Four of us (Gene Helveston, John Sturman, Bill Briscoe, and Dave Young) checked in to go over Ernest Hemingway’s 1941 novel of the Spanish Civil War – “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Our well-read crew had a rollicking good time delving into this rather long book (469 Pages) which describes a guerilla mission that takes place over a three day period in May, 1937 in a mountainous region about 100 miles northwest of Madrid.
We had to refresh our memory of a war which lasted from 1936 until 1939 when the “bad guys” (the fascists and their fellow travellers) finally beat the “good guys” (the communists and their followers along with the peasants who were just generally pissed at the way they had been treated). The Nationalists were highly focused with the Church, the Army, and the business interests acting together. The Republicans were disjointed with several factions running from anarchists, communists, socialists, the Popular Front, to the common people. The Nationalist were backed by the Germany and Italy. The Republicans were supported by Russia. The Western powers were isolationist in the run-up to WWII. However, an International Brigade allowed left-leaning citizens of the USA, Great Britain, and other countries to participate in the fighting. They were supported by the locals who gave them logistical support – including a lot of wine – and also guided them through rugged terrain.
So we come to our hero, Robert (or Roberto or “Ingles”) a Spanish teacher on leave from a college in Montana who had been embedded in Spain at the time the revolution began. Roberto had been dispatched by a Russian commander to blow up a specific bridge at a specific time to facilitate a Republican counter-attack.
We talked about many of the well-developed characters appearing in the novel. Many were fleshed out through interior first=person monologues. However, that was not the case with Pedro,
an early leader of a group of republican revolutionaries. He had lost his fire and his fiery wife, Pilar (Hemingway later named his fishing boat for her) had taken over. Pablo, to protect his people from Nazi reprisals, had destroyed Roberto’s detonators. He later relented and participated in the mission but Roberto never trusted him again. Pilar, who in her younger days led an interesting life, was tender-hearted in caring for an injured matador but was unrelenting in her scathing contempt for her drunken husband. Pilar had also witnessed cruelty by her fellow Republicans who executed suposed Nazi sympathizers in her native village.
Roberto’s outlook on life changed considerably during his brief involvement with Maria, a lovely senorita who had been captured, raped, and otherwise abused by the Nazi’s. Pilar facilitated their relationship and they were soon cocooned together in Roberto’s sleep sack, pledging their eternal love for one another in the short time they had left. Although Roberto was not a communist (he worried how he would be received when he returned to Montana) he admired their discipline and that became a controlling factor in the way he carried himself. He tried to balance his interest in Maria and the revolution, imagining a wonderful time with her in a Madrid hotel after the war was over, but his duty to the revolution put his mission first.
As it turned out, the mission was a very small part of a small skirmish and did not matter much in the scheme of things. The timing was off and as the plans of the republican counter-offensive had been leaked to the enemy, not really necessary. When the Russian commander learned that the bridge had been blown because Roberto (schooled in explosives as a miner in Montana) found a way to use grenades as detonators) he merely shrugged his soldiers.
After the bridge was blown, the guerilla group scurried away up a mountain pass. Roberto’s horse was shot out from under him and in the fall there was a compound fracture to his leg. Knowing that he would slow his friends down if they tried to rescue him, he bade them and Maria to continue on while he laid in wait to ambush any Nazi who came to pursue them.
And so Hemingway ties up his earth and soil treatment by having Roberto spend his last hours resting on pine needles just as in the opening paragraph he lay flat on pine needles while studying the lay of the land for his mission. Also, after he and Maria had sex in his sleeping sack there is much talk about them feeling “the earth move.” Hemingway goes to geat lengths to describe the landscape in all of its terrible beauty.
The way language is used is interesting, probably complicated by fear of censorship. Hemingway substitues “obscenity” where a writer today would simply say “fuck.” The people of Spain are well known for their creative cursing. Usually after rendering a curse in ’Spanish, Hemingway will repeat it in English unless it is really gross like “me cago en la leche de su madre.” He also substitutes “unprintable” for other obscenities.
We speculated how much Hemingway identified with his hero, Ricardo. Hemingway had covered much of this territory as a war correspondent and he was just about the same age as Roberto. Both ended their lives in suicidal situations. Ernest stuck a shotgun in his mouth because he could no longer write nor live up to the legend he had created for himself. Roberto took on a suicide mission, knowing that the Nazis would kill him, rather than take a chance on living a little longer with his new soul mate, Maria.
All in all a fascinating book that reminded us of an almost forgotten war (which has been the subject of 52 feature films) and to revisit our Spanish lessons.
