Stories Within the Story #4: Monastery

by Jim Simpson

Occasionally, I attend the Sunday teaching and meditation sessions at The Drepung Loseling Buddhist Monastery in Chamblee with my wife and daughter. Near the lobby there is a table loaded with used books, hardcovers and paperbacks covering all topics: contemporary and classic fiction, non-fiction, self-help guides, poetry, Buddhist writings and Christian Bibles. All books are available for purchase with a one- to three-dollar donation. I picked up a 1954 Scribners trade paperback copy of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, one of my favorite novels and one I’ve read many times. What struck me most about the book was the sheer number of post-it notes stuck onto nearly every page -- the book appears to be exploding! Most of the notes refer to the symbolism of the drinking, the impotence, the fights, the bulls, the irony, the pity, and more drinking. But it was the final notation shown here that made me laugh.

Well?” indeed.

 

Editor's Note: Jim Simpson is an award-winning fiction writer and freelance music critic. A native of the wilds of Florida's Gulf Coast, he now resides on the scruffy fringes of Atlanta. He has been at work on his first novel for longer than he originally planned, and if all goes well the book should be in stores sometime before his death.

Comments

[german english translator]

Thanks for the information that all books are available for purchase with a one- to three-dollar donation.So that willing person can get it or is informed through this post.