ernest hemingway – EllaThought

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” by #ErnestHemmingway

Hemingway drags out 4 days over 500 pages but I’m not complaining. (He takes his time crafting the love scenes as much as the war scenes.) He writes about the complexities of life with the same ease one makes love — fluidly and unbound. With the same fluidity, the main character, Roberto, manages to fall in love and die in the most beautiful ways a man can.

Hemingway drops us into mountains somewhere in the middle of the Spain Civil War, introducing us to every person he meets with the brutal truth of an outsider. Living in a cave with commoners turned guerrilla, Roberto has to build himself an army and blow up a bridge in just 4 days. Maybe this is only possible in a book: for a lone soldier to befriend people enough to convince them to join his fight and give their lives for their country. Roberto spends his days learning people, giving orders and learning to give people orders. He spends his nights in a sleeping bag, waiting for his lover to arrive and help him escape, if only for a moment, into a place of pure bliss and happiness.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Witten by PresidentELLA The old man knew. For the most part, life takes faith and patience. I couldn’t have chose a better book to read during my trip to Cuba to find my long-lost family and (forgive my Catholicism) I think God chose this for me as God seemed to guide and protect the oldContinue reading “The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway”

A Farewell to Arms by #ErnestHemingway

Written by @PresidentELLA

This story tugs at your heart. We can read history books all we want, but this is a wonderful tale of an individual life. Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” is a story about love and war. The American solider is fighting on the Italian side during World War I and we get to follow him on his daily conquests – whether it be women or in his job or riding around with the ambulance. The whole time he’s at war, you’re thinking about his lady back home even if he doesn’t want to. With every page you turn, you find yourself praying for a man who doesn’t believe in anything… That, in my opinion, is great writing. Hemingway made me care.