For Whom the Bell Tolls

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For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest, somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reason Jordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their local leader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him, Jordan has his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems, has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd of horses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as little attention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriously alarmed him.

"I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?"

In one short chapter Hemingway lays out the blueprint for what is to come: Jordan's sense of duty versus Pablo's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Complicating matters even more are two members of the guerrilla leader's small band: his "woman" Pilar, and Maria, a young woman whom Pablo rescued from a Republican prison train. Unlike her man, Pilar is still fiercely devoted to the cause and as Pablo's loyalty wanes, she becomes the moral center of the group. Soon Jordan finds himself caught between the two, even as his own resolve is tested by his growing feelings for Maria.

For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving El Sordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but the quieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfill his mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to his creator's psychological acuity. By turns brutal and compassionate, it is arguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the 20th century. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

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In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Customer Reviews:

A classic - buy it........2007-09-25

I first read this about 40 years ago. I just re-purchased it. This is a classic novel.

Lazy and messy.......2007-09-06

The Spanish Civil War was surely the most brutal and tragic civil war of the twentieth century. It not only pitted Spaniard against Spaniard, but became a kind of bloody curtain-raiser for World War II, with Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy lining up on the side of Franco's insurgents and the USSR backing the embattled left-leaning Republic. (The Western democracies - who might have prevented Spain from going fascist - followed a pusillanimous "hands off" policy which only emboldened the insurgents and their supporters.) Into this vortex came many writers and intellectuals. They were to witness brutality, betrayals, great valour, the corruption of ideals, and the consequences of ruthless Realpolitik.

So with all that in mind, here's an interesting question. If you were an author trying to write the great Spanish Civil War novel, would you choose to (1) sequester your handful of characters up in the mountains away from the main action; (2) write 500 pages covering a mere three days during which time nobody has anything to do; and (3) make the central character non-Spanish?

500 pages about three days of waiting is the book's central problem. It turns the novel into the opposite of an epic. To have taken a canvas as sweeping as the three years of the Spanish Civil War and shrink it down to such a compass-point was an unfathomable decision on the author's part. From this self-inflicted literary ambush there is no escape for Hemingway: you either need excellent descriptive prose or superb psychological insight to carve a good story from such crooked timber, for, after all, what else is left to describe in such a situation save inner musings and the outer landscape?

The prose is the next problem. Much has been made of Hemingway's 'deceptively simple' writing style. However, I found it impossible to read "For Whom the Bells Tolls" without forming the impression that that his reputation for putatively well-masked complexity is itself the deception. Consider the following extracts [from the Vintage edition]:

A hole in a hillside is described as:

"both deep and profound"
[p. 444]

Characters exchange such dialogue as:

'Well, then. Oh, then. Oh, then. Oh.'
[p. 166]

'Maria.'
'Yes.'
'Maria.'
'Yes.'
'Maria.'
'Oh, yes. Please.'
[p. 272]

'But use thy head. Thou hast much head. Use it.'
[p. 444]

Which brings us to the Hemingway penchant for meaningless repetition:

"In an impossible situation you hang on until night to get away. You try to last out until night to get back in. You are all right, maybe, if you can stick it out until dark and then get back in."
[p. 174]

"So a woman like that Pilar practically pushed this girl into your sleeping bag and what happens? Yes, what happens? What happens? You tell me what happens, please. That is just what happens. That is exactly what happens."
[p. 175]

Followed by some impressive run-on rants as the author becomes completely carried away describing love scenes (How many women - even in the thirties - were seduced by being repeatedly called 'rabbit'?)

My favourite passage is when one of the characters reveals to Joaquín that la Pasionara has a son in Russia. Instead of naming the character, Hemingway chooses to write the following clanking line:
"'If we insult them a little?' the man who had spoken to Joaquín about la Pasionara's son in Russia asked."
[p. 324]

On and on it goes like this. For three days. In a cave. This book has now gone into the umpteenth printing and neither the spelling nor grammar have been corrected ("... the flakes was dropping diagonally ..." [p. 185]; "... and then brining it down ..." [p. 213]; "... the felling when the Inglés gave the order ..." [p. 380]; at one point André Marty is referred to as "Mary" [p. 437]).

So it needs to be said openly. Hemingway pundits who make excuses for this sort of thing have a lot of explaining to do: otherwise they are obliged to defend similarly poor writing when they find it outside the world of Nobel laureates.

