If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. OR scream in rage and hurl copies of The Cantos, I find that works equally well.” - Ernest Hemingway

Today, July 21st, is the great Ernest Hemingway's 111th birthday. I seem to have a love-hate relationship with this brilliant, yet tragic composer....composer of books, that is. I remember having to pick a book in high school to do a report on and in trying to impress my teacher, I chose to read and write about For Whom The Bell Tolls. Not the best choice. I hated the book. I was not wise enough in my years to understand such an intense story. Of course I struggled through and wrote my report. For the next assignment I chose Faulkner's Light In August. I should have really stopped trying to impress people, for I disliked that one as well.

The greatest hunt in life is the hunt for truth and knowledge. Also, my trousers. BLAST! I cannot find them.” - Ernest Hemingway

Today I learned that sometimes an elephant-gun is just too much gun, especially when not hunting elephants. Poor goldfish.” *sigh. - Ernest Hemingway

In college, however, I bought a copy of A Moveable Feast. I had been intimidated to pick up another Hemingway novel after I was burned the first time, and I will admit, it was a movie that enticed me to try and try again. This book, I found, was in a category all of its own. I had never read a book that allowed me to almost smell the scents of a Paris bakery, feel the disappointment of having to live in a tiny, one room apartment in one of the glorious cities in the world. I could taste the fresh bread, I could feel the beads of red wine upon my tongue. It was truly sensory overload. And it is a book that I will always keep dear to my heart.

"You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason." - A Moveable Feast