I read Hemingway's "A clean well lighted place". I liked it a lot. I think Hemingway is a great author; however, I am never sure exactly what we wanted to say, or if we even wanted to say something at all. What do you think? I would be really curious to know your opinion about it!
One my favorite lines is:
"the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference"
I feel this sentence continuously surprises us. First by revealing that he was deaf, and then by telling us how we could feel the difference of something he couldn't hear. It opens one up to someone else's experience, that one could not necessarily perceive, but most likely one would acknowledge as unequivocally true. Just great writing.
I also liked a lot what I felt was a conversation about youth's incapacity to acknowledge that "nothing" is worth a lot:
A well lighted cafe.
Staying up late.
Being an old clean man.
Drinking drunk without spilling.
Walking unsteadily but with dignity.
Being there for some one who needs a well lighted cafe.
He celebrates what I feel is the appreciation of being something but nothing else, being and "old sad man" would be being something else, but being a non spiller old man is nothing, because man should not spill.
I feel like a celebration of nada is needed.
A gardened garden is nothing. A good hard day gardening is nothing too.
They are nothing because they are what they should be.
A loud bodega could be nothing, but here is not nothing because the nothing is not acknowledged, instead the barman when wanting to make it nothing is then being marked as "otro loco".
Presumably the biggest nada is the "silence of deafness". Which is indeed mentioned at the start as the thing that the old man enjoys.
Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada.
Presumably he is reminding us that one can celebrate things for what they are and nada mas.