Oh, Buttercup.......2007-08-30

I read this book a couple years ago and loved it. War, adventure, love, it's like The Princess Bride minus lighthearted fairytale-ness. I highly recommend it.

excelsior!.......2007-08-05

must be where Metallica got the song name from. Anyways this is one of but many authors that, like Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain decided to take the easy way out. In the meantime he penned this great literature that is a great book. I don't care what anybody says, the old man and the sea is boring and short and so with that I bid you good day and happy reading!

My first venture into Hemingway.......2007-08-03

This was my first time reading a book by Hemingway, and it was not all I had hoped for. The Spanish Civil War is one of my major interests (it was the subject of my undergraduate research thesis) and so I ordered this book with great anticipation. Unfortunately, I was not completely satisfied.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" gives a great understanding of the personalities and characters of the Spanish people. It also is balanced in the sense that it shows that atrocities were committed by both sides.

However, my main complaint with the book is that it seems like nothing happens. It is not until probably the last 100 pages or so that action begins to take place. (Granted, there were many instances during the Spanish Civil War where the lines were at a standstill and nothing DID happen, so perhaps in that sense it is quite accurate). But despite how much Hemingway tries to build up to the destruction of the bridge, it's not exciting by the time you actually get to that point.

The other thing that irritated me (and this is just as a Spanish speaker) was that the dialogue is written as though it was literally translated word-for-word from Spanish conversation rather than translated for meaning. For example, the dialogue reads, "That he comes soon," ("que venga pronto") instead of, "I hope he comes soon," or "He better come soon." It just makes the dialogue awkward and unnatural.

Despite my complaints, I will not let this be my only reading of Hemingway and I will try out something else of his in the near future.

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Beauty in words
A True Classic
Absolutely terrible
Sitting Around, Feeling Sorry for Themselves
Hemingway good, story bad

The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684800713

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The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.

Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.

But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin

Book Description

The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's first big novel, and immediately established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists, and one of the preeminent writers of his time. It is also the book that encapsulates the angst of the post-World War I generation, known as the Lost Generation. This poignantly beautiful story of a group of American and English expatriates in Paris on an excursion to Pamplona represents a dramatic step forward for Hemingway's evolving style. Featuring Left Bank Paris in the 1920s and brutally realistic descriptions of bullfighting in Spain, the story is about the flamboyant Lady Brett Ashley and the hapless Jake Barnes. In an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions, this is the Lost Generation.

Customer Reviews:

Beauty in words.......2007-09-17

Ernest Hemmingway in his unique style delivers a masterpiece in adult fiction. His prose is concise and words beauty known only to the reader. He creates a wonderful atmosphere of the locations and his character's travel through the landscape and through emotions is captured exceptionally well.

This is a timeless classic. There is nothing I can say to convince anyone to read it. The characters are well-developed. There is love and passion and pain and beauty. The world that Hemmingway recreates belongs with these characters. The book launched a successful career and in me it set in motion the desire to read everything ever written by this brilliant writer.

A True Classic.......2007-09-03

The Sun Also Rises turned out to be quite a remarkable read and a novel worthy of classic status. It is absolutely amazing how much symbolism and hidden meaning Hemingway can sneak in through his distinctive clear and simple prose style. On the other hand, if you are not paying attention and miss the implied messages then this novel will strike you as nothing particularly special.

The book is about a group of American and English expatriates residing in Paris during the 1920s. They live aimless, purposeless lives after World War I because their whole value system has been shaken up. They are members of the "Lost Generation", a term popularized by this very book. Although the plot is simplistic, with Jake Barnes and his friends traveling to Spain for the Pamplona fiesta, the brilliance of the novel shines through in the relationships and dialogue between characters. The rambunctious Lady Brett Ashley is the target of four men's desires and Hemingway uses her to exemplify the destructiveness of sex and the male insecurity felt after World War I. It is a world where everyone drowns their sorrows in alcohol. The novel ends in an outstanding description of a bull-fight and on a hopeful, wishing note.

The novel opened my eyes to how drastic the effects of WWI were on soldiers and how disenchanted some of them became with prewar values and notions. I also was truly impressed by Hemingway's bullfighting descriptions and how he made them seem almost like poetic events. The characters were likable and compelling, too, and gave the novel much life even without an enchanting plot. Although I couldn't relate to the characters all that well, I'm sure someone who has had more of life's experiences will have no trouble doing so. Altogether, Hemingway created a novel that changed the literary world forever and will leave a lasting impression in many minds for generations to come - it sure did in mine.

