Louis BromfieldRecensioner

Hlavním motivem románu je příběh romantické lásky, která pomůže svou čistotou a silou najít smysl života krásné, požitkářské ženě znuděné penězi, prázdným životem a přízní mužů. V Bombaji, největším indickém přístavu, kde se mísí prvky západní a východní civilizace se sešla skupinka dobrodruhů z celého světa, snažící se zahnat nudu v hernách, barech, na dostizích a na večírcích u bohatého a zhýralého maharádži. Odehrávají se zde jejich malá osobní dramata, spřádají se pletichy, proplétají se složité vztahy

Znuděný a trochu cynický Ransome a jemná, zasněná Fern tvoří spolu s dalšími malou enklávu Evropanů v indickém Ránčípuru. Pravidelný rytmus života ustáleného společenství je narušen příjezdem krásné lady Hestonové. Svým zjevem a povahou se do Indie nehodí, je jako krásný motýl, který oslní a chystá se zase uletět. Přírodní katastrofa, která Ránčípur postihne, prověří charaktery všech obyvatel a změní jejich životy.

Druhá světová válka přivedla Bromfielda opět domů a ke staré lásce, zemědělství. Svou farmu nazval Malabar, podle indického kraje a učinil z ní výstavní kousek pěstitelství.

Londýn 1937. Společenská sezóna začíná. Pořádají se hostiny a nevázané večírky... Náhle se v jejich centru objeví výstřední vdova Anna Boltonová, jejíž minulost skrývá hořké tajemství.

When the approach of war forced bestselling novelist Louis Bromfield to leave France in the late thirties, he chose to settle with his family in the area where he had grown up, near Mansfield, Ohio. In this book he writes about the group of farms he bought to live on and work, and his approach to restoring the soil from the erosion and damage caused by the non-sustainable farming techniques of some of his predecessors there. There is a lot about mulch and legumes and water management and the evils of deep ploughing, but there are also Bromfield’s lyrical reflections on the nature of Ohio, and on some of his less destructive neighbours (plus some distinguished fore-runners, like the semi-legendary Johnny Appleseed), as well as some rather less measured reflections on the evils of mid-20th century American society (as compared to France, for instance).

Sometimes Bromfield seems to forget that he’s a wealthy and well-connected man who can afford to do experimental agriculture at a time of food and labour shortages, and sees himself as though he were some kind of peasant revolutionary, so the book can be a bit irritating, but elsewhere it is very interesting to see his way of working, always taking a close look at what might be going on when something they have done on the farm produces a surprisingly good or bad result. It’s not quite rigorous scientific testing, but obviously a worthwhile attempt at bringing scientific methods into everyday work. Bromfield’s key mantra seems to be about alertness to the specific local factors that often mean a textbook technique may not be the most appropriate for the place where you happen to be farming.

I’m not an expert on organic farming, but I found this very interesting, and I enjoyed sharing the great pleasure Bromfield obviously took in doing a good job in a lovely place.

A Ranchipur, una ciudad de la India colonial, está a punto de llegar el monzón que cambiará para siempre la vida de todos sus habitantes.

Ya en la primera página de esta espléndida novela vamos a conocer a Susie Parkington, que a sus ochenta y cuatro años se viste para la cena de Navidad en una mansión de Manhattan. Corren los años posteriores a la gran crisis de 1929, pero su patrimonio ha resistido los peores embates gracias a la astucia de Gus Parkington, que murió hace años.
Cuando por fin la señora entra en el salón para tomar el aperitivo con hijos y nietos, el espectáculo es patético: quien no se desmoronado y aniquilado bajo el peso del aburrimiento, se ha casado de la peor manera; quien no ha robado, traficando con acciones de poco valor e hinchando el mercado con promesas falsas, se ha dejado estafar persiguiendo quimeras, y todos aguardan con cierta impaciencia que la mujer descanse en paz y la herencia se reparta, pero tendrán que esperar: Susie sigue firme, al mando, procurando que el futuro sea un lugar donde el trabajo honesto tenga un sentido.

`El río salvaje`, transcurre durante los turbulentos tiempos de la guerra de Secesión en Estados Unidos. Escrito con una pluma vigorosa y, con frecuencia, cruda. Pinta la vida con colores vivos y profundiza sin miramientos en el alma de cada uno de sus personajes. -el río salvaje- es una crítica mordaz y áspera de los vicios decadentes de la sociedad. El autor no duda en echar mano de cuantos recursos narrativos se le ofrecen a su pluma.

