You know, I never given this more than a passing thought before and I certainly never put it into words but I think the jarring, galling culture shock of northerners moving to Texas the first time they came in droves was the difference in humor.
Us Texans possibly much like Okies or Coonasses, believe in understatements, hyperboles and long drawn out tales that are maddening journeys with little anti-climitac groaners for the punch line.
Then these yahoos come down here and they don’t get any of that stuff. They listen earnestly and say, “aw jeez.” To them the height of humor was a snarky comment delivered like a straight face like a whiney bitch. To which we’d think, “where’s my knife? I’m sticking this bastard.”
It probably took 20 years for Texans and yankees to learn how to communicate. Probably even longer if a marriage took place.
Yep
Hemingway came from Chicago and Faulkner came from a small town in Mississippi.
Was there a conversation between them? I know they were contemporaries. Someone could have gotten shot, had an extended visit occurred, and I couldn't guess whether it would be a suicide or a homicide.
Anyway, those two guys are about as opposite as you can get on the spectrum of short declarative take it or leave it north type statements VS colorful rambling long way around the barn and would you ever get back to the point oh wait I got it that was kind of clever south type discursive descriptions.
I enjoy Faulkner talk more, as a rule, when I'm in a deadline free state, and feel like bathing richly in the mental meanderings of reflection, and in the uncertainties and double entendres of life's pathways, and in the mysterious meanings of actions of others we know and sometimes love ... BUT when I'm pressed and need answers and the frickin bus, train or plane is about to leave then just give me the facts jack and Hemingway wins.
Maybe that's why I'm enjoying Maryland, which is a tweener state, having been born and raised in Oklahoma, another tweener state. Neither of those places can really make up their mind whether they're north or south. So you get both.