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We gave this novel a rousing 9.5 on the ineffable/unprintable ten-point KV scale. We discussed possible novels for next month’s meeting at 11AM on Thursday, April 27, 2023. Dave has set up the ZOOM link which appears below. Norman Mailer’s break-out novel “The Naked and the Dead” was considered, but at 721 pages might be a little too long for our tired eyes. Dave has a default novel, John Steinbeck’s 1935 treatment of a collection of paisano alcoholics in Monterey, California during the depression: “Tortilla Flat.”This comes in at an easy 224 pages and is available through Amazon at $7.87. We will go with this unless someone comes up with a better idea. It would be nice if someone would volunteer to lead the discussion.
Cheryl has suggested that we use one of our monthly meetings to talk about how each of us relates to Vonnegut and his work. We could also talk about the book club and what we need to do to make it more viable. Getting back together in person and for lunch would be nice now that Covid seems to be in the rear view mirror. We also need to put together a long range reading plan so that we don’t have to hustle every month to find a book and a discussion leader. If this is appropriate, we might be able to ZOOM together on this in June and maybe we could work in a couple of KV’s short stories or essays Let us know what you think.
After the Zoom link I have appended links to two articles by two Indianapolis journalists, my casual friend Will Higgins and John Krull who write about KV’s relationship with the city of his birth.
Dave Young
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David Young is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: “Tortilla Flat” or some other work
Time: Apr 25, 2024 10:30 AM America/Indiana/Indianapolis
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84299989064?pwd=cXBVYVlyQk9YN3dxRFlJanM3MEFpdz09
Meeting ID: 842 9998 9064
Passcode: 528539
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Will Higgins on Vonnegut and his relation to Indianapolis (2014)
John Krull’s observations of his friend, KV (2022)
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And the customary excerpt from my beloved Wikipedia:
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.
It was published just after the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), whose general lines were well known at the time. It assumes the reader knows that the war was between the government of the Second Spanish Republic, which many foreigners went to Spain to help and which was supported by the Communist Soviet Union, and the Nationalist faction, which was supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In 1940, the year the book was published, the United States had not yet entered the Second World War, which had begun on September 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland.[1]
The novel is regarded as one of Hemingway’s best works, along with The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Old Man and the Sea.[2]
Background[edit]
Ernest Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls in Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; and Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1939.[3][4] In Cuba, he lived in the Hotel Ambos Mundos where he worked on the manuscript.[5][6] The novel was finished in July 1940 at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in New York City[7] and published in October.[8][9] The story is based on Hemingway’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War and features an American who fights alongside Spanish guerillas for the Republicans.[10] The novel graphically describes the brutality of the war and is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway’s own experiences in the Spanish Civil War as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance.[11]
The characters in the novel include those who are purely fictional, those based on real people but fictionalized, and those who were actual figures in the war. Set in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range between Madrid and Segovia, the action takes place during four days and three nights. For Whom the Bell Tolls became a Book of the Month Club choice, sold half a million copies within months, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and became a literary triumph for Hemingway.[10] Published on 21 October 1940, the first edition print run was 75,000 copies priced at $2.75.[12]
Title[edit]
The book’s title is taken from the metaphysical poet John Donne‘s series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness (written while Donne was convalescing from a nearly fatal illness) published in 1624 as Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, specifically Meditation XVII. Hemingway quotes part of the meditation (using Donne’s original spelling) in the book’s epigraph. Donne refers to the practice of funeral tolling, universal in his time.
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.
Plot summary[edit]
Robert Jordan is an American, formerly a professor of Spanish language at the University of Montana. He had lived in prewar Spain, and fights as an irregular soldier for the Republic against Francisco Franco‘s fascist forces. An experienced dynamiter, he is ordered by a Soviet general to travel behind enemy lines and destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local anti-fascist guerrillas to prevent enemy troops from responding to an upcoming offensive. On his mission, Jordan meets the rebel Anselmo, the “old man”, who brings him to the hidden guerrilla camp in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains between Madrid and Segovia. Anselmo initially acts as an intermediary between Jordan and the other guerrilla fighters. They include Agustín, Primitivo, Fernando, brothers Andrés and Eladio, and Rafael, often referred to pejoratively as “the gypsy“.
In the camp, Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life has been shattered by her parents’ execution and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both the unwillingness of the guerrilla leader Pablo to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band and Jordan’s own new-found lust for life, which arises from his love for María. Pablo’s wife, the strong-willed Pilar, with the support of the other guerrillas, displaces Pablo as the group leader and pledges the allegiance of the guerrillas to Jordan’s mission.
