“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (1933)

James Joyce once said this is one of the best stories ever written, so Ernest Hemingway can’t really be blamed for saying it “might” be his favorite. When I first encountered it as a young man in the throes of Hemingway infatuation, I thought even the title was great—no need for a story. What I expected is how I tend to remember it, although it’s not even close. I thought it had something to do with finding a good place in public to write. But not at all. Instead, it is a strange Parisian café scene at night, involving two waiters closing it up and their last customer, an elderly man deaf and at least 80 years old. He is a regular at this café. He recently attempted suicide. One waiter is impatient for him to leave, but the older waiter is more philosophical. The old man is drinking his fill of brandy. The story has a funny look as it lays on the page, partly telling the story itself that way. Normal and large blocks of text in some paragraphs (notably a long one near the end) alternate with blasts of dialogue in short, rapid sentences. Attributions drop away as two interlocutors converse, usually the two waiters. Hemingway is skillful enough to keep it lucid—it’s rare to lose track of who is speaking. A good deal is made of the differences between bars, bodegas, and cafes. The preference among the soul-tormented here (the old man and the older waiter) is the “clean, well-lighted” café. Bars require too much standing. The young and impatient waiter has a wife waiting for him at home. Late in the story we learn the older waiter is insomniac and does not expect to sleep until daylight. The café closes between 2 and 4 a.m., apparently depending on when the last customer finishes. Joyce said this story “reduced the veil between literature and life, which is what every writer strives to do.” Maybe so, but I have to admit I’m not entirely feeling it. I love the title and generally how Hemingway can do more with less. His subtraction method doesn’t always work—it doesn’t always work here—but it’s an interesting way to approach fiction and can certainly make it rich in unspoken implications. But I haven’t lived a life that includes very much that seems to be happening in this story, as someone who generally shuns bars and cafes as places to go aimlessly and hang around for human company.

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
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