The book is a mix of farm dairy passages during WWII and editorialized editions from a few years later. It’s interesting that many of the arguments made are still being made today (not abusing the land and soil, the struggles of small family farms to compete with large companies, etc). The political commentary is also interesting (lots of discussion about the New Deal). The comments about black folks not being stupid but just not having been ‘civilized’ properly might have sounded almost progressive to white northerners, but now just sound racist. Without the racism, I’d probably give the book four stars (I found the agriculture parts really engaging) but one can’t ignore parts of a work that we find reprehensible. As a piece of history, it’s worth reading, but only through a modernized lens. I’ve chosen not to rate it at all.

2021 movie #225. Roberto (Cooper) is an American in the Spanish Civil War. On a mission to blow up a vital bridge he works with a band of partisans, including Maria (Bergman) and falls in love. Top grossing movie of 1943. From the Hemmingway novel.

Louis Bromfield can be rather fun. In this book we follow the fate of a young dancer from the wrong side of Evanston, Indiana's tracks. Back home, she was Irma Peters, but her stage name in Paris was Roxie Dawn. She'd been a headliner in a Paris night club for about ten years when the book begins, a quite successful one.

But, the Nazis have just taken Paris and people are fleeing. Should Roxie go back to America, or should she stay in Paris where she'd had a successful life? Her boss convinced her to stay with the show. Then too, her lover, Nicholas Stejadze was there.

Her boss convinces her to befriend a Nazi Major in hopes that she might "learn something". It seems the boss and Nicholas are working to set up an underground resistance to the Nazi occupation. Roxie isn't sure she hates Germans enough to help, but she keeps her options open.

It's a fascinating look at a perilous time and how people coped with uncertainty and oppression.

J'ai été sous l'emprise de ce roman, de bout en bout, même si le ton en est démodé, un brin raciste et machiste. Mais le style, ma psychologie des personnages sont très intéressants. L'on sent aussi l'amour de l'auteur pour la France, même si c'est celle des quartiers chics et des gens fortunés... je me suis laissée emporter par cette longue histoire.

AG-5

K-0

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Un mercenario americano promette di aiutare i repubblicani a distruggere un ponte strategico durante la guerra civile spagnola. (fonte: Wikipedia)

The first ten per cent or so of this book was a bit of a tough slog, perhaps due to getting used to a new author's style. But, I ended up loving this book.

David Sorrell is a journalist in Europe in the years leading up to World War II. Although times are becoming tough, there is still a cadre of "beautiful people", living a life of parties and idleness, the life of the good old times. He goes to a party in London and sees one of the hot things of the day, Anna Bolton. Anna is a rich American widow and the toast of the town. Sorrell remembers Anna from her growing up years in Lewisburg, Ohio. Then, she was Annie Scanlon, the daughter of "Mary the cleaning woman". She lived on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, and vowed that one day she would "show" Lewisburg. When he first meets Anna at the party, Anna feigns not to recognize Sorrell, and he doesn't push it. He muses on how far she has come.

After some time, the "beautiful people" seem to have gathered in Paris. Anna fits into that society as well, but as the Germans begin invading France, she flees to the South of France. She makes a home for herself, for a time in a small town where she helps refugees. The beautiful people begin to wonder "what ever became of Anna Bolton?" Sorrell eventually finds her again and extracts her story.

So we have a story of a poor, but intelligent and ambitious woman leaving her poor beginnings behind and fighting her way into the top echelons of society. Then because of war and other interesting events, begins to realize how shallow that life was, a life that was essentially in its death throes anyway. She finds redemption in later life working to help mitigate some of the horrors the second world war has meted on innocent people. A wonderful story.

Well, this was a tough slog. It wasn't a bad book, but I think I'm no longer interested in rich, privileged assholes who waste oodles of time thinking they're better than everyone else and idling away their time with drinking and gambling. Of course, that wasn't the point of the book, just the primary "action", so to speak.

We have a ship going to Bombay carrying Bill Wainwright, a rich playboy who is trying to go straight. He's going to India on the family business. His fellow passengers include Baroness Stephani, who is actually a procurer; Marchesa Carviglia, a former procuree of the Baroness, who managed to snag a prominent Italian Fascist, and who is off for a fling away from her impotent and controlling spouse; and Mrs. Flora Trollope, known to her friends as Stitch, an Australian by birth and the sister of the Maharani of Chandragar. The two sisters hate each other, but poor Stitch married a scoundrel who is in jail and needs someone off of whom to live.

