English 202B: Fall 2009

Minarets stuck up in the rain out of Adrianople across the mud

flats. The carts were jammed for thirty miles along the Kara-

gatch road. Water buffalo and cattle were hauling carts through

the mud. No end and no beginning. Just carts loaded with every-

thing they owned. The old men and women, soaked through,

walked along keeping the cattle moving. The Maritza was run-

ning yellow almost up to the bridge. Carts were jammed solid on

the bridge with camels bobbing along through them. Greek cav-

alry herded along the procession. Women and kids were in the

carts crouched with mattresses, mirrors, sewing machines, bun-

dles. There was a woman having a kid with a young girl holding

a blanket over her and crying. Scared sick looking at it. It rained

all through the evacuation.

Most people believe that Ernest Hemingway's first book was The Sun Also Rises. In fact, he wrote a 30 page book in 1924 called In Our Time. Only 170 copies were printed (of which Pattee Library has one, worth hundred of thousands of bling bling, so go see it for yourself in the rare books room). Each chapter of this book consisted of simply one paragraph that earned Hemingway critical acclaim. The book was his response to the "Make it New" challenge of his contemporaries.

Nick sat against the wall of the church where they had

dragged him to be clear of machine-gun fire in the street. Both

legs stuck out awkwardly. He had been hit in the spine. His face

was sweaty and dirty. The sun shone on his face. The day was

very hot. Rinaldi, big backed, his equipment sprawling, lay face

downward against the wall. Nick looked straight ahead bril-

liantly. The pink wall of the house opposite had fallen out from

the roof, and an iron bedstead hung twisted toward the street.

Two Austrian dead lay in the rubble in the shade of the house.

Up the street were other dead. Things were getting forward in

the town. It was going well. Stretcher bearers would be along

any time now. Nick turned his head carefully and looked at Ri-

naldi. "Senta Rinaldi. Senta. You and me we've made a seperate

peace." Rinaldi lay still in the sun breathing with difficulty.

"Not patriots." Nick turned his head carefully away smiling

sweatily. Rinaldi was a disappointing audience.

In these single paragraph chapter, words are chosen carefully, like poems. In spite of the fact that the scenes seem to be plucked from the middle of a reality, they stand hauntingly on their own.

While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces

at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ

get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please

please please christ. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll

do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell every one in

the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please

dear jesus. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to

work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the

day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night

back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at

the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.

These three examples of poetrical writing are from Hemingway's "In Our Time", chapters II, VI and VII. It was his way of creating a timelessness about a time--something lyrical about a moment.

Enter John Berger's Pig Earth. It became evident to me often while reading that paragraphs stood out more than others and included scenes that could stand by themselves like Hemingway.

The son severs and twists off the four hooves and throws them into a wheelbarrow. The mother removes the udder. Then, through the cut hide, the son axes the breast bone. This is similar to the last axing of a tree before it falls, for from that moment onwards, the cow, no l