I tried, but I couldn’t do it. In what has to be a turn up for the books (pun intended), I couldn’t finish the novel I’d chosen for February for my 2008 reading challenge. I read about a quarter before giving up. And it’s supposed to be the author’s best book too.
The book was For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. And given his stature, I never expected to dislike Hemingway’s prose so much. But… the incessant repetition annoyed me, the Spanish syntax used throughout for the dialogue annoyed me, and when the book went into an extended flashback narrated by one of the characters, I couldn’t face any more.
Ah well, I suppose it means the challenge is doing what I intended it to. I may have expected it to introduce me to authors I would like, but I never meant that it had to. Perhaps one day, I’ll watch the film, or try another novel by Hemingway. But for now, it’s time to move on…
Filed under: 2008 reading challenge, ernest hemingway
[...] classic novels by authors I’d not read before: The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith; From Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway; Kim, Rudyard Kipling; A Question of Upbringing, Anthony Powell; Orlando, [...]