For Whom the Bell Tolls

By Ernest Hemingway

Ever since I moved into my current home about a year and a half ago, I've been meaning to go to the Ernest Hemingway museum that's on my block. My excuse for not going was that I hadn't read any Hemingway since high school. Despite all my best intentions to read some more of his stuff, it just never happened. Then, on the vacation mentioned in my last post, we went to the Florida Keys. Although we did not stay in Key West, we spent a fair amount of time there wandering around Old Town and looking at all the pretty. Of course we stopped at the Hemingway museum down there which is the house Hemingway spent his winters in in the 1930s. The guy who sold us our tickets was doing his usual friendly, asking where we were from and when we told him he asked if we had been to our Hemingway museum. It made me feel guilty so now I'm resolved to go ... someday.

Anyway, I did actually read another one of his books, which is a good start. I don't really have any interest in reading any of his books about hunting in Africa or fishing or bull fighting but I did enjoy A Farewell to Arms when I read it in high school, so I chose something which sounded similar. I bought this in the bookshop because 1) I love buying books and I was on vacation so why not? and 2) if I bought the book, I would have to read it. Yes, I could always get it at the library for free, but I've had that option for the past year and a half and it's clearly not getting me anywhere.

So, after all that, I did really like this book. It definitely took some getting used to because his writing style is so different from what I've come to expect of modern writers. One thing that stayed the same though, is Hemingway's strict adherence to the he said/she said rule. I don't think he ever used any other verbs when he could have used "said." I definitely think that there's something to be said for stripping prose down to his barest bones, but personally, it left me feeling kind of disconnected from all of the characters. Yes, there was emotion and the dialogue by itself was enough to tell me that the particular emotion or the tone was there, but it wasn't enough to make me feel it.

That probably had something to do with why I couldn't buy into the love story. The entire novel takes place in the span of about three days and in that time these two meet, fall in love, have a lot of sex, barely even talk to each other, and then they part ways. I also found it very hard to have any respect at all for Maria. Her whole world was comprised of taking care of her man and making her man happy. She literally had no other interests. It was revolting.

That being said, I really liked the rest of the story. It was a very interesting commentary on war and the things that people tell themselves to get through it. There was a great contrast between the guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines and the officers (some of whom are literally insane) and the careless manner in which they send their soldiers out to fight. The main character, Robert Jordan, has a bad feeling about the whole mission from the very beginning. But orders are orders so he tells himself that this mission is necessary to win the war in order to get himself through it.

Hemingway also does stream-of-conciousness very well. Many pages are taken up by the main character's internal debate and it is written in such a way as to be very believable. It reminded me of what goes on in my own head when I catch my mind wandering. Then again, maybe I'm just crazy in the same way that Hemingway was crazy. In which case I'm screwed.

Vacation Reads 2014!

Winter's Tale
by Mark Helprin

Apparently, I'm really bad at choosing books to read when I'm on vacation that are nice and light and actually good. Last year I thought "The Host" would be a good one. Instead, it bored me to tears. This time I was thinking more along the lines of "On vacation I'll have the time to read this 700+ page behemoth without having to worry about getting through it in a week in order to write my blog." So I started it when I knew I would have plenty of time to read. Unfortunately, the result is that I feel like I lost a lot of valuable reading time.

Full disclosure: When I bought the book, all I knew about it was the trailers for the movie. All I really cared about were the fact that Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay are in it. I could have read the reviews, but I'm not sure that would have helped me. This book seems pretty divisive. It has a lot of five-star reviews, a lot of one-star reviews, and only a handful in the middle.

Most of the negative reviews hated his writing style. I have to agree with them there. It's all very flowery and boy does this guy like his similes! Everything is like this, like that, like a virgin's flowing locks, etc. Don't get me wrong. I actually like a little of that. The problem with Helprin is that he spent more time doing that than he did telling the story. It got very old very quickly and helped to make me feel like I was slogging through this book rather than being engaged by a good story-teller.

Some of you may be wondering why I bothered to finish the book if it was so long and so boring. I have to admit that I don't know. I liked the first third of it. I didn't love it, but I thought it might warm up. The second third was spent introducing new characters and going off on tangents, but I trusted him to bring it all back together and make it relevant. And he did. But by the time I reached that part, I was so bitter about having had to slog through the middle third and so focused on just finishing the book that I didn't take the time I should have to enjoy it.

Oh, and the horse! Oh, my god, you guys! The horse! The very beginning of the book is told from the point of view of the horse as he is running away from his master. The horse so clearly had an attitude from the very beginning that it reminded me of the horse in Tangled (which we all know was the best character in that movie). Usually, when I got bogged down by two-dimensional human characters, Helprin would go back to talking about the horse and I would instantly perk up.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters
by Rick Riordan

I was a little disappointed in this one, too. Granted, Annabeth is still my favorite forever and the villains here are awesome, but the plot was basically a retelling of The Odyssey. Right down to using the name "Nobody" and hiding under the sheep. I mean, if you're going to have your characters face all of the same villains, can't you at least make them a little more creative, rather than just copying off of Odysseus?

That being said, the ending was phenomenal and I cannot wait to read the next book to see where that leads!

I Am Malala

by Malala Yousafzai

I want to be Malala when I grow up.

Seriously. Everyone should read this book and then we can all wonder together what we've been doing with our lives while this girl has been fighting to make the world a better place. Her bravery and optimism are astounding and the rest of us can only hope to ever be as cool as she is.

I think my favorite part of this book was the fact that she points out the irony of the Taliban. As a deeply religious Muslim who has memorized the Quran, Malala is well equipped to point out exactly how these people are wrong. While they beat and threaten women into staying home and out of men's sight, Malala insists that nowhere in the Quran does it say that women should not go to school. On the contrary, it encourages both boys and girls to gain as much knowledge as they can. According to Malala, Islam is a pro-education faith.

Purdah is a touchy subject. I'm not a fan of it personally, but I'll try to remain respectful of other people's beliefs. While many Muslim women were practicing purdah before the Taliban came along, the Taliban imposed further restrictions on women for no apparent reason. Not only did they have to cover their heads, but they had to wear burqas, could not go outside without being accompanied by their husband or a male relative, and they were forbidden from dancing. Why the Taliban is so against music and dancing is beyond me. It reminds me of certain Christians who seem to think that anything that's fun must be evil. I guess that's another thing that Christians and Muslims have in common, regardless of whether or not they'll ever admit it.

I thought Malala made a great point when she said the Taliban accused women of wanting to disobey their fathers and husbands by going outside on their own. Malala says that this is not true. She points out that there is a difference between wanting to make your own decisions and wanting to be disobedient. I thought this was an excellent point because it effectively shuts down one of the Taliban's main arguments.

Of course, this is all coming from a girl who has been granted quite a bit of independence. Her father is an educated and liberal-minded man who encourages his daughter to study, to work hard, and to speak out for what she believes in. Malala is truly an amazing person, but it's clear that she couldn't have done any of what she did without the help and support of her father. Those two are so adorable. Just look at them.