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kmt75's review
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
koreilly's review against another edition
3.0
A play I didn't finish and some short thrown off sketches of life in the Spanish Civil War. Luckily I found the setting interesting enough to pull me along through most the stories but this isn't what I'd call essential reading by any means.
srbolton's review
4.0
Not especially enamored of the eponymous stage play, but the four short stories are excellent Hemingway, and entirely redeem the collection. The foreigners and Spaniards drawn to the Spanish Civil War live through the daily dramas and tribulations of life under uncertainty of tomorrow, but all return in their orbits to Chicote’s: bar, restaurant, and hub of social (and socialist) interaction in Madrid.
orlion's review against another edition
4.0
The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War should be re-named Tales from the Chicote Bar because a lot of the stories center around, take place in, or stop by for a drink at the Chicote. This is clearly because Hemingway, going for authenticity and having first hand experience with the Spanish Civil War, understood that the Chicote was an important location for this bloody conflict...about as important if not more so than Ebro!
It certainly is not because Ernie is a raging alcoholic.
"The Fifth Column" is Hemingway's only play that follows our brave, masculine, totally-non-alcoholic, counter-espionage agent, Philip, as he tries to uncover information about the undercover Fifth Column fascists while attempting to have a normal relation with a dumb, blonde bimbo that writes for the Cosmopolitan. The first act is somewhat clunky, but we are able to get some substance and excitement in the final two acts. It certainly, I suppose, is not the best example of a play. It is actually just a short story written as dialogue and scene descriptions and makes no use of the advantages the theatre medium has to offer. However, it is entertaining and insightful into this small portion of the Spanish Civil War... the portion in Madrid around Chicote's.
The short stories also stay in or around Madrid. They deal with the unsavory realities of the politics of the Spanish Civil War, the incompetency of the Second Republic Commanders, those damn murderous Russians, and an incident mentioned in a play where a bar patron sprays perfume on some waiters in the Chicote and gets shot by another patron.
These are tales about a foreigner's observation during one of history's most brutal wars. And limited to that scope, it is a success. There is a sense that there is a lot going on that we do not understand and a hopelessness in fighting for what is right when the opposing side is receiving plenty of aid and you are struggling to make due with what resources you have. This is no longer the Spain of dignified bull-fighting, majestic vistas, and alcohol drenched night-life we see in The Sun Also Rises. In this Spain, dignity is stripped away by questioning by secret police and military executions, the vistas are now just shell-pocked Madrid under constant and unbreakable siege by the fascists, and alcohol is limited to what our intrepid foreign correspondents happen to have at their Hotel and the dwindling supplies of Chicote.
It certainly is not because Ernie is a raging alcoholic.
"The Fifth Column" is Hemingway's only play that follows our brave, masculine, totally-non-alcoholic, counter-espionage agent, Philip, as he tries to uncover information about the undercover Fifth Column fascists while attempting to have a normal relation with a dumb, blonde bimbo that writes for the Cosmopolitan. The first act is somewhat clunky, but we are able to get some substance and excitement in the final two acts. It certainly, I suppose, is not the best example of a play. It is actually just a short story written as dialogue and scene descriptions and makes no use of the advantages the theatre medium has to offer. However, it is entertaining and insightful into this small portion of the Spanish Civil War... the portion in Madrid around Chicote's.
The short stories also stay in or around Madrid. They deal with the unsavory realities of the politics of the Spanish Civil War, the incompetency of the Second Republic Commanders, those damn murderous Russians, and an incident mentioned in a play where a bar patron sprays perfume on some waiters in the Chicote and gets shot by another patron.
These are tales about a foreigner's observation during one of history's most brutal wars. And limited to that scope, it is a success. There is a sense that there is a lot going on that we do not understand and a hopelessness in fighting for what is right when the opposing side is receiving plenty of aid and you are struggling to make due with what resources you have. This is no longer the Spain of dignified bull-fighting, majestic vistas, and alcohol drenched night-life we see in The Sun Also Rises. In this Spain, dignity is stripped away by questioning by secret police and military executions, the vistas are now just shell-pocked Madrid under constant and unbreakable siege by the fascists, and alcohol is limited to what our intrepid foreign correspondents happen to have at their Hotel and the dwindling supplies of Chicote.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
2.0
Meh, c'était pas mal ou quoi que ce soit. En fait, je pensais que la nouvelle, « Collines comme des éléphants blancs » est toujours l'un de mes écrits préférés d'Hemingway. Bien sûr je pense que l'opération que la femme envisage de subir, l'opération que l'homme la pousse à subir, est probablement un avortement ou une chirurgie plastique, parce que les hommes sont nuls, par contre je pense que ce serait marrant, ce serait drôle si l'opération était une chirurgie oculaire correctrice ou n'importe quoi.
jfl's review against another edition
3.0
The Fifth Column and Four Stories is a Hemingway collection published in 1969 by Mary Hemingway after her husband’s suicide. It includes Hemingway’s only play, which had been published previously in 1938, and four short stories that he wrote while in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.
They (both play and stories), given their themes, might be considered creative foreshadows to For Whom the Bell Tolls. But beyond that timing, they are Hemingway’s first-hand descriptions of what life might have been like in Madrid during Franco’s siege of that city. As windows into a time and place not often seen with any considered subjectivity, they are also reflective companions to George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Much as Orwell’s journalistic descriptions of the conflicted politics of Barcelona during the same time period, these fictional pieces lay bare some of the suspicions, tensions, camaraderie and hostilities that gripped Republican Madrid during the Civil War. As historical fiction, they are far better testimonies of the times than is For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Philip Rawlings (another Hemingway alter ego) is the dominant character of Hemingway’s only play, which is centered for most of the time in two rooms of Madrid’s Hotel Florida. An undercover agent of the Republic who is working ostensibly as a journalist, Rawlings primary mission is to aid in the abduction of two Fascists working in Nationalists-controlled territory and who are in possession of information about the fifth column (=Nationalists and/or Nationalist sympathizers) living secretly in Madrid. Fleshing out Rawlings' military mission is his amorous relationship with Dorothy Bridges (a character based on Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s then current mistress and a journalist in her own right who will become his third wife).
