The one thing I’m not fond of with older literature is the author’s propensity to ‘tell’ a story rather than ‘show’ one.

On the one had this makes reading Tolstoy pretty easy since he’s telling you what you should think about everything, however it’s also why I prefer Hemingway, Carver, and Ford.

Yet the scene where nobody can truthfully explain how a house is built is an example of the joy between the lines