Absolutely terrible.......2007-08-02

I'm no scholar, no student of literature. I just like to read. Everything from Huxley to HST to Dan Brown... if a book is good, I'll read it. If a book sucks, I'll usually put it down about halfway through.

That's what bothers me the most about The Sun Also Rises. I've heard nothing but good things about Hemingway, how he's the greatest American author of all time. So even though page after page of this book was boring to the point of tears, I kept reading. I gave Hemingway the behefit of the doubt that at some point, SOMETHING other than dinner, drinking, and everyone taking their turn on the neighborhood whore would happen.

Unfortunately, nothing happens. There's no plot, no conflict -- wait, that's not true... everyone hates the Jewish guy and everyone wants to sleep with the same woman... let me clarify -- there's no conflict interesting enough to carry a novel, no interesting characters (everyone is either an alcoholic or a slut, who you'd think might be interesting, but they are really just sad and pathetic), and absolutely no action. I wish I had read something else by Hemingway first, because odds are that ANY book would be better than this one. But now that this is my first impression of him, unfortunately, I don't know if I'll ever pick up another one of his books. It really is that bad.

DON'T READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Sitting Around, Feeling Sorry for Themselves.......2007-07-08

In the shallow world of the characters of Ernest Hemingway, everybody seems to spend most of their time feeling sorry for themself. Going beyond the tragic hero, the charcters are perhaps best described as arrogant and self-centered. Coupled with the terse writing style of Hemingway, this makes for a quick read with a somewhat clever plot.

While bull fighting actually takes place in the plot, it is also a clever metaphor used in the story. The main character Robert Cohn follows Lady Brett Ashley around like a stupid bull follows a bull fighter. It is hard to feel sorry for Cohn when everybody realizes Brett's disinterest in Cohn except Cohn. It comes to a head when Brett falls for the bull fighter and Cohn assaults his friends for viciously taunting him about Brett's disinterest.

While the main theme is somewhat clever, much of the other prose seems to be self-loathing and scenary. When the characters get drunk, they pour their hearts and failures out like spilling wine. Even when Bret finds her resolution, the reader could anticipate the downfall.

It is difficult to like any character in the story which may leave the reader with an awkward feeling. The characters are depraved and infantile while searching for a love that eludes them. While the search for an elusive love is one that readers can identify with, the flaws in the characters make evident why their goals elude them.

Hemingway good, story bad.......2007-06-24

I've often wondered how I got through college as an English major without reading any Hemingway. The classics have always been my favorites, and American lit specifically. So, as an adult, I've tried to add some of those critically acclaimed books I missed in undergrad to my "Have Read" list. The first Hemingway book I read post-college was A Farewell to Arms. I liked it ... not loved, but liked it enough to read more of his work. But this one ... I struggled through it. I felt like each page was the same -- group of friends who don't all like each other and lots and lots of alcohol. I did make it to the end despite my minimal interest in the story (or lack there of) because, no matter what the story is, Ernest Hemingway's style of writing is a great example of a true gift.

Blowing the Bridge: Essays on Hemingway and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Contributions in American Studies)

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Blowing the Bridge: Essays on Hemingway and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Contributions in American Studies)

Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0313284512

Book Description

This collection of recent essays on Hemingway and For Whom the Bell Tolls demonstrates the centrality of this Spanish Civil war novel in the author's life and canon and reestablishes the book's status as an American masterpiece. It provides a long overdue reassessment of the novel, which was an overwhelming critical and popular success in 1940. Following Rena Sanderson's introduction, the volume begins with a reconsideration of Hemingway's career by novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Ten literary essays by both well-known specialists and new voices follow. Employing a diversity of critical methods, including the biographical, historical, political, textual, ethical, feminist, religious, mythic, generic, and post-structuralist, these essays reveal the literary and historical richness of Hemingway's novel. Informed by recent developments in Hemingway scholarship, the chapters add up to a valuable Hemingway resource. The book is an important contribution to Hemingway studies, American literary scholarship, and American studies. It is essential reading for anyone working on For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain

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Well written account of one toreo's season
3 ears for Lewine!
Death And The Sun
Provides an understanding of bullfighting which goes beyond clichés and misperceptions
An excellent book

Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain
Edward Lewine
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 061826325X

