That made it the perfect choice for bedtime 'reading' during my recovery from eye surgery. In the beginning I was taking heavy-duty painkillers so I did indeed nod off, and I listened to more than one of the sixteen CDs two or three times, savouring every word of the story yet unable to stay awake to the end of them. Which is why it has taken almost four weeks to finish the book...
There are many things to love about For Whom The Bell Tolls. It's a story about high idealism, and about the doomed courage of the people who fought against Franco's militarily superior fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The central character Robert Jordan is a young academic who teaches Spanish, and he joins the defence of the democratically elected Second Spanish Republic, which was supported by workers, peasants and by the Soviet Union because of its land reforms. (I owe some of what I know about the Spanish Civil War from a most informative short course run by Graham Pratt at the Hawthorn U3A). The novel traces Jordan's journey both literal and psychological as he follows orders to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge in order to frustrate a forthcoming offensive.
Under the command of the Soviet General Golz, Jordan joins up with a band of local anti-fascist guerrillas to undertake his mission. At the beginning of the story he has no fear of danger because he places no great value on his own life. He is fighting for a greater good, the principle of democracy and an equitable division of a nation's wealth, and is prepared to sacrifice his own life for the cause. But although at the beginning of his mission he tells General Golz he has no time for girls, when he falls for Maria in the guerrilla camp his perspective shifts. His life—and hers even more so—begin to matter. Through his internal dialogues, the novel traces Jordan's transition from dispassionate acceptance that lives must be sacrificed to an emotional epiphany that it is not so simple.
In contrast to Jordan's idealism is Pablo, the leader of the guerrilla camp. He is brusque and rude, and is prepared to frustrate Jordan's operation because it poses a risk to the surviving forces in the mountains. He knows that if the bridge is blown up, the fascists will hunt them down in retaliation. He knows that the Republic is doomed, and there are few places of safety left. Anselmo, a much older guerrilla fighter, scorns him as one who was once a great warrior but is now only concerned with himself, but it is Pablo who speaks the truth about the war. Whereas General Golz complains that their problems are lack of coherent organisation and a fractured command structure, Pablo articulates why the Republicans failed: it was because they were militarily inferior in every way. They were outclassed in the air, their weapons were pitiful, and even the beautiful cavalry horses they stole from the enemy had injuries. As the novel progresses, we see that the enemy has tanks and artillery; the guerrillas do not even know what these weapons are.
Within the guerrilla band, Jordan has to rely on illiterate men who cannot read identity passes, or record the movement of enemy personnel or remember passwords. Their hope and naiveté is charming and often droll, but some of them—like the light-hearted gypsy Rafael—do not understand what is at stake and are unreliable in critical ways. Surprisingly—since Hemingway has a reputation for hyper-masculinity and his representation of Maria's seemingly premature resilience after gang-rape by the fascists is problematic—his characterisation of Pilar, the mujer [woman] of Pablo, is impressive. From the outset she displaces Pablo as the leader of the guerrilla band. Like a model for a granite monument, she is fiercely loyal and utterly reliable. A patriot who has supported the republic since the beginning, she runs her unruly 'household' in the cave with a firm grip; and while she performs housewifely duties like cooking and mending and the mothering of the traumatised Maria, Robert Jordan trusts Pilar from the moment he meets her and recognises her authority. She understands tactics, and she knows the risks, but she never hesitates to cooperate with Robert Jordan's orders from above. She is astonishingly brave.
A word about the language: the narrative is written in third-person limited omniscient mode, but in two very different narrative styles. Robert Jordan's inner thoughts are rendered in everyday American English, but all the dialogue amongst the guerrilla band takes place in Spanish. To achieve this Hemingway renders Spanish singular forms with the archaic English thee and thou and very formal grammatical structures. What seem like quaint grammatical forms—such as the possessive with the woman of Pablo rather than 'Pablo's woman'—reinforce that Jordan is an outsider translating from one language to another.
You can see the somewhat stilted effect here: I have quoted this excerpt from Wikipedia since I was listening to an audio book, not reading the book. (Though I do have a first edition, which I found in a country bookshop. It's the most expensive book in my collection).
'It is possible.'
'Then you will have to fight in your country as we fight here.'
'Yes, we will have to fight.'
'But are there not many fascists in your country?'
'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.' (Wikipedia cites this from pp. 207-8 of the edition they were using, published in 1940 by Charles Scribner).
Another stylistic feature of note is that while some of his characters swear vociferously their blasphemies and oaths are rendered using the words 'unprintable' and 'obscenity.' (You can read more about this at Wikipedia.) This may have been a way of rendering the authentic crudity of the peasants without running foul of censors, but the overall effect is to give the text a somewhat Biblical feel, or perhaps an allusion to John Donne's 17th century Meditation XVII, from which the novel takes its name.
No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, by John Donne, 1624, see Wikipedia.)
I love this book, and I love this narration by Campbell Scott. When I can't sleep, I listen to it all over again.
Author: Ernest HemingwayTitle: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Narrated by Campbell Scott
Publisher: Simon Schuster Audio, 2006, first published 1940
ISBN: 9780743564380
Personal library.
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