Word: adano
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...other revealing book by a TIME & LIFE correspondent (and one that has climbed close to the top of the best-seller lists) is A Bell for Adano, John Hersey's story of what he learned as one of three correspondents who covered the occupation of Sicily for TIME & LIFE...
...about 2,000 copies. Publishers considered 5,000 copies all they could risk on a first novel, used to brag in their ads if any first novel topped that figure. Now first novels like Charles Jackson's The Lost Weekend and John Hersey's A Bell For Adano have both sold nearly 35,000 copies. Most publishers, by tacit agreement, have stopped using sales figures in advertising because, with the Government stressing the paper shortage, big printings might be misunderstood...
When a mule cart blocked his armored car outside Adano, General Marvin ordered the cart tipped off the road. When the terrified mule began to scream, the General ordered it shot. When his staff officers objected, thinking of the effect on the townspeople of Adano, the General damned them up & down. Then the General issued an order forbidding any carts to enter Adano. That stopped all food to the starving town. When General Marvin and Major Joppolo met, each felt an instantaneous, unrelenting mutual dislike that grew in a few moments to intense hatred. When the General discovered that Joppolo...
Bats in the Belfry? But slowly, in spite of General Marvin, Italian apathy, and bureaucratic red tape, Adano was cleaned up, the houses repainted, the people fed, the Italian prisoners returned to their homes. But for Major Joppolo the war was over. His requisition for a bell for Adano struck headquarters as another sign of his failing mind. And when General Marvin discovered that the Major was still on the job, he stopped reading Secretary Stimson's commendations long enough to fire Joppolo...
...mood of A Bell for Adano is bitter. Its humor is raucous and wild. At its worst, it descends to college humorous magazine slapstick. At its best it is a superb piece of reporting. Read unimaginatively, it is a deadly account of U.S. official incompetence. Stripped of its humor, it is the story of a battle for democracy, no less real for being fought without arms, more important than the military engagement that preceded...