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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Old Songs Still Make Me Dance, February 11, 2001
For me, this is the best of Hemingway's novels. It combines all the things he could do best as a writer and sustains them throughout an epic story. The basic subject matter is that of much of his work - courage and fear and their consequences, the world of the senses as felt through the enjoyment of food, drink, sexual love and the natural world. As a man, he experienced these things first-hand, and as an artist he rendered them truly. The book's hero is Robert Jordan, an American, who leaves his relatively safe life in the States to fight against the Fascists in 30s Spain. He posseses the attributes of the essential Hemingway hero - an outward simplicity of manner , a knowledge and acceptance of death combined with a love of life, stoicism and integrity. Hemingway's heroes were presented as heroes; not as John Wayne-type caricatures of "manliness" but as men (and women) faced with the forces of death and doing their best. They become afraid, they sometimes do foolish things, but we are never asked to consider them craven or ignoble. We are shown human weakness but the overall message is that of the strength and nobility of human beings. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (or vice-versa) was an expression Hemingway used. He never seeks to make less of the human spirit, as so many modern anti-heroes of literature have done (eg the central character in Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground", the disenchanted figure in Celine's "Journey To The End Of The Night" or the cynical, amoral Renton in Irvine Welsh's "Trainspotting".) The overall effect of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is of a broad work with several viewpoints. We have the Spanish Civil War as seen by the peasant rebel forces based in forests and caves, the behind-the-scenes look at the military players and politicians and the propaganda machine with its figures such as "La Pasionara" These run simultaneously over the several days of the book's plot, and we see the cause-effect relationship between them. Like some mathematical equation or some structure of taut wires and connections, we are carried along to the plot's climax in which we see how all these threads have run together. This book does it all for me. The characters are just as real as they need to be, the country is beautifully evoked, we are given wonderful descriptions of simple things (the moisture-beaded pitcher of beer in the hotel room after Pablo and Pilar had made love in the hot afternoon) and in the dialogue the way Hemingway has literally translated the Spanish language - the use of "thou" and "thee" and the Spanish expressions that he has avoided rendering into the English equivalent. Hemingway loved Spain - its land,its people and its culture, and this is very evident in the book. He was also a very knowledgeable lover of bulllfighting, boxing and hunting and indeed seemed fascinated with violence and war. This tendency has been used as a stick with which to have a poke at the man, which, in our sanitized, politically-correct times is (sadly) understandable. We may not like the sight of blood and agony, but it is a lot older and more real than the glossy social veneer which tends to coat much of what is modernly offered as art/entertainment/philosophy. When we see death, the fear of death and the triumph of courage, we see some portion of what is still a basic truth in this world. So, maybe those who criticize Hemingway's interest in violence have a point. Bullfighting is certainly no fun for the bull and I'm sure that getting shot in a war has its drawbacks. What I would say to those who condemn the artist along with the man is to consider what kind of work (if any) an artist can produce who stays within the safe harbour of the middle-class, academic world of proffesorships and literary grants. Perhaps Picasso was a nightmare as a husband and perhaps Beethoven had bad breath, but I will opt every time for that which I find true and moving.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Papa's Best Work--By far, July 30, 1998
Papa pushed, plowed and pulled everything he had in '39 to pen this work. What he came out with nevertheless was by far his most resonant and enduring work. No other American writer has been more of a romantic, and this clearly manifests all those hidden feeling Papa (the boxer, the hunter, the adventurer) truly had. His ending, the best part of the novel, juxtaposes what he wrote and believed in Farwell To Arms: "If people bring so much courage to this world, the world had to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those it will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." Thus, this work examines the essence of life, that is, What is one doin'? What is one wasting time on this or that for? Papa's best work will live on through because of this romantic, realist style combination. Thank you Papa--you've made me thi! nk more empirically about life, about death, about existence! You weren't lamented enough, alas!
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unforgettable Hemingway, June 21, 2000
The title of this great novel gives me chills everytime I hear it. It perfectly reflects Hemingway's purpose. I love his clear and "true sentences" style, but it doesn't appeal to everyone. Thus, if you read a review of this book that is leaning on the negative side, it may be more a reflection of the reviewer's stylistic preferences rather than specific drawbacks to the setting, characters,or plot of For Whom the Bell Tolls. This may not always be true, of course, but Hemingway is unique and tends to polarize readers. The protagonist/hero of For Whom the Bell Tolls is Robert Jordan, an American who feels passionately enough about The Spanish Civil War to act bravely on behalf of the cause. Robert Jordan doesn't seem to have a national identity at all; another person's life is truly his own--the bell really does toll for him. The understated love affair between Robert and Maria is wildly romantic. The ending is haunting- it took my breath away. Do read this; it's an unforgettable experience.
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by Ernest Hemingway
