Book Review: For Whom The Bell Tolls

Book Review: For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

"No man is an island,  entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were;  any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee"  John Donne.

Three days in five hundred pages.

    It is true that The Old Man and The Sea earned Ernest Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature, but it would only be fair to also recognize For Whom The Bell Tolls as one of his distinctive hallmarks. 

    For Whom The Bell Tolls is a modernist historical war novel narrated in the third person omniscient, written in a journalistic objective style and set in Spain during the civil war. The events of the narrative revolve around one single mission that requires an unfailing planned scheme with a reliably devoted cohort. Within the three days time-frame, the mission has revealed to the team their true essences, especially that they couldn't predict and ensure its accomplishment. 

   The bridge blasting task was preceded by the internal quarrels in the team. The American protagonist Robert Jordan or the "Inglés" constantly disputed with Pablo over the leadership position, whereas Pilar- Pablo's wife- sounds more qualified for the status, which she occupies implicitly. Hemingway's characters in the novel seem to represent dichotomies, for instance, Pilar the brave matriarch leader is opposed to the passive submissive and foolish Maria. There are several other distinct characters like Karkov, the brothers, and especially the naive guilt-ridden and mystic Anselmo who is by far my favorite character.

    Some may find it a lengthy, dull narrative and are most reluctant to read it, but I can't possibly relate to that at any level. The literary techniques like flashbacks and foreshadowing have been constantly utilized, and their employment emphasized the modernist techniques. Formalistally speaking, certain passages could be valid examples of defamiliarization as a literary technique. As for themes and motifs, DEATH is one comprehensive word that propagates further themes such as war and its pernicious effects, fatal love relationships that are escape ways from the bitter reality and the heavy conscious self; besides the value of human life and the last precious and weary moments of existence. Hemingway depicted the Spanish war without any embellishment or taking sides, he rather chose to personalize the devastating hopeless war feelings in the shape of his characters. The latter manifested jealousy, cruelty, empathy, and dishonor.

   For Whom the Bell Tolls is a story of a tragic adventure during the brutal Spanish civil war, yet more than that, it is a story about death, life, regrets, confessions, secrets, and love.