For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway | excelsior!

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For Whom the Bell ...

	For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway Scribner, 1995 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 272 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

His Masterwork

Just about anything Hemingway ever wrote was pretty good and you really can't go wrong with him if you're looking for a good read. He is at his very best, though, in this one. It was written at the peak of his power and is rightly considered one of the great novels of the twentieth century.

Like all great novels it gives you new insight as you reread it over the years. When a teenager, I recall being enthralled by the love story and the pure adventure of it. As a young adult, it was the tragicomic nature of the characters which was so engrossing. Later on as an adult, I was struck by Hemingway's view of the bleak, futile nature of human endeavor. This time around it was the political discourse I found to be thought-provoking; sections of the novel that in the past I had pretty much glossed through.

A lot of the talk--from all of the characters--was that in order to make change, it was necessary to kill those who stood in the way of it. Each of them to varying degrees agreed with this. And it struck me that this was the prevailing worldwide philosophy of the time. Hitler and Stalin, of course, were the extreme examples, but this kind of thinking was prevalent here as well. There was an awful lot of sympathy in the good ole U. S. for what the Soviet Union was trying to accomplish, and although we never got to the point in this country where people were getting killed, FDR wielded his power like it was his personal possession. The point, I think, is that there is always someone in the world who is absolutely sure they know what's best for you. When someone like this gets in power, watch out.

In any event, Hemingway is pretty even-handed about it and this commentary is actually only a small part of the novel. The story, as everybody knows, is about American Robert Jordan, who is sent by his communist masters during the Spanish Civil War to the mountains in order to blow up a bridge. There he is assisted by the guerrilla band led by Pilar and Pablo, which is comprised of the most memorable set of characters you will ever meet in literature.

There is old Anselmo, perhaps the noblest of them all, dedicated and faithful to the cause, who agonizes over those he must kill and prays that he will be forgiven. There is Rafael the gipsy, incapable of staying at his post as he delightedly snares a couple of plump rabbits. There is the stolid and dull Fernando, oblivious to wit or double-entendre. There is the fierce Augustin, utterly committed to the cause.

And then there is Maria, the nineteen-year old refugee--with deep, horrible secrets--and with whom Roberto falls hopelessly in love. It is the kind of love affair that is utterly captivating to the reader and the kind of thing that only great authors are able to pull off. Robert is drawn to her coltish, long-legged grace; her cropped, red hair; her brown, swarthy skin. Hemingway spends a lot of time on Robert's thoughts about her, and a lot of time with the two of them together. Their spoken endearments to one another--often playful, sometimes silly, occasionally solemn--could have easily slipped into the realm of the ridiculous, but never does under the sure hand of the great Hemingway. It is instead extremely moving and it should be mentioned that this is extremely risky to pull off.

And Pablo. Once the fiercest of the Republicans, he is now well-fed and content in his mountain hideaway, has a dozen or so horses that make him rich, and knows that the actions contemplated by Roberto will bring an end to his safety. He is a schemer, Pablo, a clever, ruthless wretch, and many of the plot twists stem from his machinations.

And finally, Pilar; the spectacular, magnificent Pilar; Pablo's wife. Her character is justifiably recognized for her description of the smell of death, and her description of the day that the loyalists drove the fascists out of her town--by forcing them to jump to their deaths, one at a time, over a cliff--but to me it is the smaller things that make her such an unforgettable character. She is bitter when the young man turns away from her when he is asked to kiss her, understanding that she has never been beautiful, and knowing now that she is, to him, repulsive. She describes in memorable detail her love affair with a matador in Valencia, and how she drank cold beer with the sweat dripping off the glass while he napped in the room behind her. She is coarse and often crude, but never cruel; she is hard as stone, but as deeply compassionate as anyone. She is a gipsy and a saint and the greatest creation of Hemingway's career.

There is much more to talk about. The style of course, is all Hemingway, typically descriptive and insightful. But this novel is much richer. For once, with his excellent use of interior monologue--a practice he had been experimenting with for years--we finally get to know his characters in depth, rather then just viewing them from the outside like they are on a movie screen.

Typically, his use of language is direct and to the point, but again, he is at his best in this one, so much so that he occasionally treads into the realm of the delightful. For example, by design or by necessity, Hemingway did not use obscene words in the novel. His creativity, though, in expressing the vulgar is nothing less than a thrill. Here are the first words out of Pilar's mouth, early on, as she castigates the gipsy: "What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnamable unmarried gipsy obscenity? What are you doing?" Absolutely hilarious, and there is no way this could have been done better using any kind of vocabulary.