Book Description

A brilliant observer in the tradition of Adam Gopnik and Paul Theroux, Edward Lewine reveals a Spain few outsiders have seen. There's nothing more Spanish than bullfighting, and nothing less like its stereotype. For matadors and aficionados, it is not a blood sport but an art, an ancient subculture steeped in ritual, machismo, and the feverish attentions of fans and the press. Lewine explains Spain and the art of the bulls by spending a bullfighting season traveling Spanish highways with the celebrated matador Francisco Rivera Ordez, following Fran, as he's known, through every region and social stratum. Fran's great-grandfather was a famous bullfighter and the inspiration for Hemingway's matador in The Sun Also Rises. Fran's father was also a star matador, until a bull took his life shortly before Fran's eleventh birthday. Fran is blessed and haunted by his family history. Formerly a top performer himself, Fran's reputation has slipped, and as the season opens he feels intense pressure to live up to his legacy amid tabloid scrutiny in the wake of his separation from his wife, a duchess. But Fran perseveres through an eventful season of early triumph, serious injury, and an unlikely return to glory.

Customer Reviews:

Well written account of one toreo's season.......2006-05-12

To enjoy this book you have to have at least a passing interest in bullfighting.

If this is the case then you should really enjoy this book.

It is very well written, the prose is tight and easily leads the narrative quickly along.

The author is not a wild eyed fan of bullfighting (or if he is he hides it well). He approaches is subject in a detached and objective way but at the same time understands the intangible forces and emotions that drive the national fiesta. He does not denigrate or defend bullfighting but rightly observes that much like personal religious beliefs it is something that is either formed into a person as something of value without the benefit of logic or it is not.

The book has a well balanced symmetry, flowing the story of Francisco Ordonez, the world he moves in, his bullfighting predecessors, the history of bullfighting, the detail of one particular season and a lot of interesting bits and pieces that a person like myself, who has been interested in bullfighting for twenty years, have always wondered about but never knew, things like- just how much do these guys make and what are the functional economics and organizational mechanics of bullfighting. You learn about this and much more. You get to know the structure of Francisco Ordonez's world, the caudrilla, the aficionados, the press, the hotels, the travel, the manager.

After Death in the Afternoon, this was the most enjoyable book on bullfighting I've read.

I highly recommend it.

3 ears for Lewine!.......2006-02-26

This was a truly absorbing book. A debt goes to Francisco Rivera Ordonez, as well, for allowing a writer to join his entourage.

Lewine gives us an appreciation for this art by taking us into the life not just any matador, but one who wears the mantle of his fathers.

We learn about how the crowds vary from city to city, how the bulls are bred and selected, the attitude of the "bull press", the history of the game. We learn how to appreciate the matador's movements and about the nature and of his entourage. We learn about costumes, the genteel way to buy scalped tickets and how to run with the bulls in Pomploma and much more.

Pictures would have been great, but the writing is so good they're not missed until the book is over. I went to Francisco's web site where there are lots of photos, small and unlabeled, but many you can figure out.

Through the writer's respect for the matador, and Fran in particular, the reader learns respect as well.

OLE!

Death And The Sun.......2006-01-16

I thought Edward Levine's book about bullfighting in contemporaty Spain was terrific. I enjoy the genre of book where a writer/reporter stays with a subject for a season and this book is among the best. Have always thought this subject was extremely interesting and Levine does it justice.

Brought back memories of spending a month in Spain in 1977 during which I read Michener's Iberia and Death in the Afternoon. The principal character of Levine's book is Francisco Ordonez and by chance I saw his grandfather Antonio Ordonez fight in a Novillos in Seville on 11/27.

I think Mr. Levine is a keen observor of human behavior and events surrounding him. I also found his style to be very descriptive and it flowed nicely.

Provides an understanding of bullfighting which goes beyond clichés and misperceptions.......2006-01-02

Few books are written these days on the politically-incorrect (in the USA anyway) art of bullfighting, so it's refreshing to see a modern matador reporter's account of the sport and his participation in it in Death And The Sun: A Matador's Season In The Heart Of Spain. Journalist Edward Lewine is the first to admit "The bullfighting business could be awful", but his insider's look at the tradition follows one season in the life of one of Spain's famous modern fighters and provides an understanding of bullfighting which goes beyond clichés and misperceptions. Chapters blend a travelogue with a social history and an explanation of the meaning of bullfighting in Spanish culture.

An excellent book.......2005-12-31

Not a fiction story with a bullfighting theme but a journalistic narrative centering around one season of a specific bullfighter this book is an insight into one recent season in Spain. Traveling with one specific torero and his assistants this book discusses and details many aspects of the passion and art in a very informative and interesting way. For once there is an author who is not trying to show off or talk down to the reader about bullfighting. If you have any interest this should be the second book you read after Death in the Afternoon.

