Over the past couple of days I have been trying to figure out what book to choose as the first one I read/review/ discuss here, and after some consideration, and help from my good friend Andrew, I finally made choice.
The book I picked is Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls. This is a novel about Robert Jordan, a young American in an antifascist guerilla unit in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The story follows him as he is given orders to go behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge. While on his mission, Jordan falls in love with a Spanish girl by the name of María. The remainder of the novel continues to follow Jordan as he struggles with inner conflict about not only the mission he is on, but his newfound love for María as well.
Until now, I have yet to read a novel by Ernest Hemingway. I know, what kind of English major hasn’t read Hemingway yet, so I figured it is about time that I change that. I have no doubt that I will enjoy this novel, and hopefully I can spark some interest for someone else out there to go and pick it up and read it for themselves. I know Hemingway may seem intimidating because people mainly read his works while in school, and he is not a particularly easy author to read, but there isn’t any reason why someone shouldn’t be able to read one of his works on their own without the aid of a teacher to walk them through it. That leads back to my main purpose for why I am doing this, to get at least one person more interested in reading, and have them realize how great it is. I am going to try and chose a myriad of genres that way I can show people the wide breadth of options they have when deciding to read a book.
Here I come Hemingway,
-Michael
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