Then we have a train car coming from the Indian hinterlands to Bombay. Its passengers include a "missionary", Homer (Buck) Merrill, who is traveling with his son, soon to be sent back to the U.S. to be educated properly, and a young, blind, village boy named Ali, who is to be treated in Bombay by a famous visiting surgeon to cure his blindness. There is a problem on the train with the "royal" car, and the passenger of that car, Carol Halma, aka Olga Janssen, a former Miss Minnesota and "actress", ends up in Buck Merrill's car with the two boys.

So, anyway, the folks on the boat and the folks on the train all meet up at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay. It seems that , there are numerous interconnections between these folks. It turns out that the good and righteous Buck Merrill, was the best friend and school chum of Bill Wainright, back in the day. Then too, Carol Halma, was once the wife of Bill. She's still a bit of a party girl, but wonders if there isn't something better...or something. Carol has oodles of jewelry from the likes of Jelly, the Maharajah of Jellipore, and from Mr. Botlivala. Buck has some fits of indisposition on the train, and Carol helps him work through them.

........Huh? I seem to have broken off in mid thought, and now some three months later, I'm not remembering all that much. Whatever, it's a convoluted, but somewhat engaging story. Not at the level of Jane Austen or Dostoyevsky, but then, what is?

DESCRIPCIÓN DE LA INDIA EN UN MOMENTO CLAVE DE SU HISTORIA, CONTRASTES ENTRE EL MUNDO ANTIGUO Y EL NUEVO QUE AFLORA.

Un capolavoro, anni che nn leggevo un romanzo così toccante,delizioso, sconvolgente e violento....
sembra impossibile che tutti questi aggettivi possano stare insieme ma è così.
Una perla rara letta da pochi, libro scovato per caso nella lista dei libri suggeriti dalla mia prof di greco al liceo nei primi anni 90. che emozione!

Un capolavoro, anni che nn leggevo un romanzo così toccante,delizioso, sconvolgente e violento....
sembra impossibile che tutti questi aggettivi possano stare insieme ma è così.
Una perla rara letta da pochi, libro scovato per caso nella lista dei libri suggeriti dalla mia prof di greco al liceo nei primi anni 90. che emozione!

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the author used was able to craft vivid images with words. Pleasant Valley is a memoir, written after having been an ex-pat for nearly 30 years in many countries, but was always a bit homesick for his home in Ohio, where he had been born and lived until going to fight in WWI. With the initial rumblings in Europe in the 30's, and those in tune with what was going on recommended he and his family return, he finally heeded the call, returning to his beloved Ohio and bought a farm. He had always loved gardening/ farming and animals; the earth and watching things grow and used his farm to experiment with his theories of how to return health to otherwise "dead" soil and how to raise healthier crops naturally, without the aid of chemicals. The books not only details what he had done and what worked or not, but also goes into local lore and history (Johnny Appleseed, the Dauphin), memories of his childhood, local flora and fauna, and paints a very quaint picture with his writing.
I was unaware of his popularity years ago, or his fame as a writer (winning the Pulitzer in 1927 for Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady), that all of his 30 books were best sellers-- many being made into movies, his friendships with other ex-pats of the era, and of his fame in the field of organic farming-- actually a pioneer in some regards. At the time, by many farmers, his notions were regarded as unsound, but the results of the output of his farm won many over. His farm was as famous as he was-- Malabar Farm, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall getting married there. According to wikipedia:
""Malabar Farm" was to become his major work during his last 20 years. Bromfield was an early proponent of organic and self-sustaining gardening, and his farm was one of the first to stop using pesticides. The farm was used as a government test site for soil conservation practices.[2] However, as recently as 2017 no-till farming is practiced by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the current Farm owner. No-till farming is highly dependent on pesticides and herbicides for pest and weed control. For example, atrazine, which has a controversial history, is one of many herbicides being applied.

Bromfield's writings turned from fiction to nonfiction and his reputation and influence as a conservationist and farmer continued to expand. Today, thousands of visitors annually visit Malabar Farm State Park, which still operates under Bromfield's management philosophy. One of the park's notable features is the Doris Duke Woods, named for philanthropist Doris Duke, who was a friend of Bromfield's and whose donation helped purchase the property after his death.

In the 1980s, Louis Bromfield was posthumously elected to the Ohio Agricultural Hall of Fame, and in December 1996, the centennial of his birth, the Ohio Department of Agriculture placed a bust of him in the lobby named for him at the department's new headquarters in Reynoldsburg, Ohio.

The innovative and visionary work of Louis Bromfield continues to influence agricultural methodologies around the world. Malabar Brazil, under the direction of Ellen Bromfield Geld, has expanded the horizons of her father's principles and pursuits. To ensure the work continues well into the 21st century, the Malabar 2000 Foundation plans to develop a center for study at Malabar Farm to further the work begun in Richland County (Mansfield, Ohio) by Louis Bromfield.

