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sage01's review against another edition
5.0
I've read this before in excerpts but never the entire novel.
About this edition, this is an audiobook read in a matter-of-fact, almost Bogart-esque style, which fits the era perfectly. It's wry and heartbreaking and rubs like sand in an open wound. Perfect for a gruesome war story.
About the style.
Some people have issues with Hemingway's style. I like him except when he gets too excessively Gertrude Steinian, which he does in two sections of this book -- but it seems intended, to me, as they go along with the protagonist losing his self-control to a resurgence of carefully repressed feeling. The lack of contractions and the strange diction match what Spanish sounds like in translation, and the novel is taking place mostly en español, so it fits. If you live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, it's easier to tell. The rhythm of speech is the same. Not all of the Spanish is translated, incidentally. There's a lot of fabulously vulgar slang that slipped through the censors. *g*
Hemingway writes some gorgeous sentences, let me tell you.
What I missed from the excerpts I had read before was Hemingway's/the narrator's profound sense of disillusionment concerning the Spanish Civil War. It was a travesty and rightfully deserves to be called the *real* second world war, what with the Germans and Italians arming and aiding Franco and Britain, France, and the US standing by watching civilians be massacred and mutilated without lifting a hand. It's a horrible time in history. And no one teaches it now. It's fallen out of the world history curricula because it's too awful. Or because the US and its allies failed to step up. (And if FDR had, would the Nazi war have started early? I imagine someone's written a book on that.)
I've seen criticism of this novel as "sexist" somewhere, but I don't understand where they're coming from unless it's an anachronistic application of the word. To me it seemed the opposite of sexist. A woman is a guerrilla leader. A teenage girl is a survivor of multiple rape and regains her emotional health and sexual identity after her trauma through the nurturing of the female guerrilla leader. I see a celebration of female power in that. The division of labor is what it is (the teenage girl is hardly strong enough to handle a giant old fashioned machine gun), and everyone in the sorry little band of rebels is equally in the shit together.
Which is the main point of the book for me. There was no glory in the war against Franco. It was an obscenity, a crime against humanity, and the international community was as responsible for meddling in the lives of illiterate paisanos as the first wave of idealistic intelligentsia and Communist idealogues.
What a horrific, traumatizing, nation-crippling thing.
Note: this gets a glbt_interest tag because of "maricón" being one of the most serious insults one can call a man (at the time), and also because of the scene where the guerrilla asks the American why he has to get together with the girl instead of finding a buddy to take his pleasure with as the rest of the men do. "Why not go with one of us?" he says (paraphrasing), and it could be taken as a proposition, but Jordan answers that he's in love with the girl and plans to marry her, and totally sidesteps the matter. :)
About this edition, this is an audiobook read in a matter-of-fact, almost Bogart-esque style, which fits the era perfectly. It's wry and heartbreaking and rubs like sand in an open wound. Perfect for a gruesome war story.
About the style.
Some people have issues with Hemingway's style. I like him except when he gets too excessively Gertrude Steinian, which he does in two sections of this book -- but it seems intended, to me, as they go along with the protagonist losing his self-control to a resurgence of carefully repressed feeling. The lack of contractions and the strange diction match what Spanish sounds like in translation, and the novel is taking place mostly en español, so it fits. If you live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, it's easier to tell. The rhythm of speech is the same. Not all of the Spanish is translated, incidentally. There's a lot of fabulously vulgar slang that slipped through the censors. *g*
Hemingway writes some gorgeous sentences, let me tell you.
What I missed from the excerpts I had read before was Hemingway's/the narrator's profound sense of disillusionment concerning the Spanish Civil War. It was a travesty and rightfully deserves to be called the *real* second world war, what with the Germans and Italians arming and aiding Franco and Britain, France, and the US standing by watching civilians be massacred and mutilated without lifting a hand. It's a horrible time in history. And no one teaches it now. It's fallen out of the world history curricula because it's too awful. Or because the US and its allies failed to step up. (And if FDR had, would the Nazi war have started early? I imagine someone's written a book on that.)
I've seen criticism of this novel as "sexist" somewhere, but I don't understand where they're coming from unless it's an anachronistic application of the word. To me it seemed the opposite of sexist. A woman is a guerrilla leader. A teenage girl is a survivor of multiple rape and regains her emotional health and sexual identity after her trauma through the nurturing of the female guerrilla leader. I see a celebration of female power in that. The division of labor is what it is (the teenage girl is hardly strong enough to handle a giant old fashioned machine gun), and everyone in the sorry little band of rebels is equally in the shit together.
