Hemingway was still a master of word choice. I recall an entire class spent on a few lines that conveyed a sense of heaviness to the scene. 'Plodding' was given a lot of attention.
I remember a college English class where a good part of the lecture was on this sentence from Big Two-Hearted River: "He liked to open cans." Forget the details but it got into the difference between achievement and accomplishment.