The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley
Reviewed by Karen S. Lynch
April 17, 2008
Paula Huntley wrote what she called, Òan accidental
book.Ó Paula, a former teacher, had been working in marketing when her attorney
husband, Ed announced they were leaving their ocean view home in northern
California to live in Kosovo.
Paula never expected the journals she wrote in pencil each
day by candlelight, while living and working in Kosovo would eventually become
a published book. She had turned down two previous book offers to publish her
experiences and those of the Albanian people she came to love. Paula felt the
journals she kept for her own memoirs were personal. Persuasions prevailed
convincing her one of the best ways to help the people of Kosovo was to share
their stories with the world.
Before writing her book, Paula and Ed returned to
Kosovo in the spring of 2002, determined to obtain permission from each person
to share their stories. Paula received not only their permission but also
enthusiasm and encouragement. ÒThe Albanians wanted their stories told.Ó
The HuntleyÕs first arrived in Kosovo in September of 2000,
months after the 1998-1999 escalation of the war of Serbian terror and ethnic
cleansing. NATO-led troops including Americans drove the paramilitary and all
but an estimated 200 Serbs from the newly independent nation of Kosovo (the
recognized UN spelling. The Albanians use Kosova.)
Ed and Paula found rural Kosovo of 2000 in ruins, with
75% poverty and little infrastructure. For much of their lives, the Albanians
had been victims of vicious apartheid and poverty. Torture and murder was
common. Serbian armies committed an estimated thirty thousand rapes of Albanian
girls and women – some rape victims never seen again. One student told
Paula, ÒThe husbands or fathers see rape as a crime against their honor.Ó
The Serbs burned and looted most homes, leaving the
Albanians with no windows, torn roofs and broken bricks that lie in piles on
the ground. There were no working landline phones. Cell phones lacked ÒAlcatelÓ
chips to make them work. The satellite internet often did not work. There was
no heat and only occasion electricity, powered mostly by generator.
Garbage, dust, and pollution had become the normal way
of life. Clean water was scarce, sold by bottles to non-government
organizations. Going to markets or walking in certain areas was dangerous with
many explosive devices all over the countryside.
Ed Huntley was determined, through the American Bar
Association, to help the fledgling government build a modern legal system. Paula
had been a teacher for a brief time of several subjects, including art history
and geography. She received an English teaching certificate and job offer at
the Cambridge School, a privately owned English-language school in Kosovo. The
students Paula taught had been middle-class urban Kosovars before the war. They
were able to pay the twenty-five dollars each month to attend the Cambridge
School.
The Hemingway
Book Club of Kosovo (Penguin, ©2003) was born in much the same way as the actual
book club itself. Paula had found one copy of HemingwayÕs The Old Man and the Sea. ÒItÕs the right length, the prose is
simple enough for the intermediate level, and its story, I think, will resonate
with these brave young people.Ó
Paula had photocopies made for all her students, who told
her it was the first book in English they had owned. Her student, Leonard came
up to her. ÒWe cannot believe anyone would be so kind to us. You encourage, you
spend time with us. You give us the books. No one else does this for us ever.Ó
The first book club meeting, held in her home began
with reading the opening paragraph from HemingwayÕs, The Old Man and the Sea. Paula wrote she did not know if the
elegance of HemingwayÕs language, with its rhythm and power would translate
well to Albanian speakers but she was certain the story would.
Paula asked her students what Hemingway meant in the
first paragraph. The students said he could not catch a fish or was old and
poor. One student said he had a boat. The simple language Hemingway used
brought simple answers to her questions.
Paula probes her students to look deeper by asking if
the old man really had nothing. ÒTeacher, says Senti, Òhe has the little boy,
Manolin, who loves him.Ó
ÒYes,Ó says Granit 2, really interested now, Òand the
old man has, I think, great courage. Even though he has not caught a fish, he
has not stopped. He keeps trying.Ó
Paula asked if they could identify with anyone in the
story. ÒI see light coming into their eyes as they begin to understand that the
old manÕs struggle, his endurance, describe their own lives, the recent history
of their country. Will they come to see that they are the heroes of their own
stories?Ó Paula said the young people knew about ÒundefeatedÓ as they lived it
everyday.
ÒIf Hemingway had been alive in 1998 and 1999, IÕm
quite sure he would have come to Kosovo.Ó Paula asked her students why. They
said he would admire their struggles and he liked to fight.
Paula added, ÒHemingway knew that war was a terrible
thing. But he knew that sometimes you have to fight. I think he would have
agreed that in Kosova (Albanian spelling) it was necessary to fight.Ó Paula
added she thought Hemingway would have respected that they never gave up, even
when things seemed hopeless.
Hemingway himself said there was no symbolism in his
book – Òthe sea is the sea and the fish is the fish.Ó Paula told her
students, ÒThe sea itself is perhaps the most powerful image in the book.Ó
After much discussion, the students agree, ÒThat the sea is everything, it is
our world, it is life.Ó There is agreement among the students that the sea holds
both good animals and bad. ÒThe sea gives the old man happiness and it gives
him sorrow, and he must do the best he can with all of it.Ó
ÒAnd how about the big fish the old man wants to
catch,Ó I ask, ÒWhat is Hemingway talking about here?Ó
ÒAh that is an easy one,Ó Faton says. ÒThe fish is the
goal we all try to reach. Everyone wants one big fish.Ó
Paula wrote, ÒThe Hemingway Book Club of Kosova has changed everything. Before I started the club,
we were just a classÉ but now something remarkable has happened. We are a club,
a group of people who share a special link with each other.Ó The book club had
overcome barriers in language for Paula as a teacher. ÒEven those whose English
is not strong enough to follow the book easily know that the book club has
connected us in a new, more intimate way.Ó
The book club had opened possibilities and career
choices students discussed with Paula. The students began asking her for more
American literature. ÒThe class now is
the club, and weÕre beginning to feel like a family.Ó
Ed and Paula Huntley try to return to Kosovo every
couple of years. ÒIÕve already begun to think of presents to take – The Complete Short Stories of Ernest
Hemingway for everyone, and maybe English translation of their great
Albanian writer, Ismail Kadare, whose works I have grown to love.Ó
At the suggestion of her husband, Paula had made T-Shirts
with a picture of a Marlin leaping from the sea and the words, ÒThe Hemingway
Book Club of KosovaÓ on the front. Her students had reprimanded Paula because
she spelled ÒKosovoÓ wrong, insisting she use the Albanian spelling, ÒKosova.Ó
Huntley explains in her book why she decided to use the traditionally known
spelling for her book, written for her ÒEnglishÓ readers. It is one of the
ironies of translation between two worlds.