Why Am I Reading This?

So I finished reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens a week or so ago. It had been sitting on my bookshelf for many years so I decided to see what it was all about. I'm still not sure I know what it was all about because there were so many times I had no idea what I was reading. Whole paragraphs and pages passed by without me having any clue what was actually going on in the story. In the end I believe I got the gist of the story and a Google search helped me to understand what I may have missed.

Now I decided to read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Not sure where I got this book, but it too has been sitting on the bookshelf for a while. Needless to say this one also has me quite confused as the characters use language that makes no sense to my brain. A few consecutive pages were filled with people saying they were "tight". Over and over this adjective was used and I'm guessing that it meant drunk, but I'm not completely convinced. Just checked the online Merriam-Webster's dictionary and indeed that's what it means. The sixth definition is "somewhat drunk".

Now if I could just figure out what the rest of the text means, I might start to enjoy the book a bit more. I've never read anything by Hemingway, but his style is a bit odd. Lots of descriptions are given of the streets and the country, but they don't really give a good sense of what he's describing. At least not to me. He's no John Steinbeck, that's for sure. Perhaps it's just this book though. According to the last page of the book, other Hemingway classics are available at your local bookstore or by mail. I can fill out the form and for just $4.95 have another copy of this book mailed to me...not including the $1.50 for postage and handling costs. I bet Amazon can't beat that price. Crap. This deal expired on December 1st, 1987.