The narrator for all four short stories is Edwin Henry, an American journalist stationed in Madrid in order to report on the war itself. Much like Ernest Hemingway (with whom he shares initials and a job) and Philip Rawlings of the play, Henry is ensconced in the Hotel Florida. When not at the hotel or on the edges of the urban battlefield, he is at Chicote’s, which “in the old days in Madrid was a place like The Stork, without the music and the debutantes, or the Waldorf’s men’s bar if they let girls in. You know, they came in, but it was a man’s place and they didn’t have any status.”
There is cohesiveness to the four stories. In addition to the fact that the action in all four takes place in Madrid, each one dances with death or its shadow. They are in their collectivity similar to the war-related stories in the Nick Adams cycle, although, with the possible exception of “Under the Ridge”, not entirely of the same quality.
For Hemingway’s own discussion of the play: http://books4spain.com/blog/?p=1510. Hemingway mentions at the end of the discussion of the play the short stories. He is referring to the first collection in which the play appeared. In that collection, he included his first 49 short stories. The four stories published in this later volume were not in the earlier one.
They (both play and stories), given their themes, might be considered creative foreshadows to For Whom the Bell Tolls. But beyond that timing, they are Hemingway’s first-hand descriptions of what life might have been like in Madrid during Franco’s siege of that city. As windows into a time and place not often seen with any considered subjectivity, they are also reflective companions to George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Much as Orwell’s journalistic descriptions of the conflicted politics of Barcelona during the same time period, these fictional pieces lay bare some of the suspicions, tensions, camaraderie and hostilities that gripped Republican Madrid during the Civil War. As historical fiction, they are far better testimonies of the times than is For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Philip Rawlings (another Hemingway alter ego) is the dominant character of Hemingway’s only play, which is centered for most of the time in two rooms of Madrid’s Hotel Florida. An undercover agent of the Republic who is working ostensibly as a journalist, Rawlings primary mission is to aid in the abduction of two Fascists working in Nationalists-controlled territory and who are in possession of information about the fifth column (=Nationalists and/or Nationalist sympathizers) living secretly in Madrid. Fleshing out Rawlings' military mission is his amorous relationship with Dorothy Bridges (a character based on Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s then current mistress and a journalist in her own right who will become his third wife).
The narrator for all four short stories is Edwin Henry, an American journalist stationed in Madrid in order to report on the war itself. Much like Ernest Hemingway (with whom he shares initials and a job) and Philip Rawlings of the play, Henry is ensconced in the Hotel Florida. When not at the hotel or on the edges of the urban battlefield, he is at Chicote’s, which “in the old days in Madrid was a place like The Stork, without the music and the debutantes, or the Waldorf’s men’s bar if they let girls in. You know, they came in, but it was a man’s place and they didn’t have any status.”
There is cohesiveness to the four stories. In addition to the fact that the action in all four takes place in Madrid, each one dances with death or its shadow. They are in their collectivity similar to the war-related stories in the Nick Adams cycle, although, with the possible exception of “Under the Ridge”, not entirely of the same quality.
For Hemingway’s own discussion of the play: http://books4spain.com/blog/?p=1510. Hemingway mentions at the end of the discussion of the play the short stories. He is referring to the first collection in which the play appeared. In that collection, he included his first 49 short stories. The four stories published in this later volume were not in the earlier one.
lauralhart's review against another edition
2.0
Max: She is something serious to you?
Philip: Serious?
Max: Yes. You know what I mean.
Philip: I wouldn’t say so. You could call her comic, rather. In some ways.
Fitting description for the leading lady of this play: comic. Dorothy Bridges, the wartime writer who isn’t taken seriously at all, is treated like a child, and made me feel a good bit of contempt for this play.
Sure, you can consider ‘The Fifth Column’ “valuable” for its portrayal of what happens to all those involved in a military conflict, given the context of the Spanish Revolution, but ultimately this was a very disappointing read from the writer who penned my favorite novel of all time, Hemingway who I normally admire.
Philip: Serious?
Max: Yes. You know what I mean.
Philip: I wouldn’t say so. You could call her comic, rather. In some ways.
Fitting description for the leading lady of this play: comic. Dorothy Bridges, the wartime writer who isn’t taken seriously at all, is treated like a child, and made me feel a good bit of contempt for this play.
Sure, you can consider ‘The Fifth Column’ “valuable” for its portrayal of what happens to all those involved in a military conflict, given the context of the Spanish Revolution, but ultimately this was a very disappointing read from the writer who penned my favorite novel of all time, Hemingway who I normally admire.
msand3's review against another edition
3.0
Hemingway's three act play The Fifth Column reminds me of my thoughts after reading Hemingway's poems: Papa needs to stick to prose! Hemingway's drama isn't as embarrassing as his poetry, but it's a far cry from his novels, and certainly not in the same league as the four short stories that follow the play in this collection, which are not top shelf Hemingway stories to begin with. Only Hemingway could toss off the character tag "Moorish Tart" (even after establishing the character's name as Anita!), only to switch the tag to "Anita" in the subsequent acts! Even if this little clue comes back to be significant in the end, it wouldn't matter at all to viewers. We are left with many unanswered questions: What happened to Preston? Who was the guy who took a shot at Phillip? (Are those two related?) Sadly, I found that I didn't really care enough to be upset by these abandoned subplots.