Review of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
Englishman Robert Jordan is a Spanish-speaking explosives specialist in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) tasked with blowing up a bridge by the republican forces. Over the course of the days leading up to the demolition Jordan spends time with a group of fighters headed by guerrilla leader Pablo camping in the nearby hills. In the camp he establishes a romantic relationship with María, a young woman whose parents have been killed and who has suffered physical violence by the fascist forces. He endures an on-going conflict with Pablo, a leader who is past his prime and seems to be more interested in his own well-being than the group's while Pablo's strong-willed and tough-talking wife Pilar struggles to keep the group together. When Pablo disposes of the dynamite detonators and exploder to be used to destroy the bridge, Jordan's patience is stretched to the limit and he is forced to come up with a sub-optimal solution to the problem using hand-wired hand-grenades to set off the explosives. As the day of the attack gets closer, a snow falls and threatens all the plans while the threads holding the group together slowly unwind…
I found this considerably more tedious to read than The Sun Also Rises as this is considerably longer with the action dragging on forever and ever. Yes, it is interesting to see how the character dynamics work out and how the group eventually fares but it takes a very long time for anything to happen. Hemmingway's dialogue sparkles again here and he has a knack of explaining things quite clearly though there were times that I simply could not picture what he was describing no matter how many times I read it (eventually I gave up and read on) - I can't think this is entirely my lack of understanding but perhaps a slight arrogance on behalf of the writer that readers must figure it out for themselves rather than giving them the exact details…or maybe it doesn't really matter?
The characters are all well fleshed out and fit well into the story with the viewpoint of Jordan, the outsider, providing the reader with a way of learning more about them.
Some accuse Hemmingway of being too romantic and glamorising war but I found some of the details here quite visceral though it is hard, for example, to ignore his use of the descriptive word “obscenity” rather than the actual word being spoken. Unfortunately, this causes the reader to distance themselves from the story as they are jarred out of the reality unfolding. Otherwise, there is an attempt here to see the violence and viewpoints of both sides of the conflict with some amount of realism which is quite remarkable and, it seems, quite honest to the story.
A bit long but an interesting war/love story set in the Spanish Civil War. As a warning, with the title being what it is don't expect a “happy” ending…
Rating: “Really good but I have some issues”
Review Date: 2025-03-08
Genre: General Fiction
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons
Publication Date: 1940