit esp. the short stories now. Thank you for holding my eyes to the text! Wow!
I try to keep up with comments ,though there are so many, but all have merit. It's a gift being part of this group.
I never came to appreciate much Hemingway. Didn't try hard, and when I did, there were some stories I liked, some I didn't. Never read any of the novels. Shame on me, I suppose, literarily.
I feel that way about too many authors! Didn't used to bother me because I was young. Now I'm realizing I'll have to pick and choose cos... :-D
Is it going to be starter's pistol or a green-to-go flag that we can expect to pick up on the Saturday's post?
I wanted to write something very intellectual, but all I can think of is: This is so much fun!
That is about the most intellectual thing there is to say. Because if it's not fun....
Pardon the marketing here, but George has kindly given his approval and blessing to the Story Club merch I’ve added to my Teespring page, the proceeds from which will go to the Story Club Scholarship Fund. Shirt, totes, and mugs are priced to generate 7-8 dollars per item. Roughly every 7 items sold will generate a year subscription for an aspiring writer.
The Story Club Holiday Tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-holiday-tee?product=46
The 2-headed dog tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-double-dog-tee?product=46
A white on black 2 headed dog tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-double-dog-white?product=46
The cat in the rain in a pond tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-cat-swim-tee?product=46
A black version of the cat swim tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-cat-swim-white?product=46
An organic cat swim tote is here : https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-cat-swim-tote-colo?product=933
A black cat swim tote is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-cat-swim-tote?product=933
The inspiration tee is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club-inspiration-tee?product=46
And the raining cats and dogs mug is here: https://www.gnosticonpress.com/listing/story-club--cats-dogs-mug?product=1565
Feel free to leave me questions, requests, constructive criticism, and adoring praise below!
Nice. I also drew a two-headed dog--check my profile pic for a different take, a friendly mutt.
love it! That’s a sweet drawing with lots of character.
Are you planning to make a Story Club shirt or mug or something? I can help with that if you’d like.
Cheers !
I love your friendly two-headed dog! When I first read the two-headed dog sentence, I pictured them as aggressive, then immediately wondered why and started to think about a friendly two-headed dog, with one perky wagging tail and two happy, drooling dog mouths. Maybe I had the first reaction because a two headed dog sounds alien or scary to me; I'm not sure. I am curious about whether you pictured them friendly from the start.
WOW! Adoring praise from me. Thank you for designing these. My only complaint is that I want all of them, and I’m not sure that my entire wardrobe should be made of Story Club Tees.
Wow! Love it. Ordered the cat tee. Merry Christmas to meeeeeee! Thank you for putting this together.
You’re very welcome - we’re already halfway to a full year membership for a fortunate writer. I’m getting for myself the cat swim tee and a mug. Cheers
Super cool, Jason. After the holidays I’m totally in for one of these. Thanks for making them!
Jason: just ordered the inspiration tee... thanks for setting this up.
I’m struck by the way Hemingway uses repetition (the sea…the water…and the rain…the rain…the rain…) so, in effect, the rain is falling all through the paragraph. The rain even makes the war monument glisten, providing movement even in something as still as a monument. Then, after all that rain and sea and glistening monument, we zero in on a waiter looking out on the square. Now we have a human being, an observer like us, a person who can take the focus of the story.
Love how you've characterised the rain 'falling all through the paragraph'. The more I think about it, the more the repetition creates this sense of the rain being oppressive - it's everywhere, you can't escape it. (Which I didn't get in the first reading, maybe because it is so passively described - it's not a wailing storm or angry quall or any of those things - it's just rain, and it's everywhere you look).
The scene is saturated with moisture from falling rain but does that glistening monument suggest that while it is raining maybe it is easing (rain dripping from palms) and maybe also the sunshine will be breaking out as the story unfolds? I'm now looking forward to finding out.
Here again, that conundrum I cited earlier: your insightful interpretation, which can't exist without the paragraph, is more interesting to me than the paragraph.