Bromfield was close friends with acting legend, farmer and soil conservationist James Cagney."

Louis Bromfield also was involved in the creation of "Friends of the Land".:
"Friends of the land and the rise of environmentalism, 1940–1954
Article in Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 8(1):1-16 · January 1995 with 81 Reads
DOI: 10.1007/BF02286398
The rise of the postwar environmental movement is rooted in the development of ecological consciousness within intellectual circles as well as the general public. Though many commentators cite the 1960s as the focal point of the new environmentalism, the ecological ethic had actually evolved by the 1930s in the writings and speeches of both scientists and public commentators. Agricultural conservationists led the way in broadcasting the message of ecology. Friends of the Land, an agriculturally-oriented conservation organization formed in 1940 and active through the 1950s, is an interesting example of how the agricultural community was an integral component in the rise of environmentalism. While Friends of the Land flourished only for a brief period, its goals and the ideas that the group represented illustrate how the ecological ethic was burgeoning by the early-1950s. Furthermore, the history of Friends of the Land is an important chapter in the ongoing quest for ecological agriculture and societal permanence.

Friends of the land and the rise of environmentalism, 1940–1954. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... [accessed Jun 07 2018]."

I think Mr. Bromfield was a visionary, way ahead of his time, and this book is just as timely now as when he wrote it. I saw one review that said they thought Mr. Bromfield sounded kind of "braggy" through the book, but I did not feel that at all. I thought he was proud of what he had accomplished (and rightly so) despite what all the naysayers and said. His love of the earth and all things in it was apparent, and he relished in describing the beauty he saw. I am glad to have read this book, it has enriched my life in a simple but thoughtful way.

"Non chiedere mai per chi suona la campana", scrisse il poeta John Donne, "essa suona per te". Per questo Robert Jordan, intellettuale americano, si è unito alle Brigate Internazionali che durante la guerra civile spagnola difendono la Repubblica dall'esercito di Franco. Esperto di sabotaggi, Robert viene inviato dal generale Golz sulle montagne, per prendere contatto con un gruppo di guerriglieri. La sua missione consisterà nel far esplodere un ponte controllato dal nemico, in concomitanza con un massiccio attacco dell'esercito repubblicano. Il capo dei guerriglieri, Pablo, ormai stanco di combattere, non approva l'operazione, ma aiuta ugualmente Robert nei preparativi. Nel frattempo l'americano conosce la giovane Maria, vittima di violenze durante una feroce rappresaglia dei franchisti. Con la benedizione della compagna di Pablo, Pilar, che si è presa cura della ragazza, Robert e Maria vivono una intensa storia d'amore nei tre giorni che precedono la battaglia. Mentre Pablo tenta di boicottare la missione, Robert scopre che il nemico ha ammassato mezzi e truppe nella zona. Tenta di avvisare Golz perché fermi l'attacco, ma il ragazzo inviato come messaggero arriva troppo tardi al comando. Robert è costretto a procedere a ogni costo. Aiutato da Pablo, che finalmente ha ritrovato il proprio coraggio, fa esplodere il ponte. Ma durante la fuga viene gravemente ferito e, non potendo proseguire senza essere d'intralcio agli altri, fa condurre in salvo Maria e resta da solo ad affrontare gli inseguitori, sicuro di morire.

Un profumo delizioso nella prima parte che poi però svanisce velocemente.

Bromfield wrote during the 1920-50's, much like Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald; although his style is much different. The book, The Green Bay Tree is the story of deep evocative change during the time period of 1880-WWI. One could read this story today and believe it was written about today's society; it's timeless. It's the story of an unnamed steel mill town (ostensibly Pittsburgh), the matron of Cypress Hill and her 2 daughters, one a societal flirt and the other a wanna be nun. Throw into the mix a Russian union agitator, the Governor of the State, a child born out of wedlock, and you have the makings of a great story and imho Bromfield serves it up well. The book does not even hint at the title, but other critics claim it was taken from Psalm 37:35 "I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a luxuriant native tree."

More on the author, he was one of the first environmentalists and wrote many agriculture books on farming and saving the soil. Both Hemmingway and Fitzgerald called him "Brommie" and said he wrote stories for their grandmothers.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married on Bromfield's farm, Malabar, in front of the piano. Today the house is a museum and the piano is still there.

This was a timelessly-themed classic and a work of superior prose. I'm only giving it 4 1/2 stars because I could not figure out the reason for the title! 352 pages½