In class this morning, O'Ryan Patterson handed me a book, One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway's Art. This work is a gift from Derek Hinkley, a former student then colleague of mine at MDCC. Derek now works at Delta Streets Academy, and it is there he encountered O'Ryan to pass this jewel along to me. I am supposing that Derek remembers from class that I am a huge Hemingway lover, having read all of his works.
One True Sentence, by Mark Cirino and Michael Von Cannon, takes its title and idea from Hemingay's A Moveable Feast where he writes, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." The book, Cirino's and Cannon's, is a collection of writers and readers who give their one true sentence from Hemingway's works and describe why they chose that sentence. Having just recieved this work a few minutes ago, I am already knee deep in and enjoying every second of my reading.
Of course, there was no way to read even a little bit of this book without thinking about what sentence I would have submitted had I been asked by the authors to do so. Here is my sentence. Actually, I have to include the full paragraph to give the sentence a little context. This passage comes from The Old Man and the Sea.
He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them: although they are more noble and more able. (63)
The last sentence is my "one true sentence" because in my mind, it sums up the entire book and how Hemingway felt about the fish and the old man, Santiago. First, the old man recognized the fish's greatness, noblity, and ability, a concept that runs through the entire novel. Not only in the passage above, but over and over the fish is called "a great fish." Hemingway mentions "the great DiMaggio" eight times in the novel. He, the narrator, is taken with the concept of greatness and the fish makes the grade of great.
Not only is the fish great, but so is the old man as a fisherman. The boy, Manolin, practicaly worships the old man as "a great fisherman." The novel over and over highlights his professionalism and skill. He knows the weather, navigates out of sight of land without a compass, knows the difference between and male and female dolphin by listening to their sounds in the dark of night. Santiago is someone that most people in America today would pay little or no attention to and would certainly not hold in high regard. He was poor, barefoot, and destitute. But to Hemingway, he was someone to be admired because he lived by a code and kept his code despite 84 days without catching a fish.
This concept of greatness in the ordinary and overlooked reminds me of a couple of people in my life. One is an old African-American carpenter who does work for me from time to time. Like the old man, he is the kind of person many, maybe most, would overlook. I have, however, come to see him as an expert. He is a very competent carpenter and he loves his work. Once, while constructiing a fence in my backyard during the hight of the summer heat, he looked at me with a smile and said, "This is fishing to me." I thought, what a blessed man to enjoy his work that much.
This sentence also reminds me of my mother. She noticed birds in a way most people didn't. She kept Cockatiels in her house. Not only that, but she painted birds and took photographs of birds. She had hundreds of pictures of birds at her death. She not only painted and took pictures of them, but she noticed them everywhere she went. Once, while I was staying with her in the hospital, her window opened to the view of a brick wall and a ladder leading up to the roof. The ladder was about 100 yards away. "What kind of bird is that?" she asked me of a tiny avian that landed on the ladder. Who notices those things? She did. Once when we took a tip out of town, all along the way she asked me if I saw that bird and this one. Now, I cannot go through life without paying attention to the birds. She did that to me. With her, I recongnize their beauty, their dignity, their greatness.
In short, "But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them: although they are more noble and more able," sums up a life of awarness, awarness of the dignity, nobility, and ability of people and creatures who are often marginalized among us. Thank you for that awareness, Ernest Hemingway, and thank you for that Mom.
