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A review by irritablesatirist
For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway never sugar-coats the Republican forces in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The guerrilla unit, led by Robert Jordan, is a mess barely holding itself together, formed with disparate personalities. Pablo’s brutal hometown killings expose a dark underbelly as well.
But Hemingway still believed there was something worth fighting for in their cause. Despite the failures of Republican efforts, despite everything that could disillusion a man, the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. That's what makes For Whom the Bell Tolls a good story. It doesn’t lie to you about what people are like, but it comes out the other side with something meaningful to believe in.
This is also such a fantastically written book. What hooked me at first was how well Hemingway crafted a sense of place in the opening paragraphs, so much so that I had clear mental images of the topography. He also nailed the characterizations, part of which comes from spending almost five hundred pages with them, but I enjoyed getting to know these characters and seeing in them multiple dimensions.
But Hemingway still believed there was something worth fighting for in their cause. Despite the failures of Republican efforts, despite everything that could disillusion a man, the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. That's what makes For Whom the Bell Tolls a good story. It doesn’t lie to you about what people are like, but it comes out the other side with something meaningful to believe in.
This is also such a fantastically written book. What hooked me at first was how well Hemingway crafted a sense of place in the opening paragraphs, so much so that I had clear mental images of the topography. He also nailed the characterizations, part of which comes from spending almost five hundred pages with them, but I enjoyed getting to know these characters and seeing in them multiple dimensions.