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Henk's Reviews > For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls
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Some chapters are brilliant, but overal this was a really long-winded read about the dehumanising and demoralising experience of modern day warfare
”War is a bitchery.�
A very male book in a sense, with a lot of dialogue and a very old fashioned way of speech (more William Shakespeare like than rural Spanish in my view). The language Ernest Hemingway uses is sparse, with weird repetitions, first of which is that the name of protagonist Robert Jordan is being mentioned every page around 3 times. Only while reading For Whom the Bell Tolls I gradually began to understand it was meant as a reflection of the translation of Spanish to English, also partly explaining the lack of variety in dialogue, nearly like how Kazuo Ishiguro wrote his Japanese character in his first two novels:
“Poor man,� she said. “He was very brave. And you do that same business?�
Ԩ.�
“You have done trains, too?�
“Yes. Three trains.�
“H?�
“In Estremadura,� he said. “I was in Estremadura before I came here. We do very much in Estremadura. There are many of us working in Estremadura.�
How Robert Jordan gets with the girl he meets at the start of the book after a few hours is James Bond like, as is how he as American outsider is able to takeover a Spanish guerrilla movement. However in for instance chapter 10 Hemingway shows his brilliance with a harrowing tale on the uprising in a small village and what war between neighbors actually means, with executions and mass killings.
Why could’t Pilar narrate the book, I started to think more often as the book progressed: her stories are actually interesting and touching, and she is a very interesting character as even the narrator himself notes:
“You are a very hard woman,� he told her.
“No,� Pilar said. “But so simple I am very complicated.
Another thing I wondered about was if bull fighting really such a thing, I mean everything anyone is reminiscent about seems related to bull fighting any half of the metaphors are about how fighting the fascists is as a lost case as the bull charging into the arena.
Sometimes the writing has an excessive feel of and/then, and in general I thought this was really a slow book, but then there is a brilliant chapter 27 about a siege of a hill and I was compelled to read on. Maria with her trauma has more depth than I thought, and even if chapter 37 has a horribly protracted yet oblique sexscene but also fine observations about life in general:
How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think, than in all the other time. I’d like to be an old man and to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew about so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time.
Overall I felt this classic was a mixed bag, with the glimmers of brilliance in various chapters, including Chapter 42 which clear eyed shows the futility of ideology and the stupidity of the war, the helplessness and power hunger of those in charge, not being enough to make this an engaging read.
Quotes:
Plenty overwhelmed. Golz was gay and he had wanted him to be gay too before he left, but he hadn’t been.
All the best ones, when you thought it over, were gay. It was much better to be gay and it was a sign of something too. It was like having immortality while you were still alive. That was a complicated one. - I know it's a bit high school of me, but I found this usage of the word gay (not to mention hotel Gaylords) unintentionally hilarious in the solemnity of Hemingway his writing.
"It is not cowardly to know what is foolish.�
“Neither is it foolish to know what is cowardly,�
Your nationality and politics didn’t show when you’re dead
It was easier to be part of a regime than to fight it
Why don’t you ever think of how it is to win? You’ve been on the defensive for so long that you can’t think of that. Sure. But that was before all that stuff went up this road. That was before all the planes came. Don’t be so naïve. But remember this that as long as we can hold them here we keep the fascists tied up. They can’t attack any other country until they finish with us and they can never finish with us. If the French help at all, if only they leave the frontier open and if we get planes from America they can never finish with us. Never, if we get anything at all. These people will fight forever if they’re well armed.
No you must not expect victory here, not for several years maybe. This is just a holding attack. You must not get illusions about it now. Suppose we got a break-through today? This is our first big attack. Keep your sense of proportion. But what if we should have it? Don’t
Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
He looked down the hill slope again and he thought, I hate to leave it, is all. I hate to leave it very much and I hope I have done some good in it. I have tried to with what talent I had. Have, you mean. All right, have.
I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. And you had a lot of luck, he told himself, to have had such a good life.
