No Bells to Toll: Destruction and Creation in the Andes

By Barbara Bode

"Can stand with that other great story of disaster in Peru, The Bridge of San Luis Rey." -- The New York Times Book Review

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684190656
• ISBN13: 9780684190655
• Release Date: August 1989
• Publisher: Scribner
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating, poignant, and beautifully written story

This paperback is an Authors Guild "Backinprint.com" edition of a wonderful and awesome book originally published by Scribner's Sons in 1989. Whether you have ever been to Peru or the Andes, or know anything about earthquakes and landslides, you will find the book hard to put down once you start reading it. "No Bells to Toll" is the superbly well-written story of the worst natural disaster in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Yet it is a story that remains little known to most of us. In May 1970 a powerful earthquake shook Peru's Department of Ancash, triggering an enormous avalanche that roared down from the heights of Huascarán, Peru's loftiest mountain, into a serenely magnificent Andean valley, the Callejón de Huaylas. The cataclysm devastated the valley, leveling villages, towns, and entire cities, and it killed 76,000 people. Another 140,000 were injured, and as many as 180,000 were left homeless. The valley's infrastructure was destroyed. All this because of an earthquake that lasted less than 45 seconds. The quake was the cruel catalyst for a catastrophe that resonated not only through the religion, politics, and private lives of the valley's residents, many descended from Inca Indians, but through the Catholic Church in Peru and the very government of Peru itself. This is an unforgettable story. Read it!

No Bells to Toll

A stunning account of a community's will to survive. In the process of reading, we become aware of the complex geo/political dynamics which lead to revolution and ultimately terrorism. This is an important read for anyone trying to understand how a people can get pushed so far as to commit seemingly inhuman acts. It is also a powerful testament to those that endure great suffering and yet do not loose their compassion. This book will open the eyes of all "first worlders" to life in the "third world".

Memorandum of a Human Catastrophe

No Bells to Toll. Memorandum of a Human Catastrophe, 16th November 2001 Reviewer: Lalo Robles (see more about me) in Madrid, Spain.No Bells to Toll tells of a tragedy brought about by an earthquake so vividly that the reader is inexorably drawn into a world shattered by pain and desolation. This book allows the survivors of the terrible catastrophe which happened in 1970 in the Andean region of northern Peru known as Callejón de Huaylas to tell their story. It contains the testimonies of simple peasants who have never had any voice in the official record. No Bells to Toll describes one of the manifestations of Andean thought in the way the peasants interpret their universe and understand religion, especially through their fervent worship of the local Christ-figure (Señor de La Soledad). To me, this is one of the most interesting aspects of the book in describing a manifestation of Andean Catholicism which may seem merely picturesque to those unacquainted with the Andean world, but is in reality far from picturesque. The author reveals how Andean peasants have managed to keep the idea of their pre-Columbian god alive in the effigy of Señor de la Soledad.She also delves into a complex world of beliefs which go beyond appearances and make ontological sense. As in any good novel, this stirring account of the tragedy is suffused with a variety of characters: cultured individuals, peasants and anonymous voices who each express a different point of view. We learn from No Bells to Toll that in Callejón de Huaylas, myths and religious beliefs intermingle with the utmost naturalness.This is a comprehensive anthropological study which presents the natural disaster from the standpoint of survivors who use the scientific data available at the time to explain, for example, why earthquakes happen. On another level, it is interesting to see how science and myth are interchangeable concepts in the minds of survivors as they attempt to rationalise the destruction wrought by an earthquake in which 75,000 people perished. It also conveys a startling ecological message in the guilt the survivors say they feel through having caused damage, wittingly or unwittingly, to Mother Nature, which would explain the punishment meted out to them in the deaths of their loved ones and the total destruction of their town, with the loss for all time of a whole way of life.Everything was lost in the catastrophe and nobody, not even the then military government, was able to come up with an effective and immediate response. Meanwhile, behind the scenes a clash arose between disparate sections of society such as an arrogant officialdom, clergy with their internal contradictions, unprotected and unarmed surviving townspeople, and a rural community disoriented by conflicts arising from reforms introduced into religious rites. The book presents this whole background in a most vivid and honest manner. The author's admirable effort in checking everything out by eliciting, to the p

A Book That is Hard to Put Down

When I first picked up this book, No Bells To Toll, I thought, "Probably I'll never get through it." The reality was that I had a hard time putting it down. With the flair of a novelist, Ms.Bode has written an erudite, sensitive, piercing and insightful story of native peoples caught in a terrible tragic earthquake and aftermath. Set in the high Andes of Peru after the monumental earthquake there in 1970, the event and its dramatic effect on the victims largely missed the attention of much of the rest of the world, althought some relief efforts were made. Of these, many fell short, some even served to increase the suffering. There are lessons in several aspects of the thistory that could be applied to other crisis situations as well. An anthropologist, Ms. Bode, who spent different periods of time living with the people in the Peruvian high country, saw much first-hand and analyzed it with clarity. She tells the reader all, even though at times it must have been painful to recall the some of her on-the-scene experiences with the lives, deaths, hardships, confusion, and despair of people she so warmly and sensitively describes. With links back to earlier cultures, the pages bring history to life and help us better understand and appreciate our world, its complexities and all its people. Understanding is especially important in the world today.