On the date of July 21, 1899 Ernest Hemingway, a now known brilliant writer, was born. Hemingway was conceivably the only writer to achieve the combination of international celebrity and literary stature in the twentieth century. Hemingway was brought up in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, close t...
Chapter One The narrator assures us that the book we are about to read is true, more or less. The parts dealing with World War II are most closely associated with actual events. Twenty-three years have passed since the end of the war, and for much of that time the narrator has been trying to write about the bombing of Dresden. He was never able to write the book. When he thinks about Dresden's place in his memory, he always recalls two things: a dirty limerick about a man whose penis has let him down, and "My Name is Yon Yonson," a song which has no ending. ...