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Hemingway and Spain: A Pursuit
Edward F. Stanton
Manufacturer: Univ of Washington Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0295967102

Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways

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Don't miss it
Only a beginning
Take It As It Is
A VERY MIXED REVIEW
In Spain For The Sheer Spectacle.

Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways
Valerie Hemingway
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0345467345
Release Date: 2005-11-08

Book Description

A chance encounter in Spain in 1959 brought young Irish reporter Valerie Danby-Smith face to face with Ernest Hemingway. The interview was awkward and brief, but before it ended something had clicked into place. For the next two years, Valerie devoted her life to Hemingway and his wife, Mary, traveling with them through beloved old haunts in Spain and France and living with them during the tumultuous final months in Cuba. In name a personal secretary, but in reality a confidante and sharer of the great man’s secrets and sorrows, Valerie literally came of age in the company of one of the greatest literary lions of the twentieth century.

Five years after his death, Valerie became a Hemingway herself when she married the writer’s estranged son Gregory. Now, at last, she tells the story of the incredible years she spent with this extravagantly talented and tragically doomed family.

In prose of brilliant clarity and stinging candor, Valerie evokes the magic and the pathos of Papa Hemingway’s last years. Swept up in the wild revelry that always exploded around Hemingway, Valerie found herself dancing in the streets of Pamplona, cheering bullfighters at Valencia, careening around hairpin turns in Provence, and savoring the panorama of Paris from her attic room in the Ritz. But it was only when Hemingway threatened to commit suicide if she left that she realized how troubled the aging writer was–and how dependent he had become on her.

In Cuba, Valerie spent idyllic days and nights typing the final draft of A Moveable Feast, even as Castro’s revolution closed in. After Hemingway shot himself, Valerie returned to Cuba with his widow, Mary, to sort through thousands of manuscript pages and smuggle out priceless works of art. It was at Ernest’s funeral that Valerie, then a researcher for Newsweek, met Hemingway’s son Gregory–and again a chance encounter drastically altered the course of her life. Their twenty-one-year marriage finally unraveled as Valerie helplessly watched her husband succumb to the demons that had plagued him since childhood.

From lunches with Orson Welles to midnight serenades by mysterious troubadours, from a rooftop encounter with Castro to numbing hospital vigils, Valerie Hemingway played an intimate, indispensable role in the lives of two generations of Hemingways. This memoir, by turns luminous, enthralling, and devastating, is the account of what she enjoyed, and what she endured, during her astonishing years of living as a Hemingway.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Don't miss it.......2007-03-08

Valeries serious and lovingly book about her life as married to one of Hem's sons is also very well written. For all of us still reading about the astonishing life of Hem (there are several 100 around)this one is a must. Don't miss her sound opinions from a life within the family.

Only a beginning.......2005-11-29

A very disturbing book and a strange story but I could not stop reading till I finished. Yet, finally, very disappointing because there is so much left out -- as if too much has not been said. Valerie Hemingway -- whose own story and autobiography seems so very interesting -- never fills in those spaces that explain how she really came to be where she was in the years she describes (both before meeting Hemingway, with Hemingway and her life with his family after his death). It's a great outline for a great book. Hope she writes it someday.

Take It As It Is.......2005-10-11

When a non-literary or semi-literary character gets caught up in the wake of a great writer, an historical event or disaster or what have you, you have to take their memoir as it is. Valerie Hemingway, a teen when she met Hemingway, seems to have been an aspiring journalist and to have done some editing since, though obviously she makes no great claim as a writer. The question is what she has to say, and frankly this writer not only has some new revelations about Hemingway and his family which are more than mere gossip, but posesses a degree of wisdom and balance, all in all something to say about life.

The first half of the book deals with Valerie's relationship with Ernest and Mary Hemingway, in Spain and Cuba, 1959-1961. The author is eerily present in each line Valerie writes, well recognizable from other known accounts, but she adds her own valuable and to some degree deeper take. She was a perceptive girl who Hemingway (who always enjoyed tough young "Summer People" as he once memorably termed them) obviously had good reason to like. But just as obviously it has taken her years to meditate on this material and get it right.

Hemingway's funeral and her meeting with Gregory are then told, including her touchy relationship with Mary Hemingway. Here one perhaps wishes for a little more, but the fact is no one yet has been able to properly get an angle on Hemingway's fox terrier of a fourth wife who stuck it out for hell on earth and was thereby seriously damaged afterwords.

