Famous First and Last Lines

by Echo Clairday 7:00 AM 1 comments

• "If I am out of my mind, it's alright with me, thought Moses Herzog."
• Saul Bellow
• Born: June 10, 1915, Lachine, Canada
• Died: April 5, 2005, Brookline, MA
• Saul Bellow was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990. (Nothing specific was found for him in 1964)
• Herzog is set in 1964 in the United States, and is about the midlife crisis of a Jewish man named Moses E. Herzog. At the age of forty-seven, he is just emerging from his second divorce, this one particularly acrimonious. He has two children, one by each wife, who are growing up without him. His career as a writer and an academic has floundered. He is in a relationship with a vibrant woman, Ramona, but finds himself running away from commitment.
• Personally, as an uncultured reader, this just seems boring to me. I would much rather read a romance. I just feel as though there is no room for me to relate. He is a middle-aged Jewish  man down on his luck. I am a plucky 17 year old who is scared of the life ahead of her. This just doesn't seem like my cup of tea.

• "After a while i went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain."
• Ernest Hemingway
• Born: July 21, 1899, Oak Park, IL
• Died: July 2, 1961, Ketchum, ID
• Ernest Hemingway  was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
• A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. The book, published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.
• This book sounds like the most boring thing I might ever have to read. Reading about the army does not appeal to me, especially a first person account of the army. I respect soldiers, and I appreciate what they do, but this genre doesn't appeal to me. Sorry, Ernest.