It is my practice to read all the books I receive for Christmas before next Christmas arrives. Of the sixteen I received, my accomplishment of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway makes nine. I decided to pick it up because there is some Hemingway on the reading list for one of my upcoming classes, and I thought I would give myself a refresher course.
For Whom the Bell Tolls is set during the Spanish Civil War. Robert Jordan has orders to blow up a bridge, but he must first win the cooperation of guerilla fighters living in the nearby mountains before he can accomplish the task. The motley band, led by Pablo, who is turning bad, must deal with a shortage of horses, traitors, and fascist patrols; also, they do not want to destroy the bridge, because they will have to leave their territory afterwards.
It is a very long book, and the action at the bridge makes up only the final eighth or tenth of it. Hemingway’s focus was perhaps not directly upon the action and fighting but about the psychology or motivations of the people who participate in it. I came to the novel blind and didn’t appreciate until the book was done the bonding between Robert Jordan and Pablo’s band, with which I grew impatient before the end. If I had even a sketchy map of the interior, a warning about what to expect or value, a lens through which to read – I think I might have liked this novel better. As it stands, I prefer Hemingway’s short stories and ‘fictional’ memoir, A Moveable Feast.
I usually enjoy Hemingway, and I did this time too, but the long stretches of dialogue exhausted my anticipation into something duller and less attentive. Although now every time I say the title to myself, For Whom the Bell Tolls, I hear an echo in my head. “It tolls for thee.”
6.5 / 10.0.
Mostly About Books 