FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Rating:
Summary: Great Classic American Writing
Review: For Whom the Bell Tolls is a great example of Hemingway's to-the-point writing style. He does not repeat himself more than he has to, and stays on the story.

I enjoyed reading For Whom the Bell Tolls mostly because of Hemingways writing style and the historical background. Being a young male reader, I did not enjoy the love part of the story. I did not feel there was enough going on.

Overall, Hemingway made a great classic story of the Spanish Civil War, and a unique, to the point writing style which I enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: A definite masterpiece
Review: Hemingway's style was so fashionable amongst writers of the post WWII era, that Italian authors actually attempted to invent their own slang just to sound like him. I haven't kept up with modern Italian literature, but I am noting that American writing is slowly regressing into that pre-Hemingway over-wordiness. The focus now seems to be on sounding "poetic," rather than writing "one true sentence."

This is truly sad because Hemingway brought American writing to a new level. You can almost feel his straining to come up with the perfect words for his descriptions.

I read For Whom the Bell Tolls for the first time thirty years ago, when I was fifteen. It convinced me then that Ernest Hemingway was the greatest American writer of all time. Re-reading it now, in middle age, I still feel the same.

Rating:
Summary: Must read...
Review: A friend commented, and I whole-heartedly agree, "there is so much more to Hemingway than the caricature of Hemingway." Amen. This book is beautifully written.

Rating:
Summary: A Bit Slow For Me
Review: I want to offer a little dissent here. I thought the book to be a bit dull and slow. I really labored to get through it and becuase of it completely turned me off to the rest of his work. It could be that I spend too much time reading action fiction so I need a fast paced book to keep me interested.

Rating:
Summary: You're better off with A FAREWELL TO ARMS
Review: This novel bored me. And I like Hemingway's work. Pilar's tragic stories go on and on, as do pointless conversations in caves with desperate people swearing at each other and hitting each other in the mouth (which, alas, only encourages more conversation instead of silencing it). The constant use of "obscenity," "muck," etc. instead of the real swear words is truly wearying, and the translation of Spanish terms into "thee," "thou," and "less bad" mean nothing at all to the casual English reader.

Nor is Robert Jordan (why does Hemingway keep using his full name throughout the novel? That's irritating too) much help, being a typical Hemingway strong-and-silent-type who drinks too much, enjoys bullfights, and lives to sleep with pretty 19-year-olds. "The earth moved" is the best he can do in the supposedly passionate and brief love scenes with Maria, who enjoys pouring him more wine while washing his feet. His doubts about doing his duty are neither profound nor convincing. Until well into the novel he's a too-typical freedom fighter who justifies duty over Eros in dreary inner conversations. Like another reviewer put it, I wished a quarter into the novel that he'd spare me his musings, blow the damned bridge and go home.

Rating:
Summary: Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom The Bell Tolls"
Review: Short, tense, meaty sentences are just the beginning of this book. Hemingway does a wonderful job with the images in his book, from the brown of Jordan's uniform to the dust of the innumerable towns of Spain, everything is tightly written. At times I found myself wandering, but I was always brought back by Hemingway's descriptions of the characters and their activities. Truly Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, and FWTBT is irrefutable evidence.

Rating:
Summary: Plodding plotting
Review: I entered this book thinking highly of Hemingway, having read some of the Nick Adams stories as well as The Old Man and the Sea. But Bell is quite a disappointment. The 1930s-era characters seem to be speaking an off-putting and unwieldy gringo Shakespeare ("Thou hast crossed the arroyo, Ingles"). Moreover, the revolving themes of duty and honor and the instrument of war / administration vs. the individuals who carry out the specific deeds don't seem to develop. Rather, the reader is subject to endless conversations with rather boring people, then Robert Jordan muses in an unenlightening manner upon the conversations he's had. About 1/3 of the way through the book I was thinking "just blow the damn bridge up, make love to Maria, and go home." Having skimmed the Cliffs Notes, apparently it takes a few hundred more pages for that to happen; pages I am unwilling to read.

Rating:
Summary: A Problem Of Pendulous Americana Amongst Noble People
Review: Laurie Lee told me that he had met Ernest Hemingway. Whether or not it was during the Spanish Civil War or not, I don't recall
. What I remember most is his acidulous critique of the blundering All-American dolt who thinks he is the only one who can sort it out...He remembered great Paul Robeson, who will always be remembered( -I take it that many correspondents already take me as black.) Robeson was a great follower in battle, a great propagandist, and therefore a great warrior.
Lee railed , in his inimical Gloucestershire, about 'The Big Cowboy' who thought he could lead these tender men to battle. He was kind, to the point of sheer tenderness, about Hemingway as a supporter of the people's great struggle, but he always saw him as impossibly arrogant, (I think), as a forerunner of today's all too cowboyish thickhead, who could I be thinking of?

