Our April meeting will be on Wednesday April 8th at the usual time.

In our March meeting, first we read two chapters from “The Art of Fiction” by David Lodge:

• chapter 25 “Staying on the Surface”, and
• chapter 26 “Showing and Telling”

and we discussed how Hemingway uses these two techniques, to what extent, and why. The beginning of the story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” shows rather than tells, i.e. it uses mostly dialogue and very little narrative. In addition, Hemingway stays on the surface: he adds no adjecctives to “he said” “she said”, so we have no clues as to the feelings or thoughts of the characters except as revealed by their words.

Towards the end of the first section, Hemingway introduces some narrative summary which gives us some insight into the main characters thoughts. This is followed by a long narrative summary section which seems to be flashbacks or memories of past experiences in various European places.

Then we read a bit more of the story: from the beginning of the third section (“It was evening now”) to the end of the paragraph that ends “than when he had really loved.” (in my copy, it’s line 2 of page 61).

Next time, we’ll talk and read about Hemingway’s “hard boiled” theory.

See you April 8th.