Uni students are too stressed to appreciate stories such as "Big Two-Hearted River" parts I and II. I think the point of the story itself is very similar to why Nick takes pleasure in tasks such as setting up a tent and doing all the small things that contribute to a good camp. Nick loses himself in the work and ceases to think about other things besides the job at hand. Reading this story can have a similar affect, if it is approached with the right mindset. Hemingway's meticulous description of Nick's time in the woods cannot be appreciated if the reader only wants to finish the story so they get credit on a quiz. One must relax and lose track of time while reading slowly to feel the same pleasure that Nick feels setting up his tent or fishing the river or hiking through the woods. Just like reading this story, all of these things Nick does are technically work, but when Nick does them, he does them out of choice making them not work but relaxing pastimes. We need to read this story with a similar mindset, not reading to prepare for the quiz but to relax and enjoy some good writing.
I believe that this idea is most applicable to stories such as "Big Two-Hearted River" but it should help the enjoyment of any story to read it with such a mindset and not just for the grade. This is easier to do with stories such as Tim O'Brien's since they are generally more engaging and easily accessible to the casual reader. Most Uni students have relatively full schedules, and finding the time to relax and read slowly is hard, especially when they don't appreciate the book because they cannot slow down enough to really understand stories like "Big Two-Hearted River." This is like one of Mr. Butler's vicious feedback cycles, resulting in our class disliking In Our Time. Hopefully I will remember these thoughts as we continue reading new authors this semester. It will help me enjoy their writing for what it is instead of comparing it to authors I like more such as O'Brien.
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analysis Isaac. Every night when we had reading assignments for this book, I would put aside roughly twenty minutes to do the reading. I found that I was rushing through the material and missing the point of many stories. In order to enjoy these short stories, I think that it’s important to not be concerned about time but to try and immerse yourself in the plot of the book, rather than trying to rush through the story to pick up on specific details which might be potential quiz questions. Not to mention, I just found Hemingway's speech and writing style to be rather challenging. You could spend hours trying to analyze one of Hemingway's stories which can't be said about many short story authors.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Uni students do have a lot on their plate when it comes to homework. And sometimes, when you're trying to read a story that requires a lot of focus to get everything & doesn't seem to have the fastest rising action after you come back from a long day of school (+extracurricular & other homework), you do start to wonder when you'll be done with it so you can let your mind rest and chill for maybe the first time since the school day started. I feel like "appreciate" here is what I disagree with though. Some people just may not be incredibly fond of Hemingway, it might not be their cup of tea in terms of it having a high rank of value on their list of authors & books. I feel like "appreciate" is saying that everyone has to like it and that if they don't then they're doing it all wrong. I like your mention of a Mr. Butler feedback cycle; I think it describes this pretty well.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time enjoying some chapters because I had a limited amount of time, and I was more focused on finishing the reading than actually enjoying the chapters. When I did have the time to relax and enjoy the stories as you described, I did find some of them to be very engaging. Also, I found myself constantly comparing Hemingway's writing style to Tim O'Brien's, which hindered me from actually enjoying a different way of writing short stories. Great analogy!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your take on this issue, and while I admit I was one of those students that had trouble with "In Our Time", I can appreciate the point you made about mindset. I'm sure that if I sat down and took the time to appreciate what the story was actually about, I would have picked up on little details that made the story all that more enjoyable. I know I was one of those students that was comparing Hemingway to O'Brien and now I can see that I might have missed out on the unique beauty of "In Our Time" because of it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting comment, and while I don't think Uni students are inherently "too stressed" to be able to submit to a story like this, it does move against our usual inclinations when trying to get work done in time for a deadline. You're absolutely right about how the narrative works--how *reading* this story compels you to occupy Nick's thoroughly present-tense, task-driven consciousness, to avoid "thinking" and attend to the immediate, purposeful actions being narrated. There's a great irony here, as Hemingway crafts a story out of a writer trying hard not to think in terms of stories. The story is "about" removing oneself from the flow of plot. And for a busy high school student, a syllabus is, in a sense, your "plot."
ReplyDeleteThat said, in terms of page numbers and number of words, these Hemingway assignments have been among the shortest you'll get in any junior-senior English class. We'll be reading longer stories this semester, and in the Nineteenth-Century Novel they'd love to have "A Very Short Story" to read every once in a while!
I don't disagree that Uni students are overworked and stressed and often in a hurry -- but in my personal experience, it wasn't a lack of time preventing me from fully digesting these stories. Like Lizzy said, I felt like Hemingway just wasn't my cup of tea. I found some of the stories more engaging than others, but even though I wasn't rushing through, there were parts I simply didn't find engaging. As I mentioned in class, Hemingway's whole "masculinity" thing was rather off-putting, even though the point in many of these stories is to sort of reveal the cracks in this stoic masculine guise. Perhaps males reading these stories don't take as much issue with this "masculine" frame of mind, but I simply found it difficult to connect with most of the characters -- including the women, because let's face it, Hemingway's portrayal of women is somewhat two-dimensional. On the other hand, while Tim O'Brien is a male writer and his stories are centered primarily around the experiences of young men, I didn't feel any sort of disconnect, I didn't have an adverse reaction to the male-centered narrative. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about Hemingway's masculine style that frustrated me so much. Oh well -- sorry this kind of deviated from the original post. My concluding point is, yes, being too stressed to truly enjoy the stories is a valid reason we didn't like Hemingway so much, but it's only one of many possible reasons.
ReplyDeleteI agree that many uni students are not able to enjoy Hemingway due to their (our) full schedules, especially the athletes. I also agree that if I took more time to read into the stories, I would've enjoyed them more - for example, I really enjoyed Indian camp and was really engaged in the class discussion, but others I had to rush through and barely remembered parts of the story, which is as good as not reading it. Over winter break (or thanksgiving break), I'm definitely going to read it again more slowly, and hopefully appreciate Hemingway's style more.
ReplyDeleteLike Elissa said, there are definitely exceptions, but I agree that most of the time that I have an English reading, it's hard to appreciate fully because it's also just a job that has to be finished with a deadline. In the same kind of way, Nick probably wouldn't be able to enjoy his work if he went to Uni. That's the big difference between recreation and non-recreation: whether or not you have to.
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