I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed reading the Nick Adams stories. I fully expected to struggle with Hemingway's iceberg technique and not be able to understand what was going on in each of the stories. One of the stories in particular made me think the most and that was Cross Country Snow.
Being a story that is about taking responsibility and truly becoming a man, the story hit close to home with me because I feel like I am so close to have to do that on my own. I am sure it wasn't just me feeling this as well. Most of us are going to have to go out into the real world and get jobs and become contributing members of society in the near future. This, like most of the Nick Adams stories, was definitely a coming of age story. Something that completely reflects my life today.
This story also seemed to be more frank about what the reader was supposed to take away from it. Hemingway tends to leave out all of the details and descriptors that would make solving the puzzle to the moral of the story easy, and instead he makes the reader work for it. This story however seemed to be easier to grasp the moral than most.
Out of all of Hemingway's stories that we read in class I also thought this story was the easiest to understand. The message definitely hits close home. Now that we are getting older, a decision to blow off responsibility seems to have much greater consequences than it used to. Its becoming more important to do the mature thing, which is a big part of growing up. This was definitely a good coming of age story.
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