A Bell for Adano by John Hersey Not my cup of tea

 A Bell for Adano by John Hersey

Not my cup of tea

Coming on the footsteps of The Beach by Alex Garland it would have been difficult for The Bell to offer an equal satisfaction.

But I must say that I did not like this novel and it might have been due to the circumstances or a pure failure to get its value.

In other words, from here on the discourse will be rather negative and not just that, but I venture to say not interesting.

If anyone is interested to read A Bell… and takes a note by chance, then the opinion has been expressed.

From here on I try to make sense of what I have read and see what I can still get from this brief encounter.

I stopped over this work because it won the Pulitzer Prize and with all my hostility I can still grasp why.

The writing is interesting and funny- for a reader with a better vision and more relaxed than the undersigned, it can be wonderful.

There are many passages that seen from a different perspective would prove rewarding and the read worthwhile.

To me, it was rather lame, artificial and somehow without verisimilitude, even if this could well be my refusal to accept reality.

Or I just plain reject what other critics and scholars much more dignified have acclaimed and praised in their reviews.

I did not connect with almost any of the characters, starting with the hero, continuing with the former Nazis…

And ending with the crowd, that instead of being amusing in its attitude-which a normal reader would appreciate- in my case it turned out to be rude, offensive and mob like, although I can see that it is probably wrong.

There is a clear villain that made me wish to avoid reading about him- so he with the rest of the culprits mentioned above provoked a full stop about 30% into the book- and his crazy orders and murders.

On the way to Adano, this idiot is going crazy because of the carts that oblige him to slow down so he orders his subordinates not only to push a vehicle off into the ditch, but to kill the innocent mule and to force all carts out of the city.

This means that people will go hungry; they will have no water since everything is taken in with the carts.

To offer a show of bad taste and black humor this is preventing me from getting the probable humanitarian message of the book-

-          Why would they be concerned with food, since somewhere at the start we establish another priority

-          The bell and the spirit come on top of the needs of the belly

And what was all that fuss made by the new American- Italian supervisor of the city on what would be the most needed things?

-          You need someone to tell you that people need food?

-          And that is the main priority?

And then the drivers of the carts who come to talk about their issue and the danger that the city faces:

-          You could read about them with sympathy, even pity

-          I though the passage annoying, with the music of the wheels…

-          Come on, give me a break- the screeching ain’t no music

And then the administrator applying –in ups and downs – the well known quote and suggestion for people in a foreign land

-          When in Rome…

So he takes one habit that I know from here, because we also used to have it, and applies it to a stubborn man

-          Kiss your hand!

Come to think of it, some of these passages are horrible for this reader and I am glad that I have abandoned reading through it.