Plot, characters, theme, everything. One of the greatest at his best. A novel not to be missed.

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excelsior!

must be where Metallica got the song name from. Anyways this is one of but many authors that, like Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain decided to take the easy way out. In the meantime he penned this great literature that is a great book. I don't care what anybody says, the old man and the sea is boring and short and so with that I bid you good day and happy reading!

My first venture into Hemingway

This was my first time reading a book by Hemingway, and it was not all I had hoped for. The Spanish Civil War is one of my major interests (it was the subject of my undergraduate research thesis) and so I ordered this book with great anticipation. Unfortunately, I was not completely satisfied.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" gives a great understanding of the personalities and characters of the Spanish people. It also is balanced in the sense that it shows that atrocities were committed by both sides.

However, my main complaint with the book is that it seems like nothing happens. It is not until probably the last 100 pages or so that action begins to take place. (Granted, there were many instances during the Spanish Civil War where the lines were at a standstill and nothing DID happen, so perhaps in that sense it is quite accurate). But despite how much Hemingway tries to build up to the destruction of the bridge, it's not exciting by the time you actually get to that point.

The other thing that irritated me (and this is just as a Spanish speaker) was that the dialogue is written as though it was literally translated word-for-word from Spanish conversation rather than translated for meaning. For example, the dialogue reads, "That he comes soon," ("que venga pronto") instead of, "I hope he comes soon," or "He better come soon." It just makes the dialogue awkward and unnatural.

Despite my complaints, I will not let this be my only reading of Hemingway and I will try out something else of his in the near future.

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Gotta love Hemingway

The last time I read Hemingway's novels was some ten years ago in Spain. I thought I was pretty cool. I read "The Sun Also Rises and A Farwell to Arms." I don't recall what I thought of them. But one thing I do know is that it is sometimes difficult to separate the legacy or mystique of certain writers from the work at hand.

I thought most of the book was very well done. The reality of war was crafted in a way that compares well to more modern portraits of war ("The Things They Carried," "Apocalypse Now," "Deer Hunter," "Jarhead"). The true violence of humiliation, dehumanization, and violation are hauntingly evoked. There are scenes in this novel that I will not forget: the killing of the fascists in Pablo and Pilar's village, the rape of Maria and the murder of her parents, the death of Anselmo at the bridge. The portrayal of men and women, those who try to hold on to some sort of moral clarity and those who lose their bearings, was brilliant. When it comes to men at war, the book shines.

A technique that I found interesting was the way that Hemingway created the absent character of Kashkin. He serves as a counter point to Robert Jordan and as an example of all that could and eventually does happen. The absent character adds depth to the novel; it gives a skeleton upon which to hang the clothes of the past.

However, there were places in the book where I felt uncomfortable, like watching the awkward intimacies of adolescents. The love scenes in the book were failures. And I keep trying to figure out why.

One reason perhaps is that they happened without enough development. Like some romantic comedy, the two lovers see one another and almost instantly fall in love. Granted, the entire novel takes place in three days, but every other part of the narrative is carefully developed. Though the timeframe is compact, there is plenty of space in the narrative. The book is nearly 500 pages long. The sex, the declarations of love, the intimacy, it all seems hollow.

In every other place in the novel there is complexity, nuance. But when it comes to romance, to the issue of love, the novel falls into absolutes and clichés. Robert Jordan is too righteous in his love for Maria. He is too loyal, too gentle. They love each other fully and doubtlessly. And in a novel that creates such a real portrait of war and moral ambiguity; complexity in loyalty, politics, allegiance, nationality, and idealism, to offer the reader such an ordinary, pop-song rendition of love nearly justifies skipping every section where one sees the words "little rabbit."

Hemingway attempts to integrate language into the story by employing the occasional Spanish word along with an antiquated sort of English, full of thou and thee. This is supposed to simulate Catalan. But it does not work. It just makes characters that talk funny.

But of course, it is after all Hemingway. And everybody should read it.

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Oh, Buttercup

I read this book a couple years ago and loved it. War, adventure, love, it's like The Princess Bride minus lighthearted fairytale-ness. I highly recommend it.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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