An interlude then concerns the Irish playwright Brendan Behan, by whom Valerie had a son. And finally the rest -- which comes to feel like the majority of the book -- concerns the third "bull" in her life, Ernest's third and tragic son Gregory, whom Valerie married. This seemingly private and sensational story, on the charming Dr.Gregory and his finally all-encompassing transvestism disorder, is nonetheles as relevant to Hemingway studies as the first half of the book. Gregory was the model for one of Thomas Hudson's sons in Islands in the Stream, and the subject behind the meditation in a little known late short story, "I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something." Gregory also wrote his own justly acclaimed take on Ernest which pulled no punches. The product of Ernest's stormy second marriage, there were scars from the beginning which are duly reflected in his realist father's letters and fiction.

Even more relevantly, the whole issue of family illnesses and psychoses, which emerges in the Gregory material, throws light back on Hemingway's fictionalized relationship with his own father in the Nick Adams stories, plus the whole issue of hidden psychic wounds in most major Hemingway characters first explored by the early and pioneering Hemingway critic Phillip Young. The fact is psycho-sexual issues permeate Hemingway biography because they lay under his body of his fiction like an iceberg. Those taking Valerie to task for the revelations herein, and arbitrarily labeling her a goldbrick and the 2nd half of the book as worthless, are simply uninformed. Gregory was apparently the saddest victim of something haunting his family for the three generations that have been documented. Valerie therefore has nothing to be ashamed of. Nor does she ask for your applause, either.

Moreover, her frank story of Gregory Hemingway's obsessive downfall is rather courageous. The very private sort of sexual psychosis Gregory had may well be more common than generally known, and will always likely cause shame and scorn to both the victim and his family to become known. Valerie could therefore only risk exposing herself to ridicule to publish this, and most people would have buckled to that threat. In that case a very important chronicle of a family's struggle with this sort of downfall would not be available. The telling is neither sensational, bitter, nor confused -- it is straight up realism professionally told. It is loving and quite starkly human. It will certainly help families burdened by the same affliction in their midst.

A VERY MIXED REVIEW.......2005-09-18

This is yet another "I knew Hemingway when" story. As my title states, I have mixed feelings and opinions about this one. The first portion of the book, where the author is actually with Hemingway and his wife at the time, Mary, is interesting and somewhat informative. It is always interesting (for me anyway) to pick up tidbits of the life of this author, i.e. E. Hemingway. After the death of Hemingway the book sort of goes into a bit of a decline. Some of the interactions with Mary Hemingway were interesting and indeed the horrible, sad story of her marrage (the author's) to Greg Hemingway was, while not facsinating, at least interesting, in a voyeuristic sort of way. I do have several problems with this work though. First, the author is by far one of the most profilfic name droppers I have ever read. This is okay I suppose, but in this work she really goes over the top. In addition (probably, no doubt, due to my complete lack of sophistication), I had no clue who 90 pecent of these people were and, in all truth, could care less. Secondly, the author is simply not consistent, even in matters concerning her own life. She goes from being a simple little Irish girl, to an ultra sophisticated world traveler who is wise in the way of literater, back to being a simple little Irish Girl, over and over and over again. Third, the author seems to hesitate to speak of anything remotely personal and intimate in dealing with E. and Mary Hemingway as if she does not want to break a trust. Hey, they are dead - most of the family is either dead or insane! The writing of this book alone broke a trust, per author's own admission, so why not be a bit more detailed? The book is an obvious effort to make a buck (no hard feelings there, I would have done the same, only earlier), so why not go into a bit more depth? That being said, I am glad I read this work and glad it was written. I just feel it could have been so much more and so much more informative. It did give me more information concerning the life of a great author. For that I am grateful.

In Spain For The Sheer Spectacle........2005-07-11

This is the time of 'running with the bulls' through the streets of Pamplona, Spain. This year there were only two bulls but they went separate ways after cornered and gored many of the young men in their yearly ritual to prove they have reached manhood.

Ernest Hemingway did not try to run with the bulls as he was too old to prove a point and an American writer, not ever an athlete, but he did write about it in 'The Sun Also Rises,' which was translated into a movie starring Ava Gardner. He had gone to Spain in the Twenties so he was quite old when the Irish reporter, Valerie Smith, went first to Madrid (staying with Joe & Nancy Basque) and then on to Pamploma where she met for an interview with Mr. Hemingway and stayed on as his personal secretary. Joe was production manager on the film, 'Solomon and Sheba,' starring Yul Brunner (after Tyrone Power's fatal heart attack).