Which is the main point of the book for me. There was no glory in the war against Franco. It was an obscenity, a crime against humanity, and the international community was as responsible for meddling in the lives of illiterate paisanos as the first wave of idealistic intelligentsia and Communist idealogues.
What a horrific, traumatizing, nation-crippling thing.
Note: this gets a glbt_interest tag because of "maricón" being one of the most serious insults one can call a man (at the time), and also because of the scene where the guerrilla asks the American why he has to get together with the girl instead of finding a buddy to take his pleasure with as the rest of the men do. "Why not go with one of us?" he says (paraphrasing), and it could be taken as a proposition, but Jordan answers that he's in love with the girl and plans to marry her, and totally sidesteps the matter. :)
khafaryn's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
https://laforgederion.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/roman-pour-qui-sonne-le-glas-ernest-hemingway/
pgsweetdee's review against another edition
2.0
2.5/5
This was the book that did it for me. The first book of the year that I officially didn't finish, although I got close.
I've read a lot of books I haven't loved, both this year and others, and finished most of them. And I really like 'The Sun Also Rises' a lot... or at least when I read it a decade ago. This isn't even the book I've disliked the most this year (Looking at you, Tropic of Cancer).
But this book, man.
I think it's a combination of two major factors:
1. The acclaim of this book. Did you know that this book was unanimously recommended for the Pulitzer Prize? The only reason it didn't win was due to one old fart who thought the book was obscene. This book. The book that uses the word curse in stead of actual swear words.
2. The sluggish pacing. Yes, this is a sin of many great pieces of literature that me, the common man, just doesn't "get." But really- what is happening here? And why is it taking hundreds of pages? Maybe if Hemingway didn't feel the need to translate his Spanish so literally, and as a result inertly, this wouldn't grate as much. But even the interior life of our only well-rounded character is a bit shallow, because that's how our famed author likes to roll.
Anyway, folks love this book. It's historically important. It has a high rating on this site. But it's not for me. Sorry EH :)
This was the book that did it for me. The first book of the year that I officially didn't finish, although I got close.
I've read a lot of books I haven't loved, both this year and others, and finished most of them. And I really like 'The Sun Also Rises' a lot... or at least when I read it a decade ago. This isn't even the book I've disliked the most this year (Looking at you, Tropic of Cancer).
But this book, man.
I think it's a combination of two major factors:
1. The acclaim of this book. Did you know that this book was unanimously recommended for the Pulitzer Prize? The only reason it didn't win was due to one old fart who thought the book was obscene. This book. The book that uses the word curse in stead of actual swear words.
2. The sluggish pacing. Yes, this is a sin of many great pieces of literature that me, the common man, just doesn't "get." But really- what is happening here? And why is it taking hundreds of pages? Maybe if Hemingway didn't feel the need to translate his Spanish so literally, and as a result inertly, this wouldn't grate as much. But even the interior life of our only well-rounded character is a bit shallow, because that's how our famed author likes to roll.
Anyway, folks love this book. It's historically important. It has a high rating on this site. But it's not for me. Sorry EH :)
ekmook's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
desertjarhead505's review against another edition
4.0
A powerful and moving story. Hemingway's writing style is not my favorite, but this is a great book, I think possibly his best work. Gripping. Read the book and see the movie, which is one of the few films that almost lives up to the book on which it's based.
jeremie's review against another edition
3.75
sometimes the ending of a book is just so good that it makes up for all its other flaws
“we will go to madrid another time, rabbit.”
“he could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest.”
“we will go to madrid another time, rabbit.”
“he could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest.”
emmc's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
cheesykaty's review against another edition
3.0
Not my favorite Hemingway, but if you can get past some of the longer passages this book is a great example of how spectacular he is at describing something so complicated as love in so few words.
kraelwake's review against another edition
2.0
I'm sorry to say that this book didn't do much for me. I know it's supposed to be one of Hemingway's best, but I just didn't get it. Mind you, there's some great prose sprinkled throughout, and some interesting experimentation with form in the second half, but other than that I just don't see what the big deal is. I find the work of his contemporaries much more interesting.