When another band of anti-fascist guerrillas, led by El Sordo, is surrounded and killed during a raid they conducted in support of Jordan’s mission, Pablo steals the dynamite detonators and exploder, hoping to prevent the demolition and to avoid fascist reprisals. Although he disposes of the detonators and exploder by throwing them down a gorge into the river, Pablo regrets abandoning his comrades and returns to assist in the operation.
The enemy, apprised of the coming offensive, has prepared to ambush it in force and it seems unlikely that the blown bridge will do much to prevent a rout. However, Jordan understands that he must still demolish the bridge unless he receives explicit orders to the contrary. Lacking the detonation equipment stolen by Pablo, Jordan devises an alternative method: exploding the dynamite by using hand grenades with wires attached so that their pins can be pulled from a distance. The improvised plan is considerably more dangerous as the guerrillas must be nearer to the explosion. While Pilar, Pablo, and other guerrillas attack the posts at the two ends of the bridge, Jordan and Anselmo plant and detonate the dynamite, costing Anselmo his life when he is hit by a piece of shrapnel. While escaping, Jordan is maimed when a tank shoots his horse out from under him. Knowing that his wound is so severe that it is highly unlikely that he will survive and that he would slow the others down, he bids farewell to María and ensures her escape to safety with the surviving guerrillas. He refuses Agustín’s offer to shoot him and lies waiting in agony, hoping to kill an enemy officer and delay the pursuit of his comrades before he dies. The narrative ends with Jordan waiting for the perfect opportunity to launch his ambush, if he does not go unconscious (or die) first.
Characters[edit]
- Robert Jordan – American university instructor of the Spanish language and a specialist in demolitions and explosives.
- Anselmo – Elderly guide to Robert Jordan.
- Golz – Soviet officer who ordered the bridge’s demolition.
- Pablo – Leader of a group of anti-fascist guerrillas.
- Rafael – Well-intentioned yet incompetent and lazy guerrilla, and a gypsy.
- María – Robert Jordan’s young lover.
- Pilar – Pablo’s wife. An aged but strong woman, she is the de facto leader of the guerrilla band.
- Karkov – Soviet agent and journalist in Madrid, and a friend of Jordan’s.
- Agustín – Foul-mouthed, middle-aged guerrilla.
- El Sordo – Leader of a fellow band of guerrillas.
- Fernando – Middle-aged guerrilla.
- Andrés and Eladio – Brothers and members of Pablo’s band.
- Primitivo – Old guerrilla in Pablo’s band.
- Joaquín – Enthusiastic teenaged communist, a member of Sordo’s band.
Imagery[edit]
The novel contains imagery of soil and earth.[13] The imagery appears rather famously at the start of chapter 13. Jordan and María have sex in a meadow in the forest. He feels “the earth move out and away from under them.” Then afterwards he asks María, “Did thee feel the earth move?”, to which she responds affirmatively. Variants of this phrase have become a cultural cliché,[14] often used humorously.[15]
References to actual events[edit]
The novel takes place in late May 1937, during the second year of the Spanish Civil War.[16] References made to Valladolid, Segovia, El Escorial, and Madrid suggest the novel takes place within the build-up to the Republican attempt to relieve the siege of Madrid.
The earlier battle of Guadalajara and the general chaos and disorder (and, more generally, the doomed cause of Republican Spain) serve as a backdrop to the novel: Robert Jordan notes, for instance, that he follows the Communists because of their superior discipline, an allusion to the split and infighting between anarchist and communist factions on the Republican side.
The famous and pivotal scene described in Chapter 10, in which Pilar describes the execution of various fascist figures in her village, is drawn from events that took place in Ronda in 1936. Although Hemingway later claimed (in a 1954 letter to Bernard Berenson) to have completely fabricated the scene, he in fact drew upon the events at Ronda, embellishing the event by imagining an execution line leading up to the cliff face.[17]
A number of actual figures that played a role in the Spanish Civil War are also referred to in the book, including these:
- Andreu Nin, one of the founders of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), the party mocked by Karkov in Chapter 18.
- Enrique Líster, communist leader who played important roles during the defense of Madrid.
- Mikhail Koltsov, Soviet journalist was the Karkov character in the story
- Indalecio Prieto, one of the leaders of the Republicans, is also mentioned in Chapter 18.
- General José Miaja, in charge of the defense of Madrid in October 1936, and General Vicente Rojo, together with Prieto, are mentioned in Chapter 35
- Dolores Ibárruri, better known as La Pasionaria, is extensively described in Chapter 32.
