My opinion of the novel

In my opinion, Ernest Hemingway has created a masterpiece. He has created strong and believable characters with great development. His description of the Spanish civil war is the best I have ever read. One can clearly tell his time in it as a reporter made a great impression on him. He manages to give the reader great descriptions of the environment almost without the use of adjectives. This style of writing is what has made him so famous.

Even though the book is written in third person he still manages to give the reader a very intimate view of the thought and reflection of the protagonist. The story is engaging throughout the book even though all the action is preserved for the last quarter of the book. It’s extremely well written and the ending was such a shocker I threw the book into a wall out of anger.

To point out a favorite part or character would be impossible and that only speaks in favor of the book. Needless to say, I really liked this book but I would only recommend to seasoned book readers. This is a great novel but it’s not an easily read one and two thirds of the book contains no action what so ever. Still, this is one of the best books I have ever written.

Characters

The main character is a man named Robert Jordan. Ernest Hemingway rarely gives a straight forward description of a character and Robert Jordan is no exception. In the beginning of the book, Robert Jordan is a through and through rationalist. He perceives the whole country as a job and his work as a necessary evil to help the communists win over the fascists. He doesn’t dwell much over his work or the things he have seen. Ernest Hemingway clearly bases this character on someone hi met during his time in the actual civil war. As the story goes along the reader discovers that he has given up on love and religion. There isn’t a single event that caused him to give it all up, but he doesn’t believe he will ever find someone to love or believe in. In the mountains he finds Maria and Pilar. Both of these are essential to his development. The reader witnesses a man who falls in love with a girl and ends his life accepting the thought of a godlike power. This is a huge change since the beginning of the book.

The reader perceives Robert Jordan through his actions, dialogue and interaction. There isn’t a single attempt in the whole book to describe him. Still, there is a strong sense of change in him through his inner monologues. The reader is given a viewpoint of Robert Jordan’s thoughts and can therefor keep track of his change of mind regarding his rationalism and his declaration of love to Maria. His actions don’t change as much as you would expect. He is very professional even though he changes a lot. This makes his revelation on the last pages of the book even greater. Ernest Hemingway shows his great skill of character development in “For Whom the Bells Tolls”. He creates a realistic character and makes his development seamless by not changing his actions and thoughts at the same time

Themes and messages

In my opinion the main theme of the book is the clash of superstition, love and rationalism. In the beginning of the book Robert Jordan is a calculative and straight forward guy. He doesn’t fear death, pain or any enemy, but at the end of the book he accepts his fate of a doomed man in love. There are two events which supports my perception of the theme.

The first is his first encounter with the guerilla troops, Maria is with them. He instantly falls in love with Maria, but doesn’t admit it until the second day (the novel’s action only expands over three days). During the finale battle, that will cost Robert Jordan his life, he has a moment of enlightenment and snaps out of his previous machine like state of mind. He finally realizes that he fears for his life and doesn’t want to die.

The second passage is when Pilar reads Robert Jordan’s hand. He wants to see what she does it since he doesn’t believe in it himself. She lets go of his hand “like it was on fire” but refuses to explain why. Later on in the book, Pilar is angry with Robert Jordan and says that he has the smell of death. She is familiar with this smell since she was previously involved in the bull fighter community. She goes on to say that this odor starts a day or two before a man is killed. Robert Jordan is so far in his rediscovery of feelings that he doubts his previous rationalism. It comes to a point where Pilar says she was wrong just before their attack on the bridge. But it is too late and Robert Jordan dies in the battle while realizing that she was right.

If there is a message that Ernest Hemingway tries to emphasize it is, in my opinion, that one should never stop believing. Never stop believing in love, godlike powers, courage and the values you have. This is evident in the ending of the book where a man that has given up emotions, his own values and belief in god dies realizing his mistakes. The theme and this message are closely related and I believe that it is done with intention by Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

A bit about the author

The author of my book is a world famous writer, his name is Ernes Hemingway. I have already blogged about his writing style and therefore I will blog a bit about the author himself.

Ernest Hemingway was lived between 1899 and 1961. He started his careering life after high school as a writer for his local newspaper in Kansas where he worked for five months.  He turned eighteen in 1917 and immediately joined the Americans in the on-going World War 1. He decided to serve in Italy as a volunteer ambulance driver. Serving at the front, he was injured in 1918 and spent a considerable time in the hospital. He came home with a decoration from the Italian government for his bravery. He revisited his previous occupation as a journalist, but this time in both American and Canadian newspapers. He was sent back to Europe to cover different important events such as the Greek revolution.

