Fuck Off Professor Brown – Non Fiction

I’ll simply say it as it was. A bitch of a professor at Brown University told me Hemingway wouldn’t be published today because his writing was too simple.

Fuck off.

That was my internal response.

I had been standing at the deli. A middle aged women stood next to me. I asked how her day was. She told me it was rushed. The man behind the counter asked what I wanted and I told him steak. Filet. For two.

I like to chat and talk and meet and know. I asked her who her favorite author was. I quote, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Who’s yours?’

I don’t respect people who can’t answer simple question. I respect them less when it’s about themselves.

‘Hemingway.’

‘Oh. He’s nothing really. He wouldn’t be published today.’

‘No? Why not.’

‘He’s too simple. He never took on anything important.’

‘Tell me how he’s simple. Tell me why.’

‘He never wrote about anything that meant anything.’

‘The Sun Also Rises was simple?’

‘We all stand on his shoulders for what he’s done. But, he’s simple.’

I told her I felt differently. She was alone and it’s easy to frighten off a conversation.  I asked, ‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a retired professor.’

‘Of?’

‘English.’

English. Books upon books and cognitive development involved with a mental sphere of words pushed into physical boundaries and here we are.

‘I enjoy to read. Where were you a professor?’ I asked.

‘Brown.’

A professor was asked a simple question. Who is your favorite author. She couldn’t answer the question. She turned the question into a shaming moment. I wish her students the best of luck. I watched this women try to pay for her purchase. She was unable because she didn’t understand how the card ran through.