Literature, although fictitious, often leads us to question and examine our own lives. Daniel Stern’s Twice Told Tales is a collection of six short stories that are each inspired by the themes and character experiences of previous well-known writings. Two stories included in this collection are “Brooksmith,” originally written by Henry James in 1891, and the 1933 Ernest Hemingway short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.” These stories attempt to illustrate the impact that literature has on people’s lives, showing that the greatest pieces are timeless in their effect on their reader. He proves that stories can have an immense impact on their readers as they serve as sources of both comfort and inspiration, especially when the reader can relate
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In his rewriting of Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, Noah feels connected to the characters and tells his friend and the narrator of the story, “You and me, We’re like the two waiters in the Hemingway Story.” He goes on to say that since he was four years old he was “kept awake night after night by the perfectly perceived sense that everything is nothing….nada? Existential infantile insomnia. I’ve not slept a night through since. You can see why I fell in love with this smallest of Hemingway stories when I came to it years later (Stern 50).” The narrator cannot understand why Noah feels this way until he reads the story. He then realizes that Noah and the old waiter are both lonely and feel little purpose in life, and both suffer from severe insomnia. The narrator is able to gain a better understanding of what Noah is experiencing by reading about the old waiter. In Stern’s “Brooksmith” it is the original story that brings Cecilia and Zoe to an understanding about each other. It is written that “Zoe told Ceclia how she felt spoiled, like Brooksmith. She had no real place any more but she didn’t want to be left behind like him, to die. Astonishing Celia again, she wept.” (Stern 104) Cecilia tells Zoe, “Then perhaps we understand each other and can go on from here” (Stern 105), but this understanding was only made possible through a conversation surrounding
In his rewriting of Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”, Noah feels connected to the characters and tells his friend and the narrator of the story, “You and me, We’re like the two waiters in the Hemingway Story.” He goes on to say that since he was four years old he was “kept awake night after night by the perfectly perceived sense that everything is nothing….nada? Existential infantile insomnia. I’ve not slept a night through since. You can see why I fell in love with this smallest of Hemingway stories when I came to it years later (Stern 50).” The narrator cannot understand why Noah feels this way until he reads the story. He then realizes that Noah and the old waiter are both lonely and feel little purpose in life, and both suffer from severe insomnia. The narrator is able to gain a better understanding of what Noah is experiencing by reading about the old waiter. In Stern’s “Brooksmith” it is the original story that brings Cecilia and Zoe to an understanding about each other. It is written that “Zoe told Ceclia how she felt spoiled, like Brooksmith. She had no real place any more but she didn’t want to be left behind like him, to die. Astonishing Celia again, she wept.” (Stern 104) Cecilia tells Zoe, “Then perhaps we understand each other and can go on from here” (Stern 105), but this understanding was only made possible through a conversation surrounding