”War is a bitchery.�
A very male book in a sense, with a lot of dialogue and a very old fashioned way of speech (more William Shakespeare like than rural Spanish in my view). The language Ernest Hemingway uses is sparse, with weird repetitions, first of which is that the name of protagonist Robert Jordan is being mentioned every page around 3 times. Only while reading For Whom the Bell Tolls I gradually began to understand it was meant as a reflection of the translation of Spanish to English, also partly explaining the lack of variety in dialogue, nearly like how Kazuo Ishiguro wrote his Japanese character in his first two novels:
“Poor man,� she said. “He was very brave. And you do that same business?�
Ԩ.�
“You have done trains, too?�
“Yes. Three trains.�
“H?�
“In Estremadura,� he said. “I was in Estremadura before I came here. We do very much in Estremadura. There are many of us working in Estremadura.�
How Robert Jordan gets with the girl he meets at the start of the book after a few hours is James Bond like, as is how he as American outsider is able to takeover a Spanish guerrilla movement. However in for instance chapter 10 Hemingway shows his brilliance with a harrowing tale on the uprising in a small village and what war between neighbors actually means, with executions and mass killings.
Why could’t Pilar narrate the book, I started to think more often as the book progressed: her stories are actually interesting and touching, and she is a very interesting character as even the narrator himself notes:
“You are a very hard woman,� he told her.
“No,� Pilar said. “But so simple I am very complicated.
Another thing I wondered about was if bull fighting really such a thing, I mean everything anyone is reminiscent about seems related to bull fighting any half of the metaphors are about how fighting the fascists is as a lost case as the bull charging into the arena.
Sometimes the writing has an excessive feel of and/then, and in general I thought this was really a slow book, but then there is a brilliant chapter 27 about a siege of a hill and I was compelled to read on. Maria with her trauma has more depth than I thought, and even if chapter 37 has a horribly protracted yet oblique sexscene but also fine observations about life in general:
How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think, than in all the other time. I’d like to be an old man and to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew about so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time.
Overall I felt this classic was a mixed bag, with the glimmers of brilliance in various chapters, including Chapter 42 which clear eyed shows the futility of ideology and the stupidity of the war, the helplessness and power hunger of those in charge, not being enough to make this an engaging read.
Quotes:
Plenty overwhelmed. Golz was gay and he had wanted him to be gay too before he left, but he hadn’t been.
All the best ones, when you thought it over, were gay. It was much better to be gay and it was a sign of something too. It was like having immortality while you were still alive. That was a complicated one. - I know it's a bit high school of me, but I found this usage of the word gay (not to mention hotel Gaylords) unintentionally hilarious in the solemnity of Hemingway his writing.
"It is not cowardly to know what is foolish.�
“Neither is it foolish to know what is cowardly,�
Your nationality and politics didn’t show when you’re dead
It was easier to be part of a regime than to fight it
Why don’t you ever think of how it is to win? You’ve been on the defensive for so long that you can’t think of that. Sure. But that was before all that stuff went up this road. That was before all the planes came. Don’t be so naïve. But remember this that as long as we can hold them here we keep the fascists tied up. They can’t attack any other country until they finish with us and they can never finish with us. If the French help at all, if only they leave the frontier open and if we get planes from America they can never finish with us. Never, if we get anything at all. These people will fight forever if they’re well armed.
No you must not expect victory here, not for several years maybe. This is just a holding attack. You must not get illusions about it now. Suppose we got a break-through today? This is our first big attack. Keep your sense of proportion. But what if we should have it? Don’t
Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
He looked down the hill slope again and he thought, I hate to leave it, is all. I hate to leave it very much and I hope I have done some good in it. I have tried to with what talent I had. Have, you mean. All right, have.
I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it. And you had a lot of luck, he told himself, to have had such a good life.
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Reading Progress
April 10, 2021
–
Started Reading
April 24, 2021
– Shelved
April 24, 2021
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)
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by
Lee
(new)
Apr 24, 2021 01:52PM
I liked this book a lot twenty years ago when I was twenty. Now I imagine it had rather a lot to do with being twenty! But I do wonder, maybe one day I'll re-read. :)
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Lee I read it at a similar age and loved it, and I wonder much the same thing!
Same experience as Lee, here: when I was 17 I was flabbergasted by it, 30 years later I was far less enthousiastic, too macho-male indeed, with lots of dubious twists. But still, at times a great read.
I read this many years ago, and my impressions were quite the same, yes!
I remember reading The Old Man and the Sea as a teenager and not really getting it. For this book I'd really would have like more chapters from the perspective of Pilar, her chapters on what the revolution actually means in a small village were haunting. Also the stand of Sordo on the hill was extremely well done, while the whole narration from Robert Jordan quite bored me...
