relatively new couples purposefully spending time on their own in places near the ocean--dellilo's characters, especially the woman, are less matter of fact about their sensory experiences (and ?consequently? his narrative voice is more on a teetertotter between describing the experience and the awareness of the experience) whereas hemingway's characters in large part seem to be carried along in this time suspension they've set up for themselves, and trying to keep themselves from the future or analyzing their actions too closely.
On this morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs were boiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them and salted them lightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggs and fresh and the girl's were not cooked quite as long as the young man's. He remembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with the spoon and ate with only the flow of butter to moisten them and the fresh early morning texture and the bite of the coarsely ground pepper grains and the hot coffee and the chickory fragrant bowl of cafe au lait. Hemingway, Garden of Eden, p. 4
(my note: Rey knows he's going to kill himself this day, as much as anyone can know what they're going to do)
He went to the fridge and came back with a large dark fig and turned off the radio.
"Give me some of that," she said, reading the paper.
"I was not blaming. Who turned it on, who turned it off. Someone's a little edgy this morning. I'm the one, what do I say, who should be defensive. Not the young woman who eats and sleeps and lives forever."
"What? Hey, Rey. Shut up."
He bit off the stem and tossed it toward the sink. Then he split the fig open with his thumbnails and took the spoon out of her hand and licked it off and used it to scoop a measure of claret flesh out of the gaping fig skin. He dropped this stuff on his toast--the flesh, the mash, the pulp--and then spread it with the bottom of the spoon, blood-buttery swirls that popped with seedlife.
"I'm the one to be touchy in the morning. I'm the one to moan. The terror of another ordinary day," he said slyly. "You don't know this yet."
"Give us all a break," she told him.
She leaned forward, he extended the bread. There were crows in the trees near the house, taking up a raucous call. She took a bite and closed her eyes so she could think about the taste.
He gave back her spoon. Then he turned on the radio and remembered he'd just turned it off and he turned it off again. Delillo, The Body Artist, 15
posted by Liza 4.8.03