- Robert Hale Merriman, leader of the American Volunteers in the International Brigades, and his wife Marion, were well known to Hemingway and served possibly as a model for Hemingway’s own hero.[18][19]
- André Marty, a leading French Communist and political officer in the International Brigades, makes a brief but significant appearance in Chapter 42. Hemingway depicts Marty as a vicious intriguer whose paranoia interferes with Republican objectives in the war.
- Karol Świerczewski, a Russian general of Polish origin as Golz.
- Francisco Franco, commander of the rebel army who will become the ruling dictator after the war.
Critical reception and impact[edit]
On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed For Whom the Bell Tolls on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels.[20]
Censorship[edit]
In 1940, For Whom the Bell Tolls was declared non-mailable by the U.S. Post Office.[21]
In 1973, the book was banned in Turkey because the book included “propaganda unfavorable to the state.”[21] On February 21 of that year, eleven Turkish book publishers and eight booksellers “went on trial before an Istanbul martial law tribunal on charges of publishing, possessing, and selling books in violation of an order of the Istanbul martial law command. They faced possible sentences of between one month’s and six months’ imprisonment and the confiscation of their books.”[21]
Language[edit]
Since its publication, the prose style and dialogue in Hemingway’s novel have been the source of negative critical reaction. For example, Edmund Wilson, in a tepid review, noted the encumbrance of “a strange atmosphere of literary medievalism” in the relationship between Robert Jordan and Maria.[22]
Additionally, much of the dialogue in the novel is an implied direct translation from Spanish, producing an often strained English equivalent. For example, Hemingway uses the construction “what passes that”,[23] which is an implied translation of the Spanish construction qué pasa que. This translation extends to the use of linguistic “false friends“, such as “rare” (from raro) instead of “strange” and “syndicate” (from sindicato) instead of trade union.[24]
Pulitzer Prize snub[edit]
In 1941, the Pulitzer Prize committee for letters unanimously recommended For Whom the Bell Tolls be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for that year. The Pulitzer Board agreed. However, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University and ex officio head of the Pulitzer board at that time, found the novel offensive and persuaded the board to reverse its determination; no Pulitzer was given for the category of novel that year.[25]
In Spain[edit]
In 1944, the book was first published in Spanish by an Argentinian publishing house, Editorial Claridad, with many subsequent editions produced either in Argentina or in Mexico. In Spain, it was initially viewed very suspiciously by the Francoist censorship office; in 1942–43 the Spanish diplomatic corps went to great lengths in trying to influence the final edit of the Hollywood film based on the novel, which was not permitted to be shown in Spanish cinemas. Since 1953, when The Old Man and the Sea was published in Madrid, most of Hemingway’s stories and novels had been published in Spain. However, this was not the case with For Whom the Bell Tolls, although the novel was at times discussed in the press. Prohibition of the book’s publishing was rescinded only in late 1968. By the end of the year Por quién doblan las campanas had been published by Editorial Planeta.[26]
- A film adaptation titled For Whom the Bell Tolls, directed by Sam Wood, was released in 1943 starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress; however, only the Greek actress Katina Paxinou won an Oscar for her portrayal of Pilar. Cooper and Bergman later reprised their roles from the film for a radio adaptation broadcast on Lux Radio Theatre. In 1988, it was re-released with the inclusion of scenes cut from the original release.
- In 1959, a television adaptation For Whom the Bell Tolls, directed by John Frankenheimer, was broadcast in two parts on CBS‘s Playhouse 90, starring Jason Robards and Maria Schell as Robert Jordan and Maria, with Nehemiah Persoff as Pablo, Maureen Stapleton as Pilar, and Eli Wallach as the gypsy Rafael.
- In 1965, the BBC produced another television adaptation For Whom the Bell Tolls, as a four-part serial and a miniseries in American English.
- In 1978, the Takarazuka Revue adapted the novel as a musical drama, produced by Star Troupe and starring Ran Ootori as Robert Jordan and Kurara Haruka as Maria. Cosmos Troupe revived the show in 2010.
- In October 2014, the novel was dramatized in a two-part series on BBC Radio 4.
In popular culture[edit]
- The 2012 film Hemingway and Gellhorn depicts Hemingway’s time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War when he was completing work on For Whom the Bell Tolls, and his relationship with the American novelist, travel writer and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn,[27] who he credited with having inspired him to write the novel, and to whom he dedicated it.[28]
- The 2019 book Ecopsychology Revisited: For Whom Do the ‘Nature’ Bells Toll[29] by J. Conesa-Sevilla is an allusion to John Donne’s central question about “inter-relatedness” and Ernest Hemingway’s own allusion about the “inter-relatedness” of the politics of war.
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