Hemingway or Faulkner?

Last night as my daughter worked on a writing paper I pulled out two authors in an attempt to help her. I said "close your eyes and listen". After reading a short excerpt from Hemingway I asked her to describe what was taking place and she and her younger brother did so with ease. After one small paragraph they knew exactly where the characters were, what they were doing and fine details about them. Then I read Faulkner. After two long meandering pages I asked them to describe what was taking place. Neither of them knew for sure where they were or what they were doing. They knew the dialect was southern but beyond that the details the senses were muted, and lost in the flowing dialogue. Two great authors, two very different styles. I prefer Hemingway, the potency and touch of his words. The efficiency and precision, the way you can taste and smell the moment. Sometimes we get lost in the dialogue...the long meandering, complex structure of our lives and we don't really know where we are or what is happening. Life is so much richer when we taste the sugary sweet consistency of a pear or we smell the damp freshness of summer rain. Too much is lost in the meandering dialogue of our lives where the detail and robustness is lost in office cubicles, traffic and television. I'd rather write a life like a Hemingway novel.