She didn't look so young in the black and white photos, but the cover shows an older Ernest with a 30ish dark haired woman and that on the inside back shows a woman my age. I came of age in the late 50s, so possibly she is even older. He was married to Mary when they met, but she stayed on with Mary after he comitted suicide.

It was at his funeral she met Gregory and they married three years later. Their marriage lasted as long as mine (21 yrs.) before it came apart. She nows lives in Montana. Needless to say, she is trying to profit from the images and name of Hemingway. She should have written this memoir long ago if she wanted to honor the great man.

But, after all, it is the time for RUNNING WITH THE BULLS in Spain. That's a grand and glorious time for everyone except the bulls destined to be killed in the bullfights.

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Papa's Final Fiesta
Dangerous to the Bitter End.
One for the summer reading list..
Bullfighting Primer
Enjoyed it..

The DANGEROUS SUMMER
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684837897

Book Description

The Dangerous Summer is Hemingway's firsthand chronicle of a brutal season of bullfights. In this vivid account, Hemingway captures the exhausting pace and pressure of the season, the camaraderie and pride of the matadors, and the mortal drama as in fight after fight the rival matadors try to outdo each other with ever more daring performances. At the same time Hemingway offers an often complex and deeply personal self-portrait that reveals much about one of the twentieth century's preeminent writers.

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Customer Reviews:

Papa's Final Fiesta.......2007-08-24

For fans of Ernest Hemingway's 1932 classic account of the art of the bullfight, "Death In The Afternoon", the posthumously published (in 1985) "A Dangerous Summer" would seem a must-read. And they will enjoy it, as will fans of Hemingway and Spain. But passion this time is something readers must bring for themselves.

Based on a two-part Life magazine feature published in 1960, "A Dangerous Summer" marks Hemingway's return to the land of the bullfight after his painful exile following his side's defeat in the Spanish Civil War. At its heart is the real-life tale of two rival matadors, brothers-in-law, who square off mano-a-mano in bullrings across the country to discover for themselves and everyone else which is the great torero of the day.

"Luis Miguel [Dominguin] would consider himself a bigger draw at the gate than Antonio due to his longer fame and service and Antonio [Ordonez] would consider very strongly that he was a better matador than Miguel and would be out to show it every time," Hemingway observes. "It looked very hard on family life and very good for bullfighting. It also looked very dangerous."

That it was, for both men, and for Hemingway too, as he got caught up in the drama of the occasion and a rooting interest in Ordonez that takes over the narrative after a few chapters and never lets go. Advocates of Hemingway as a repressed homosexual get a lot of grist for their viewpoint in Hemingway's heavy man-crush for the dashing young Antonio, but those like me who remember and enjoy the broad sweep of "Death In The Afternoon" will feel a bit claustrophobic at the narrowness of Papa's lens here.

In his windy and self-important introduction to this otherwise thin book, James A. Michener claims Hemingway misrepresented the true situation on the ground that summer of 1959. Ordonez was great, but not so great as Hemingway made him out to be. While Hemingway depicted the bullfight with fresh variety in "Death In The Afternoon", here the words tend to repeat: "beautiful" "classic" and "dangerous" with Ordonez; "disappointing" and "difficult" with Dominguin.

There are still great moments of narrative, though despite what Michener says, they aren't found in accounts of the bullfights themselves. Rather it is Hemingway lighting upon a pitcher of sangria, its glass beaded with moisture from the winds of the Levant, or describing his mad, scenic drives through the country. When he is not involving himself in the matador match, Hemingway offers us amiable companionship, filling in various details with a heartiness that belies his physical and mental illness (he would kill himself less than two years after "the dangerous summer" was over).

But then Hemingway returns to the bullfights, and the sad true state of affairs becomes all too apparent. He simply isn't able to engage the reader or himself, even while presenting himself as a central character, cheering Ordonez on. "We got him!" Hemingway tells his young charge after one successful afternoon. Though he claims friendship with Dominquin, he offers little evidence of this, except once when Ordonez's rival is caught by a horn and Hemingway cradles his head en route to the infirmary.

"What a man Ernesto would be if he could only write," Dominquin says later in his bed. Perhaps he was just making a quip, but it feels like the old matador was onto something. For all its strengths, "The Dangerous Summer" better depicts Ernesto's weaknesses.

