I don't think you read Hemingway or Melville for riveting stories per se, but for their prose. The way they convey their stories in words that pique your curios

I don't think you read Hemingway or Melville for riveting stories per se, but for their prose. The way they convey their stories in words that pique your curiosity or tickle your aesthetic sense. Words that express an idea or feeling you'd not encountered before, or express an idea or feeling you are familiar with in a totally fresh and unfamiliar way (btw their styles are very different, so you may very well find one engaging while the other leaves you flat, and of course some people will enjoy both or neither). For example, I have never read "The Sun Also Rises," but I looked at the sample on Amazon and came across this on the second page: "I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together, and I always had a suspicion that Robert Cohn had never been middleweight boxing champion, and that perhaps a horse had stepped on his face..." After a few matter-of-fact paragraphs, the narrator suddenly slaps the reader with this frank and funny statement of his utter cynicism. That kind of thing pulls me in. I want to know more about this narrator and see what other shocking things he may have to say.