During the twenties he joined a group of writers that were located in Paris. They were described in Hemingway’s first book (The Sun Also Rises, 1926) and had great influence on his writing style. His next book, “A Farwell to Arms”, made great success across Europe and America. The book described the dissolutions of an ambulance driver and his desertion. His next novel (For Whom the Bells Tolls) was released in the early phases of the Second World War. It was about the Spanish civil war and he used his experience as a correspondent in the war. He made one of the best books about the Spanish war and the struggle of the locals. He followed this success with many book among these are “The Old Man and The Sea” which won the Nobel’s literature award. Looking back at his book, many of them evolve around Ernest Hemingway’s relationship with his dad. His dad shot himself and Ernest never forgave him, this plagued him for the rest of his life.

Ernest Hemingway was married three times and separated with all of them. As his life went on, his active lifestyle cached up with him. After surviving two plane crashes in quick succession during a trip to India, his friends said that he changed and that these events marked him for life. After a troubled of fame and glory, death and frustration he was shot by his own gun as he cleaned it. Later on people have claimed that it was a suicide, but there is no physical evidence to support such claims.

Source

URL: http://snl.no/Ernest_Hemingway

Date accessed: 10.01.13 and 15.01.13

My first reactions

I’ve been at my cabin all Christmas so this is a misplaced post since I’ve already read half of the book. None the less I will start now. To be honest this has evolved into a very complicated story.

I’ll start with the plot because that is the least complicated part so far (it still is complicated). The story is set in Spain during the civil war (1936-1939). The story has so far been in the pine forest and mountains of the Spanish Sierra. Here a young American with the name Robert Jordan has been sent by his republican superiors to lead the sabotage of a local bridge controlled by the nationalists. It is pivotal that the bridge is destroyed as it will enable the nationalists to counter-attack on a pending republic offensive. His mission is too difficult to handle on his own, so he is ordered to join forces with the local militia. The local militia is led by a mildly alcoholic rebel called Pablo. He is accompanied by his wife Pilar, his father Anselmo, a gypsy and a beautiful woman named Maria. As the story progresses Maria and Robert Jordan falls in love with each other and Robert Jordan promises to bring her back to the US. In the meantime Pablo says to Robert Jordan that there are one hundred guerilla troops in the mountains that all obey his command. In the beginning he is willing to help, but as time goes by Pablo grows skeptical to Robert Jordan’s plans. He starts to criticize the generals which sent Robert Jordan, what the republicans fight for and the whole war in itself. Robert Jordan quickly realizes this problem and makes it clear to the other militia troops that he will kill Pablo if he becomes too much of a problem. During their travel to meet up with the rest of the guerrilla, Pilar reveals that Pablo once was a fierce warrior. He retook his village from Franco’s rebels almost singlehandedly and then he supervised the execution of them all. She also tells Robert Jordan that Pablo has grown week and afraid of death and this is the cause of his reluctance to help. As he plans the assault on the bridge with the guerrilla it becomes clear that Pablo is the only one who can lead them safely during the retreat. This makes killing him impossible and forces Robert Jordan to think of how to make Pablo cooperate with him.

This is the story this far, as I said it still is complicated.

The only other thing that is interesting/not too complicated to write about is the writing style. His style is known all over the world for being simple and very strait forward. There isn’t a lot of reflection in his sentences and he concentrates on making them simple and effective. His sentences are short and often lack descriptions of the ongoing scene. This forces the reader to fill in the gaps in the descriptions with your own imagination. It’s not like there are pivotal parts missing in the story, but the environment and actions are not described as richly as other writers may do. He does this by avoiding the use adjectives where it’s possible and where anyone else would. He gets away with this since he is an expert at transmitting emotions through actions or other physical acts. This makes the story seem more realistic since you see the effect of the characters emotions on their actions which gives you a more realistic point of view. Ernest Hemingway is called the master of dialogue and he shows this with great elegance. You sense the difference between the dialogue in American and Spanish. He is so superior to anyone else in his dialogue that is impossible to compare him to anything I have previously read.

Everything taking into account, this is shaping up to be a very good book. It’s complicated and demands a lot of me as a reader but I really like this book.