HOMAGE WEEK #1: Try too hard to be Ernest Hemingway


The night had come. Brett squinted. It was dark. This was the last day of his life. There was water below him. He was in a boat. In an instant, he felt the night around him. Cold. There was a scar on his back, running from his left shoulder blade down to his right hip. He had got this scar from wrestling. He had wrestled bears. Bears were mean.
‘I’m hungry,’ he muttered, but there was no one there to hear him. He felt the burden of the concept of masculinity weighing down on him. Also, he felt a pressing need to void his bowels. Then, he heard the dull report of a distant gunshot. A previously unmentioned army had begun its advance.

17 comments:

  1. haha, best kicker ever.

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  2. I like this. It's very funny. Not like Hemmingway at all - he never made me laugh like this!

    :-)

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  3. bears were mean?
    :P
    poor hemingway must be rolling in his grave and groping for a drink to numb that one.....

    ooh..do a jane austen, please...

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  4. Alternative Hemingway: The night had come and it was a dark and cold night that was darker and colder than the previous one, perhaps because this night, spent sitting in a damp boat on the still water, would be the last night of his life, and as he sat there in the dark feeling hungry and resenting bears for giving him the scar that ran from his left shoulder blade to his hip, a gunshot rang out in the distance and an army began its advance.

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  5. The beauty of Hemingway is that he makes it possible for all of us to write badly well. Nothing is as infectious as punchy prose.

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  6. Perfect.

    I'm hoping for Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens and Stephanie Meyer in the days to come.

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  7. "He felt the burden of the concept of masculinity weighing down on him."
    This is why I never read this blog while drinking my morning cup of tea.

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  8. "He felt the burden of the concept of masculinity weighing down on him."

    You deserve an award for that line. I think you could make it the closing line of most of HW's work.

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  9. Sylvia – I apologise for the lack of Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens or Stephanie Meyer. I'm sure I'll do another round of homages soon and Dickens is definitely on my list.

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  10. Oh my goodness: "He had got this scar from wrestling. He had wrestled bears." Made me straight-up cackle out loud. Genius. GENIUS. And so evocative of Hem.

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  11. Hemingway would never say his character "felt the burden of the concept of masculinity weighing down on him."

    He'd assume all men -- all /real/ men -- would get that implicitly.

    Nice parody; loved it.

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  12. That was the single most beautiful piece of artwork ever written, symbolizing how simplicity of prose refreshes the mind and makes writing such that anyone can BS his way into the ranks of the "greatest writers of the twentieth century."

    I had to read "The Sun Also Rises" for school this year. Every sentence, I died a little inside.

    "He was in a boat" lol! :)

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  13. Can one really parody Stephanie Meyer, though? She kinda already took care of that herself. Twilight is s*** in its purest form...

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