I don't know about any others here, but my first inclination when I read does not have as much to do with the content of the sentences as it does the rhythm of the words. I mean, I do comprehend the content and it goes into my brain, but it seems like the thing that really enchants me about certain writers--Hemingway in particular--is the unique personal rhythm they bring to their sentences. In this story, there's the war monument and the garden, and its all there clear in my head, but its all colored by Hemingway's sardonic tone, and that's what makes it come alive for me. It's like he sees the thing, the object of description, and it's so obvious to him, and he subtracts all the pretense that's a part of normal speech in describing it, so that every detail comes off the page as this new thing for you to rediscover, sometimes the smallest thing. It's really wonderful.
There are some writers who 'sing' for me, but in my very limited experience Hemingway was never one of them. I did like that very specific and vivid (yet strangely efficient) image about the waves breaking.
I think I figured it out, while handwriting this piece.
It is much like how George is encouraging us to write.
Write one sentence, and then write the next.
EH is thinking aloud as to what needs to follow one sentence after another. It is not pre-written or pre-thought about.
It is happening in real-time, he is writing it dynamically and the story is unfolding before his eyes as per lines added. He doesn't know what is the next sentence, till he writes it.
Much like the 3 quotes and Einstein says it best 'No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”
Donald Barthelme - "The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write
Your idea of a though by thought recording resonates with me. As if the narrator is sitting in the square cataloguing everything he sees
Yes or looking out the window of the second story hotel room! Thank you.
I love your teaching -- helping me to think, explore, discover, learn. What fun!!! I am grateful for your giving yourself to this project. This experience is enriching my life as I become a more aware and appreciative reader and conscious human. Thank you, George.
Thank you, Bryn, for saying that.
Cat in the rain (Caught in the rain?)
I’m fascinated by this beginning. I am thinking and feeling all sorts of things, and I am very curious about how this story will unfold.
Some undeveloped ideas that came up:
It starts with the good weather and then informs us that right now it’s actually raining. I think this “good”/”bad” weather gives us a certain feel. The moment we find out it is raining is the moment the war monument is described, so it splits the paragraph in two, which seems very significant. War separates the sunny and rainy descriptions. I thought it was unexpected to use “glistening” for the war monument. Also, artists like the good weather and disappear in the rain.
Rain is mentioned 6 times (including the title). It’s a heavy presence. There is a lot of water everywhere: the sea, the puddles… Other words are repeated many times too: war monument, garden, sea, palm, facing/faced.
The following excerpt is the most beautiful to me. If you read it aloud you can hear the repetitive movement of the waves: “The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain”.
There is a feeling of loneliness and opposition between public/people and emptiness. The Americans don’t know anyone; it’s empty out there in the public space.
In terms of the plot, I expect two Americans and a waiter to be characters. They are in Italy. Let’s see what happens.
That sea image is really lovely. It really captures for me the unceasing movement of water in the paragraph, something that for the moment stands out above whatever human drama is going to come next.
Your counting reminds me of this book, which encourages literary scholars to treat writing like data, as an alternate perspective.
https://www.versobooks.com/books/261-graphs-maps-trees
I share many of these same thoughts. I counted the repetition of words too. And I do think this is only about the Americans. I read a paragraph of table setting. And this one is about secrecy in some way. The Americans are here, far from home, in a place in the off season, a sunny seaside place where it is now raining. There is no one here but strangers. The waiter, and extra in this film, is not waiting tables, he’s leaning in a doorway watching the rain. In the center of the scene, a war monument, a tribute to battle in the midst of what is generally a beautiful setting for tourists. And we are about to hear a story about a cat, stuck out in this rain. I assume this a couple trying to escape something, about to enter a battle of their own. They are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is an uncontrollable group, commenting when asked to wait. You wild ones.
They are inflamed with intellectual passion. :)
Wait until we get George 'officially' firing the starters gun . . . comment looks set to be bursting out in so many directions and building quite a conversation thread . . . even though as yet we have only had mention of 'the rain' that might relate to the title, nothing about any cat never mind 'the cat'.
