For Whom the Bell Tolls

Image credit: Booktopia.com.au

Taking a break from my favourite genre of fantasy for a week (before diving right back in with the next instalment in the Temeraire series), I have revisited my project to read my way though 1001 classics of literature. This week I took a trip to a war-spattered Spain with Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Slinking through the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a band of Republican guerillas make plans to blow up a vital bridge, thus hobbling an escape route for when a planned attack begins. Robert Jordan, an American college professor turned dynamiter, has been given this greatest of responsibilities. But so many things are against the band and threaten the mission: the weather, the band’s leader’s waning devotion to the cause, and young Maria; a woman who has escaped from the clutches of Franco’s rebels and who Robert Jordan has fallen in love with.

I have an interesting relationship with war novels. I’m not particularly drawn to them. I won’t pick up a book because it’s a war book. But I have read a few war novels and while there are some that were really not my cup of tea, I have rather enjoyed most of them.

Despite the simple external narrative of For Whom the Bell Tolls, the book achieves rather a lot in the way of exploring its characters internal narratives, their conflicts, beliefs, ambitions, and perspectives. The inner workings of the central band of characters are revealed through stories and anecdotes of their past that they share with Robert Jordan, usually in a cave over a bowl of wine. It’s through these stories that we also get a voyeuristic peek into another world, that of Spain during the Civil War. Hemingway describes the people and places with an observational and explorative voice, that comes no doubt from his days as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, as well as an active love and fascination: he was passionately involved in bull-fighting and visited Spain during the Civil War, which makes this book more personal and the narrator’s voice more authoritative.

It's a character-driven story about comradeship, self-evaluation in the face of changing circumstances, and the malleable state of the human condition: its weaknesses and strengths. Amidst the violence and politics, there are compelling bouts of romance and poeticism that colour the narrative and give it further depth and longevity.

Image credit: Time Magazine

Modern readers may struggle with the dialogue and the censored parts where rhyming words or simply ‘obscene’ or ‘obscenity’ are used rather than the actual word, but for the most part For Whom the Bell Tolls is a compelling and intriguing novel that makes one think, feel, and question. It’s a deep and layered story with a surprising type of ending.

Author: Ernest Hemingway, 1941

Published: First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, 1941. Pictured Vintage edition published By Vintage, Random House, London, 1999.