Eye On Englewood

Link: http://www.eyeonenglewood.com/

This month the Bookmeisters read John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “A Bell for Adano.”

A journalist covering World War II, Hersey witnessed first-hand elements of the war in Italy.

His book is set in a little fishing village called Adano, whose bell had been taken out of the bell tower and melted by the fascists for the purpose of making bullets.

Major J. sets about reading his “notes to self” when he arrives on the scene. He gives the town crier back his job, and the police chief, and orders the baker to start baking quality bread again.

He has been, behind the scenes, repeatedly advised simply to clean the streets, but leave the rest alone. But the Major is personally interested in both truth as he is integrity, and maybe he wants to make a name for himself.

He finds use for the sulfur plant in business and woos churlish fishermen to their fishing boats by providing them protection from bombs which had been planted in the bay.

One day the chief of police goes to the baker and takes his usual place in the front of the line. The women take issue with him, and a certain vocal peasant abuses the chief’s ego so badly that the chief drags the poor man by the ear, “arrested,” to Major J.

Major J. orders the peasant to respect authority and sends him back to the bread line.

Then, Major J. calls in all of the men to whom he had just granted jobs within his new democracy, and quietly explains what democracy means to him as an American.

Hersey's famous Major J. states, "democracy is a government of the people. It is the taxes of the people which pay the salaries of the government workers. The government workers are servants to the people, and servants do not push their employers out of line so that they may first be served bread."

Major J. tells these men, whom he has shown a particular political grace to by hiring them into the same jobs they enjoyed while serving the fascists; that in his form of government, these men will be happier than they have ever been in their lives.

To see how democracy works in the military possession of an Italian fisher village, or whether Adano gets it’s bell back, you will have to read this little page turner for yourself.