for whom the bell tolls by ernest hemingway

The Hemingway House in Key West, Florida. Unfortunately, thee/thou/thy is the English equivalent (thank goodness we dropped that somewhere along the way), which means the dialogue was full of gems like this, “Then after thou hast studied thy bridge we will talk tonight with El Sordo.” Eventually, I got used to it and started to enjoy the story rather than be distracted by a dialogue technique. Spanish has both a formal and informal version of the pronoun “you.” Being good communists, the band of guerrillas used the informal version of you, signifying that they were all equals.

Hemingway has his characters speaking in a way that simulates a direct translation of the dialect of Spanish they speak. In fact, I’d estimate that about half the story is told through dialogue. I feel foolish critiquing classics so instead I’ll just give you some of my primary reactions to the novel.įirst, I really had a tough time of it for the first several chapters. (Note: Hemingway also published six short story collections and two nonfiction books while he was alive, and several more were published posthumously.) What motivates someone to fight in someone else’s civil war? By choosing For Whom the Bell Tolls, I was hoping to gain further insight.

I recalled that an American character in Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility also went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War and it intrigued me. While he was alive, Hemingway published only seven novels, a fact which surprised me and also made the selection of this month’s read pretty easy since I had already read two of the seven. July’s challenge was to read a book by Hemingway (this post is a day late – gosh, where did July go?). I read For Whom the Bell Tolls as part of the 12 Months of Reading Goodness challenge. The writing style took some getting used to, but I ended up really liking it. (This in no way affects the honesty of my reviews!) All commissions will be donated to the ALS Association.įor Whom the Bell Tolls tells the tale of a band of communist guerrillas, led temporarily by American Robert Jordan, who have been tasked with blowing up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links.

For whom the bell tolls by ernest hemingway