In last night's dream, I was back in college anxiously sitting a final exam in a literature course. I remember that the exam was titanically difficult and unnerving but I can recall only one specific question. "Discuss Ernest Hemingway's father's Buddhist leanings." I must say that my dreamatorium was working overtime to come up with that one. Also on the exam: I was presented with pictures and was asked to supply their literary significance. The one I remember was a photograph of a generic urban street with five unoccupied parking spaces. My answer to the question was this: "These spaces were left open when Ernest Hemingway and four of his friends left for the bar in order to get themselves soused." I remember thinking that my answer was pretty damn clever and should get me full marks. I also dreamed a short-answer quiz. In this case I can't recall the questions, but only that I gave as one of my answers the word "praestorium." I have no idea what "praestorium" means, except that it sounds like a portmanteau of the names of two ancient Roman officials (praetor and quaestor) with an attached (and redundant) noun suffix.
It's sad that fifty years after the fact I'm still dreaming about examinations. I'm thankful these recent dreams were foolish rather than nightmarish. Nevertheless, I think it's time to read up on Hemingway, a writer to whom I've clearly paid too little attention this last half-century. You never know when someone's going to ask a hard question about Hemingway or his father.
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