Customer Reviews

The Fifth Column And The First Forty-Nine Stories

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Wonderful book, a pleasure to read and to hold, with beautiful prose and descriptions and a very good quality of binding and print.

I have written reviews of many of Ernest Hemingway's major novels elsewhere in this space. I have reviewed his major novel on the Spanish Civil War For Whom the Bells Toll, as well. Here I review a short play of his concerning that same event. This play is the main item of interest for me in an anthology that also includes his first 49 short stories. I will make a few minor comments on them at the end. However, here I wish to address the main issue that drives the play The Fifth Column. I believe that this is fitting in the year of the 70th anniversary of the Barcelona Uprising-the last chance to save the Spanish Revolution.

The main action here concerns the actions, manners, and love life of a seemingly irresolute character, Phillip, in reality a committed communist who has found himself wrapped up intensely in the struggle to fight against Franco's counter-revolution. His role is to ferret out the fifth columnists that have infiltrated into Madrid for intelligence/sabotage purposes on behalf of the Franco forces in the bloody civil war that was shaking Republican Spain. The term `fifth column' comes from the notion that not only the traditional four columns of the military are at work but a fifth column of sympathizers who are trying to destabilize the Republic. What to do about them is the central question of this, or any, civil war.

At the time there was some controversy that swirled around Hemingway for presenting the solution of summary executions of these agents as the correct way of dealing with this menace. I have questioned some of Hemingway's political judgments on Spain elsewhere, particularly concerning the role of the International Brigades, but he is right on here. Needless to say, as almost always with Hemingway, a little love interest is thrown into the mix to spice things up. However, in the end, despite the criminal Stalinist takeover of the Spanish security apparatus and its counter-revolutionary role in gutting the revolutionary promise in Spain this play presents a question all militants need to be aware of.

As for the other works included here there are many classics such as The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Killers, many of the youthful Nick Adams stories, stories on bullfighting, a few on the never-ending problems of love and its heartbreaks, and some sketches that were included in A Farewell to Arms. Well worth your time. As always Hemingway wields his sparse and functional language to make his points. Again, as always read this man. But what you really need to read here is The Fifth Column. Okay.

After a recent trip to Oak Park, IL, which included a visit to the Hemingway Museum and Birth Home there, I wanted to explore some of Hemingway's early writings. This collection of his only full lengh play and his first 49 short stories (one of which is actually a short one-act play) provided me with an excellent opportunity to do just that. I will have to do some research at the local library to see how the final story ends, seeing as the last page in this volume is missing, but the vendor offered me a 25% discount or full refund when I discovered this situation - which I think was very fair on their part. I elected to keep the volume and have enjoyed reading it.