Ernest Hemingway

Faulkner would be another author it would be tough to bullshit through a conversation with.

Joyce's Ulysses is possible to read and still sound like you didn't read it in a conversation.

People who want to lie about reading great books should buy those illustrated abridged versions they used to sell a KB Toys. I used to pass Accelerated Reader tests in elementary school Using those things for Dickens' high point books. You could read David Copperfield in like three hours and pass the test.

Hey, it won me a bicycle. I have no regrets.

 

I lied about reading books all the time in school and often received A's on papers about books I had never even so much as held in my hands. But what's the point now?

 

Throw down four glasses of the house red and try to slip "Yoknapatawpha County" into the conversation ...

I know I've read one Faulkner novel ... Light in August ... a couple of times. I've got it in my head I read The Hamlet, but I don't remember jack about it so maybe that's one of the ones I pretended to read when I was in college.

 

I've never read anything by William Faulkner. I've tried, though.

 

OK, I bit, and looked it up.

For those who are curious (as I was) and/or are among the 62 percent who actually haven't read much, if any, of Hemingway's work (as I am), here's that line:

It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.

Hmm, I might have to go back and read that, just to find out what did happen.

 

Just the opposite with me. Faulkner was shoved down my throat at Ole Miss, but Hemmingway puts me to sleep 10 minutes in.

 

Papa and the FBI: http://vault.fbi.gov/ernest-miller-hemingway/ernest-hemingway-part-01-of-01/view