Rating:
Summary: A classic.
Review: Good story, outstanding prose that makes the protagonists and war-torn Spain come alive before your very eyes.

Rating:
Summary: A very good but flawed classic
Review: First of all, I recognize that this is a classic novel by one of the most highly regarded writers of the twentieth century. Hemingway was very good; sycophants made him sublime. To criticize this work and not rhapsodize over its poetic beauty and its insightful symbolism would seem to be almost in bad taste. But I will do so anyway.

Overall I would have to say that the story is good but not great: Robert Jordan is an American fighting for the communists in the Spanish civil war. He is an instructor in Spanish at a Montana college who has taken a sabbatical to secretly come to Spain. He wants to fight to liberate the workingman. Jordan is sent by his Russian controller to join a band of guerrillas behind Fascist lines. His mission is to blow up a bridge; this is timed to precisely coincide with a Republican (communist) offensive. Anselmo, an old man who is the most reliable guerilla, takes him to the band of rebels. The band is led by Pablo, an uncouth peasant who has gone from fervent murderous radical to a man who only wants to survive. Pilar, Pablo's woman, is the unifying force in Pablo's band. There are assorted other rebels and Maria, a refugee who has been raped by the fascists. Maria and Robert Jordan fall in love immediately and are soon fornicating like rabbits. The bridge is attacked and destroyed but this leads to the death of Anselmo and to Robert Jordan being mortally wounded. He orders Maria to go on without him and he bids her to escape and enjoy life; thereby he will live through her.

The book does give a good picture of the issues of the Spanish civil war. The fascists are portrayed as decent people backed by Nazis and Italian fascists. The Republicans are controlled by Russians, as are puppets on a string. Hemingway makes a point to say that the top Republicans all speak Russian, having been trained as revolutionaries in the Soviet Union. The individual peasants Jordan fights with are mostly portrayed as decent people with a few savages thrown in for good measure.

I had several problems with the book. I understand that Hemingway uses the archaic thee and thou to indicate that the dialogue is being spoken in Spanish. He omits this when Jordan is speaking in English or thinking to himself. This takes some getting used to but is tolerable. It is the awkward translation of Spanish obscene phrases that is done in a silly and annoying way. The phrase "I obscenity in the milk of your father" appears dozens of times. No one speaks this way. It is patently unnatural and just about ruined the book for me. I understand that this is a literal translation of the Spanish oath "me cago en la leche..." I understand and don't care. It would have been better to leave the obscenity implied but unsaid without resorting to this awkward device.

There is a painfully awkward page where Robert Jordan discovers that Pablo has stolen his detonators. On page 368 he says "Oh muck my grandfather and muck this whole treacherous mucking country and every mucking Spaniard in it on either side and to hell forever" and so forth ( in lieu of the word that is an acronym for "for unlawful carnal knowledge") about two dozen times. I understand that in 1940 that word could not appear in print but did it have to be replaced by something so witless. Funny how that word still can't appear in Amazon.com book reviews in 2002.

There is another especially awkward scene that sticks in my mind. Hemingway describes Robert Jordan's feelings at having reached orgasm with Maria on page 379: "Oh now, now, now, the only now, and above all now and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet. Now and forever now. Come now, now, for there is no now but now. Yes, now. " and so on for half a page. Give me a break!

There is also the problem of some of the poorly drawn and unbelievable characters. Robert Jordan is too perfect to be true (is he Jesus in disguise?). He goes from a mild mannered rural college instructor to a stone killer and demolitions expert in a matter of months. He doesn't have any personal stake in the Spanish conflict but quickly becomes a cool yet eager killer in the service of the Soviet side. His inner dialogue tells us that this is because he has always wanted to do something for downtrodden workers of the world. It is also in part to prove that he is as much a man as his (U.S.) Civil war hero grandfather. The relationship with Maria is unbelievable to the point of being absurd. Jordan is a thirty-something who has never been in love. He and Maria, who is 19, fall in love at first sight. They immediately decide to have sex ; they plan to get married and live together happily ever after. He is fully aware that he has been handed a suicide mission and is completely unconcerned. How did he live for this long if his own safety is of no interest to him?

Much has been made of the fact that this book illustrated the concepts in the Donne poem No Man is an Iland. Well then why do we need nearly five hundred pages of this book when that poem says it so well in a few lines.