For Whom the Bell Tolls, my G!

"The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding though the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight."

Above is a portion of the first paragraph of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which immediately intoxicated your friendly reviewer. I'd arrived expecting something concise and structured, but even this blew me away. When my father and I had a short discussion pre-reading, he told me, "When you finish that book, you'll be able to smell the same air they do." That's the touch Hemingway leaves. While his prose is loose and borderline elementary, it sucks you in. I didn't find myself enjoying the story as much as the atmosphere----the craft of the sentences was spellbinding, almost certainly because we never feel like we're going anywhere.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls," as a story, is practically in stasis. Originally, the recollection of military orders, American protagonist Robert Jordan's mission to destroy a bridge (in the Spanish Civil War, fighting the "fascists"), is ostensibly setting up for something, but three-hundred pages later, he and his newfound friends still haven't decided whether or not to proceed with it----cue a plethora of relaxed, atmospheric storytelling.

When Hemingway's not visualizing, we're usually listening to conversations which are appallingly normal and mundane. Here's a paraphrased example:

"I love thee, Maria."
"I love thee, Roberto."
"I cannot express how much I love thee. My love cannot be expressed. If only you knew, Maria, how much I love thee."
"No, Roberto! I love thee much more!"

That wasn't an exaggeration. Sure, it's slightly charming, but eventually we become immune. Originally the languorous conversational love-making was as enticing as the narrative sentences; toward the end I felt flaccid. Perhaps it's the ordeal fatuity----Robert Jordan and Maria's love has no foundation; it's just there, and it likely emanates from their sexual activity, even though "the earth shakes beneath them" while they "make love," which one character professes only happens once in a lifetime, or something like that.

Quite realistically, the characters aren't very interesting either. Everyone talks about Pablo, and how intelligent Pablo is, and how Pablo needs to be killed because he's so intelligent, but I've failed to understand why everyone thought that. Almost everyone has a name, but they still feel anonymous-----as a whole, the group of Spanish cave-dwellers is paranoid and conspiring-----as individuals, we don't really know. Pilar, Pablo's wife, is humorous because she tergiversates perpetually and is constantly screaming, but nobody likes her.

Yet even with the immobility, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" manages to succeed merely for Hemingway's cooing prose-----he always maintains a sense of humor ("Los cojones" is the best line I've read in a while). I smiled every time I read "Obscenity you!" or "What in the obscenity are you doing!" Replacing "you" with "thee" was also a nice touch.

Then there's the lachrymose moments where he congeals you with such light words----a captain orders enemy KIAs to be beheaded, and Hemingway finishes the chapter with "Then he made the sign of the cross again and as he walked down the hill he said five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys for the repose of the soul of his dead comrade. He did not wish to stay to see his orders being carried." Passages like are most visceral; the selections you think about passively everyday. Don't you love novelistic impressions?

I could understand anyone who abhors this novel, but regardless it's essential reading for any aspiring writer, as Hemingway revolutionized the way fiction is written by imagining landscapes like they haven't been before.

Rating: B-