If all were to go swimmingly…

I hope you got that reference.  Did you?  Sandy?  Of course.  The rest of you?

The next spot on my list, holding strong at number somewhere, is Hemingway.  I will again be cheating and not choosing just one book, but my top 3.

For the skeptics, I didn’t choose Hemingway because I should, but because again and again I fell in love with his writing.  This sort of thing happens.

3. The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and The Sea interests me as both a reader and a writer.  It began as a short story, a fact I learned from reading Papa Hemingway, another book about Hemingway by Hotchner.

From what I heard/read, old papa owed a story to LIFE Magazine.   I believe the New Yorker came into play later, but this is only what I remember for now.  (Nice sources, eh?  Read Papa Hemingway!  I already told you to do so….)  Big H put it off and put it off.  He delayed and told them yes, it’s coming; it’s going to be great.  He probably even used a semicolon.

And the novella or the looong short story, “The Old Man and the Sea” was born.

This old man, what an old man!  Could life really be like that?  Could it be that rough to be old and without hope, yet so full of something that might be possible?  A very big fish.

Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” made the novella, or the uber-short story, real and possible to me.  Before reading this book, I never understood the length.  I have since come to appreciate it thoroughly.  I’ve read Steinbeck’s “The Pearl,” which is similar in it’s pessimistic aura, but with more characters, to put it very simply.

I’ve also read tons of modern novellas.  This is the next new thing, if that works in words.  Many, many modern series have 1.5 or even 0.5. There are novellas about side characters and novellas about the misunderstood mother or sometimes, the enemy.  I have even begun crafting a novella that will follow Wandering Canalside.  The working title is currently, “A Seaside Vignette.” We’ll see where that goes over the next year.