Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls

As a fanatic of Hemingway's short stories and novels, particularly "A Clean, well-lighted place," "The Old Man and the Sea," and "A Farewell to Arms," my expectations for this novel were high. While others criticize him as dull and sparse, I've always viewed Hemingway remarkably efficient: he's able to express the beauty of his fictional worlds in half the words it would take a less talented writer.

I guess "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is the exception. It comes in at 496 pages, one his longest novels, and as you would expect the language is more diffuse than you would expect from Hemingway.

The story is a familiar one to Hemingway readers: an idealistic American soldier named Robert Jordan has joined the good fight during World War II against the Fascists of Spain. His mission given to him by General Golz, one of many Soviets who have joined the Loyalist's fight against the Fascists, is to blow up a bridge during a key attack by the Republic. Jordan employs the help of a band of renegades who live in the mountains and are loyal to the republic to blow the bridge.

The band provides the story with some of its most colorful and interesting characters: Pablo, the leader, who has lost his courage; Pilar, Pablo's wife, a fierce, respected woman with an ugly and square-shaped face; and the beautiful Maria, the recipient of unmitigated figurative scars during the war.

The plot is as simple as I've explained it above; a soldier and a band are trying to blow up bridge. This is both a weaknesses and strength of the novel. The lack of little forward momentum allows Hemingway to delve deeper into the thoughts of several characters, especially the main character, Robert Jordan, and this leads to a fuller character portrayal not found in earlier novels such as "A Farewell to Arms." But because so little actually happens, the book becomes stale at several parts. I had to force myself through several long passages that were as tedious as a blank sheet of paper.

But at times during this book, Hemingway shows why he is considered one of the preeminent writers of the 20th century. The last stand of El Sordo is a great example of this. In the book, El Sordo leads another band of renegades that is in partnership with Robert Jordan. Unfortunately in the course of the novel, El Sordo is cutoff from Jordan and is attacked by the fascists. Hemingway's description of this scene in unparalleled in literature. Using his objective, unsentimental style that developed partly from his career as a journalist, Hemingway recounts the scene dispassionately yet perfectly. No extra words or attempts to manipulate the reader. He lets the tragedy speak for itself.

And of course, Hemingway's dialogue is great. His characters do not speak enough in this book.

But at other times, Hemingway veers from his strengths and becomes something I'm unaccustomed to from him: boring. I suspect that Hemingway wanted to write a small, intimate story in the middle of enormous situation like World War II. This story is more personal than his earlier novels. I finished the book three months, and I still feel like Pablo is a real person. But because the reader is so focused on character, the story feels unbalanced. The task to write such a personal story in the middle of war is a difficult one, mainly because the reader's expectation for the story is not on the characters but the war at hand. So many times throughout the book, I found myself wishing for more to happen, and became bored several times in the book because it was not happening. In other stories and books, Hemingway seems to find the perfect balance between drama and character. But not in this one. The story really bogs down at times.