It's interesting to me that the opening of this story would be much less without the word 'only' in the first line. (I should say, I don't know the story and I'm playing by the rules and haven't read ahead). So the word makes me asks questions: 'Only' because there are usually more? And the town depends on more (the waiter especially perhaps)? And something, maybe the fact that it is off-season, is keeping the Americans away, but that the low number of Americans is more significant that the fact that the Italians are not present? 'Only' because that fact will make these two Americans feel cocooned in this unknown place? It will force the focus on them? To me, that word is the undressed-Christmas tree.
I agree Marissa, now that you've pointed it up: that single, four letter word, 'only' really packs a punch. Due to Its placement in the opening line?
I'm just happy we are all here.
Me too. Really.
"The sea broke in a long line in the rain and slipped back down the beach to come back up and break again in a long line in the rain."
This feels like a metaphor he’ll come back to: this pattern of coming back and breaking again, the tendency in relationships to repeat the same arguments, the same wounds.
Interesting expectation Darcy, that Hemingway may have actually established a recurrent pattern that will flow and ebb throughout the short story. It'll be just as interesting to see whether your expectation cashes out as we work on into an dthrough the story, extract by extract.
yes looking forward to Darcy's wonderful metaphor paying out... Great internalizing Darcy...
Ooh! Interesting!
After reviewing this paragraph several times, reading it aloud and listening to George’s audio, and typing it out myself, I can clearly see the value of this exercise. I haven’t read any other responses yet, but I will after posting this.
I read this story decades ago (hate admitting that), in high school/college days when I was mightily impressed with Hemingway. I’m glad this exercise reminded me of his best writing --- unadorned, crystal clear, and exquisitely crafted, with none of that “A man ain't got no hasn't got any can't really isn't any way out” stuff that turned me away from him for a long time. Granted, it’s only the first paragraph, so it will be interesting to see where he takes us next.
Answering some of George’s questions:
Where am I (the reader) now?
• Somewhere on the Italian coast, either at the hotel, garden, or in the empty square watching along with the waiter, while trying to stay out of the rain.
• Awaiting the entrance of the only two Americans at the hotel, a couple (I remember that much of the story), and the entrance of the cat in the title.
What am I noticing?
• So much rain --- glistening on the war monument, dripping from palm trees, pooling on gravel paths, falling on the lines of surf surging up and down the beach.
• A growing sense of loneliness and quiet melancholy --- the only two Americans at the hotel not knowing anyone; the Italians coming from far away to pay respects at the war monument; the incessant rain; the motor cars that have gone away; and a lone waiter looking out at the empty square.
What bowling pins has Hemingway put into the air?
• The couple, which we know precious little about
• The waiter
• The rain
• And especially, that dang cat
The exercise definitely pushed me into a deeper sense of engagement with the story and a greater appreciation of the artfulness of Hemingway’s style and choices so far. The more I read it, the more I became aware of the effectiveness of the slow, steady pacing; the power of the simple phrasing, which brought to my mind the strength of sculpture; and how each sentence builds on its predecessor, layering on detail and creating vivid mental pictures with so few words --- for example, “It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees.”).
Every time I read the three-word sentence, “It was raining,” it made me pause, because it was such powerful leap into the “now” of the story after a few sentences of description of the garden and monument. I’m gushing now, but it seems like such mastery, and I felt like as a reader, I was being well taken care of. And to think Hemingway wrote this when he was only 25 or 26.
Yes! I also felt "it was raining" as a powerful yet brilliantly muted transition. I loved it - and I love that you did too! And that you are feeling gushy like I am about this mastery. also your response makes me feel like I'm not just making stuff up :-D
I really like what you said about the layering of detail: there's a kind of weaving of images in this paragraph that is so simple and yet so effective at creating both scene and feeling.
I totally agree. And don’t you find that the absence of figurative language sharpens the images even further? No clever similes or metaphors here to pad out the exposition - just crisp, concise description. I never really appreciated it until I listened to George’s audio clip…
Jicks, I noticed that too. That clarity of reporting with no embellishment. Yet the scene comes across with atmosphere and detail.
There are already judgements about the nature of the bowling pins apparent in your spokenness vs. what mine would be. Wild. Truly no possibility of neutrality in the human voice.