Have you ever struggled through a book? What about a classic? I can only name two books that I have started and been unable to finish. One I am embarrassed to admit is a Terry Pratchett; the only author I have read as much as Heinlein. Maurice and His Educated Rodents was not the right book for me at the time I guess. I can’t really say why. That was recent, within the last year. More than 15 years ago I picked up a book by L. Ron Hubbard and found it to be so not my idea of science fiction that I only managed to get to chapter five.
Typically, I read so fast that even a bad start is behind me before I put the book down to go to bed. I have read a lot of books in these last few years of effective unemployment, but the one that took me the longest was For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. I finished it last week or so, and so I now feel removed enough to be able to talk about it.
As I read the book I asked a lot of people what they thought of it. Multiple college educated people, including two with English degrees all told me the same thing: “I didn’t read that one, is it any good”? I’m not claiming to know a wide swath of America, but I do not a lot of smart people, and not one of them had read this classic. In fact, most people I talked to had only read one Hemingway; The Old Man in the Sea and told me that they had b/c it was the shortest book that was on the reading list for that particular assignment or another. Now my friend Russel has read Hemingway, and even took a class on Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but even he hadn’t read Bell. I think I have a reason for this lack of reading of this so called classic.
It is the worst book I have every finished.
OK that is a little harsh. The first four fifth’s of this book are the worst book I have ever read, but the last fifth is interesting enough to make a hell of a good short story. I don’t want to give anything away here for the billions of you who haven’t read this book (or to think of it another way, the five of you who might see this) but in the end… It Tolls for Thee… It Tolls for Thee…
1 comment:
Well, Davey, I don't know you from Adam, but, while perusing my blog for comments (alas, none), I clicked on "Next blog" just for fun, and yours came up. I have read many of the classics (although I have yet to finish Don Quixoti - is that spelled right?), and I am one of the few who actually enjoyed The Old Man and the Sea, so your blog entry intrigued me. I may just grab a copy to see how bad it is. At the moment, I'm plowing through The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and not liking it very much - I'm not into fantasy literature to begin with, and too much of it is clearly a ripoff of Tolkien. Oh well. If you read this, I wish you a good day!
Post a Comment