Hemingway and Tierney, Deconstructed

As I noted earlier today, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen wrote Brian Tierney to express his support for the unions in the ongoing labor dispute. Tierney responded with a quick letter, much of it consisting of one 136-word sentence that echoed some of Ernest Hemingway’s greatest long sentences.

I realize that not all of you were English majors and not all of you have read all of Hemingway’s works, let alone the one I referenced, “ The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” (I wasn’t a good enough English major to remember that short stories get quotes and not italics in my earlier post, so we’ll call it even.)

After the jump, a comparison of Hemingway’s and Tierney’s greatest sentences, and the differences and similarities between the two.

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