Total Page : 57
Publisher : SparkNotes
Publication Date : 2003 06 13
>> Two Thumbs Up
This book gathers momentum slowly but I guarantee that if you stick with it to the end you will be very well rewarded I enjoyed this book for insight into history as well as military tactics It s almost like you are behind enemy lines eavesdropping on what is happening But the last 40 to 50 pages swiftly gathers momentum both in action and emotional impact But intertwined is this heart wrenching love story at least at the end it s heart wrenching I ve read four of Hemingway s books but this one ranks easily at the top There is so much emotion and character in this book the stuff that makes us human and heroic and that makes Hemingway so great The last 40 pages or so builds so much emotion suspense and excitement you cannot put it down the mission climaxes the love story climaxes what a ride
>> Great Novel Read Forty Years Apart 30 68
Written in typical Hemingwayesque ploddingly simple style this book morphs English and Spanish in a unique manner for its period 1940 which subsequent writers have copied or embellished Spain is Hemingway s love During this time most loved Paris like friend Fitzgerald But dry heat and bull running mania were for for this man
Spanish sayings abound in this novel about simple people asked to do a job perhaps simple in the name of the cause blow up a bridge But the pithy and poignant statements of implyingly illiterate gypsy Pilar cannot be matched by 17th century philosophers For example Spain in her words is where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion
When protagonist Robert Jordan speaks English for a short time to some of the group Pilar tells him to revert to Spanish as no language is truer She later concludes that Spanish is shorter and simpler
And Hemingway s influence on this language shows as some verbs are paradoxically used each time the root of Spanish for English usage One example is to constantly implement Spanish molestar in English sentences to ask that people stop molesting one another when the translation is not to bother one another
But these linguistic nuances are the special effect the unique style the cutting edge to the Nobel winning writing style of Hemingway It is the sentences of Spanglish or otherwise compounded with his ever seemless simplification that make this novel resound
I enjoyed this novel also for its slow beginning and its heightening to a crescendo for its ending His language and other writing angles seem to mature as the novel progresses He slowly captures the reader and has you under his exclusive control the last third of the book
Although Hemingway makes this a love story at a time of war parts are seemingly unreal Knowing that he is going to die the next day Robert Jordan meets one last time with beautiful Maria And as they are about to start doing the deed he stops and asks if she hurts I am sure that you can interview many a disagreeing soldier under similar circumstances and ask if the concept of pain to the sexual partner ever entered their mind when they were having what would perhaps be their last moment of heaven on this man s earth they would all agree that this was not exactly what they had in mind
But this is a classic and worthy of reading I waited over 40 years between readings and received very different messages Each time good
>> The most epic novel of all time
Read it if you haven t read it The ending is truly enduring the entire book is a lesson in what it means to be a man
