For Whom The Bell Tolls
For Whom The Bell Tolls
‘But an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to
spend his time with fools.’ -Pablo
Ernest Hemingway’s
novel set during the Spanish Civil war was a 1940’s best seller but
unfortunately... I couldn’t get through it, possibly because I was reading the
book with no other motivation than the fact that it shared its name with a J .Cole
song but 250 pages in it had failed to gauge my interest and I didn’t want to
read it any longer, nevertheless I still have many thoughts on the novel.
One thing I wasn’t
quite sure about was if Hemmingway wrote the book as if the characters were
speaking in Spanish but we were reading it in English as some phrases appeared
to be translated from Spanish as they were written in a literal manner which is
an aspect I have always appreciated of the Spanish language. In addition to El
Sordo’s ‘pidgin Spanish’ was written as such however Hemmingway still insisted
on reminding the reader that some phrases were ‘said in Spanish’ as well as
writing some in Spanish and not translating them, though those he wrote in that
manner like ‘guardia civil’ were cognates so weren’t difficult to understand,
then again as someone whose currently studying Spanish for me not to understand
such a phrase at this stage would problematic. This didn’t stop me
understanding what was going on the book but just always had me wondering
especially when they interrogated Inglés for teaching Spanish.
Another problem I
had, and unfortunately there are quite a few, is that the narrator changed
unclearly from a narrative voice to the thoughts of Robert Jordan. Though it is
not uncommon for a story to be told by different characters or perspectives it
is new to me for it to change in the middle of page. This caused me to have to
constantly go back and make sure I was reading and understanding the story
properly which isn’t entirely negative as it makes it easier for me to write a comprehensive
review (of the half of the book I read)., but that does hinder of the enjoyment
of become engrossed in a book and being eager to turn to the next page.
Having Robert Jordan
present his perspective often in the novel did aid his character development as
pages in chapters are dedicated to detailing his plans for the future such as
wanting to take Maria to Gaylord’s or him getting to grips with Spanish
culture, but I am still not entirely sure Robert Jordan is and how he goes from
a professor in the USA to planning to blow up bridges in Spain. This is an
issue for me constantly in the novel as I always feel like I’m missing details
such as the characters of Golz and Kashkin.
On second thought I
take back what I said about character development because even though we are
introduced to Augustín and Fernando they are often to referred to as the
brothers which is fine as they are really minor characters but then why
introduce them in the first place? Hemmingway also refers to Pilar as ‘the
woman/mujer’ and Maria as ‘the girl’ which I took to show the place of gender
in Spanish society at the time and how that defined many things but Pilar was
still strong, independent and a leader which is progressive contextually as not
only is she in a position of power but she is an older woman in this position
when most if not all would’ve have been traditionally subservient but in fact
in this instance it is the youngest, Maria. Gender stereotypes are still
prominent as Pablo a loud, drunk and aggressive man whom Robert Jordan believes
only needs a ‘cigar’, a piece of phallic imagery, to complete his look.
Comments
Post a Comment