Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote an open letter to Le Monde, which he published on his website as well, about, what else, the Greek debt crisis. SLL published an excerpt and a link, “Alexis Tsipras: The Bell Tolls for Europe,” 5/31/15, from automaticearth.com. One thing was annoying. A petty annoyance, you may say, but an annoyance nonetheless. Here is Tsipras’s last paragraph:
If some, however, think or want to believe that this decision concerns only Greece, they are making a grave mistake. I would suggest that they re-read Hemingway’s masterpiece, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.
Aside from the bad punctuation (book titles are italicized, not put in quotes) and a literary judgment SLL does not share, Hemingway’s novel has nothing to do with European debt, and it’s hard to see any applicability to the present crisis. However, Hemingway took the title of the novel from Meditation XVII, by English poet and cleric John Donne (1572-1631). That is the work Tsipras should have cited; it is quite appropriate, supporting his arguments:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
