For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

It isn't a great sign when the epigraph is the part of a novel that you found most affecting and memorable. For me this was the case with For Whom The Bell Tolls.

There were some interesting segments here, like the depiction of how a town was rid of fascists or the chapter where soldiers wait for the enemy mortars to arrive, but most of the book just wasn't interesting to me, nor did it feel authentic or personal. For a less removed depiction of the Spanish Civil War try reading A Moment of War by Laurie Lee. ( )

The best novel of an overrated writer. Compelling. For once his minimalist writing is well used in creating an aura of imminent danger. Good book. ( )

Estoy leyendo este libro, y me parece una historia muy bonita, hasta el momento me gusta mucho, es entretenedora, sobre todo las peripecias de los personajes que viven en el bosque y una cueva.
El final del libro me sorprendió, ya que al inicio de leerlo no entendía el significado de la frase, por quien doblan las campanas, es una frase que se aplica cuando alguien a muerto, entonces por eso es el final del libro, las campanas doblaron para Robert jordan. El libro lo leí, y realmente de todo lo que leí algo que se quedo mucho en mi mente, fue la frase que usaron María y Robert despues de haber hecho el amor, ellos describian ese momento como "la tierra temblaba" es muy curiosa esa forma de expresión para aquella epoca entonces. ( )

The problem with Ernest Hemingway I guess is that, well, he's Ernest Hemingway.

He was the first author in modern days who consciously forced an image of himself out on the world - and that image was a big bluff self-contained "Man's Man" who could shoot and fish and drink and run with the bulls with the best of them.

And one who let us say had complicated relationships with women.

So a book like For Whom The Bell Tolls it has to come with a lot of baggage.

Easy to forget that Hemingway also hung around with Gertrude Stein and was in his own way constantly experimenting with prose style and narrative structure.

You probably know the plot - from the movie anyway. Spanish Civil War. American in love with Spain joins up with a ragtag band of Rebels to blow up a bridge.

Along the way he meets and falls in love with a damaged young girl, a child of the forest, and meets others who represent archetypes of different kinds of people in Spain.

Farmers who just want a bit of land to farm. Generals who order their soldiers to kill and sometimes stop and wonder why. Foolish people and angry people and complex loving people too. Each one has his story and his moment.

The futility of war. How quickly idealism changes into something else, but never quite quite dies.

Can't say enough about the writing - it's tight and clear and at times deeply lyrical. The chapters about the massacre of the "Fascists" and the clear sharp description of El Sordo's last stand are amazing and almost journalistic.

And yet . . . and yet. I think to see Hemingway as a "Journalist" is to miss something. He's after bigger game here, I think. (He even sneaks in a little tribute quote to Stein late in the book - just to see if you're paying attention.)

A lot of people in my book group had trouble with it - or with him. But I cared deeply about the people and stood openmouthed in awe at the writing. Sometimes it's too formal and sometimes it doesn't work - but when it does work it's amazing.

A big ambitious book with a lot of little lovely surprises. Give it a try. ( )

Oh boy. The printer almost did me in with this one. I got to page 442 and the next page was 412. Only the fact that Jim had the text on Kindle saved me from self-explosion. And it's a library book! Didn't anyone tell the librarian about the defect?!?!

ok. got that said. Now, about the book.

I was somewhat surprised by how many people in my f2f reading group actively disliked this book. They objected to Hemingway's portrayal of women (gee, the younger one is pretty naive, and the older one isn't. right). They objected to his attempt to represent the difference between 'usted' and 'tu' in Spanish by using 'you' and 'thou', etc. in English. And I admit that some of the attempts to make the text sound like a translation from the Spanish were worse than awkward,and the editor did the story no favor in insisting that the naturally obscene language be masked so clumsily.

But what about the story? What about the naive volunteer trying his best to be a good soldier for a cause he thinks he believes in, in spite of what we know about the errors and excesses of that cause? The partisan band in the hills, trying to say alive so that they can go back to being farmers and vintners, each one delineated as a distinct person with frailties and honor in unique proportion? And the honesty of the brutality on both sides of this gruesome war, the ineptitude and cynicism of the commanders, the pain of both dying and killing, and the fatalism war can engender.

The intense writing made me see everything as if through a close-up lens. Although the language can seem moderately straightforward (and no, it's not all simple declarative sentences by any means), I had to slow down to capture the vivid detail, even when I wanted to story to move faster because the tension mounts even though the inevitability of the outcome seems clearer every step of the way.

Bad grammar, bad usage can pull me right out of a mediocre story, but nothing could pull me out of this one. ( )