Dangerous to the Bitter End........2007-02-11

Have you ever pulled a big, bitter pickle fron a barrel and enjoyed it? Munched fresh garlic gloves and savored them despite the pain? Downed Bloody Marys with 3 times the ordinary dose of pepper, and with tabasco sauce thrown in? If you said yes to all 3, chances are you will greatly enjoy this book.

By the end of his life, it is now clear, Hemingway had developed a loose, jocund, even cheery reportorial writing style as a sort of second mode. He first really loosened up his sentences and paragraphs in this manner in the major novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, then went back to tautness (modified) in Across the River, Old Man and the Sea (straight old stuff), and The Moveable Feast (new high marks in the original style). But this, like the recently published Under Kilamanjaro, is a development of the second mode. Way too many scholarly bios and criticism, early after EH's death and to date, have just called the later writing a slackening and a self-charicature, as if the most careful writer of modern English took a 15 year vacation. A lot of this kind of talk was and remains resentment, of course, against the stature of the writing and the man's public clowning. But to come to this close to final product with such misconceptions is a big mistake.

EH once personified Nostalgia as a beautiful woman, and if the opener here doesn't move you -- EH returning to his beloved Spain after years away -- you ought to check your birth record and be sure you were born on this good earth. After the drive in, EH seemingly opens up the second relaxed mode big time, fun and adventures on the road chasing down a mano a mano between the 2 biggest bullfight rivals of the day. There are gags and funny business and personal trivia, even, that the earlier writer avoided, for sure, but boy, don't get suckered into those traps. The old man with the pen is menacing as ever, and in a whole new way. Just when you're set up like a bowling pin he takes you with a sucker punch -- an absolutely deadpan observation about Dominquin's statue of himself in his own house, the way a spooky wind rises at dusk in a vagrant bullring, spelling menace. The jolts are as real, however different, from what hits you in In Our Time. And they have a heavy gravity and patina of sadness that only an old fellow can deliver. Indeed, the effects can be quite emotionally draining in their potent truth.

The estate kept putting out these edited versions, buying the scholars' line, poor Miss Mary not wanting to impair "the reputation." Well, ladies and gentlemen, its intact. Dear Scribners or whoever you are now, please publish the whole ball of wax or let Kent State do it, the long manuscript that EH told his friends was after "Proustian effects." This book, a calculated risk to "the reputation," pays off quite well and stands up easily to repeated reading. EH's inborn talents were in the acuity of his eye and his ear (he had to learn writing the hard way) and if the finale found him struggling with sentences once more, the eye and the ear had only magnificently and spookily ripened.

One for the summer reading list.........2006-04-24

What was Dangerous about this summer? Two matadors, related by marriage, entered the ring to establish himself as the greatest of Spain's matadors and, in so doing, each performed an increasingly risky set of moves. Hemingway fretted over both, but he could not choose to ignore the display. It was, he said, tragic to watch the two of them, and tragic not to watch. There is precious little introspection in these pages. Still, I read with envy, wishing I could have been along for the ride. This book is now as much history as literature. The New York Times reported recently that the Madrid hotel favored by Matadors will soon be demolished to make way for a new, Hard Rock Cafe Hotel. And, the bullfight itself, for any number of reasons, is a ghost of what it once was, generating revenue of around $1 billion dollars per year from approximately 17,000 contests. I doubt the Matador will disappear anytime soon, but the era covered in The Dangerous Summer is long past. What Hemingway left us is the active participant's guide to another time and place.

Bullfighting Primer.......2005-09-21

The Dangerous Summer is an easy read (I understand a lot of EH's writing was removed before publication). In addition to introducing the reader to bullfighting and the life of a bullfighter, it offers a minor travelogue. It includes brief references to cities they visited and bull rings where the fights were held; as well as hotels where they stayed and restaurants where they ate.

Written at age 60 during the summer of 1959 (EH describes his birthday celebration herein - complete with photos), this book is EH's return visit to bullfighting. Death in the Afternoon was his first, which I have not read. In this book, EH portrays himself as a close companion and confidant to a couple of famous bullfighters. Fairly good descriptions of bulls, what to look for during the fight, crowd reactions, gorings and wounds...and good portraits of what it is like to be a bullfighter.

The book includes Glossary of bullfighting terms - both in James A. Michener's lengthy intro and at the end.

One revealing paragraph is the first one in Chapter 11 where EH describes his feelings toward people.

Enjoyed it.........2004-01-30

I am not one for bull fighthing but Hemingway, as always puts things in such wonderful words. I felt, I was a fan of the sport. Very wonderful book about his friendship with a bull fighter, Papa does a wonderful job explaining to someone whom knows nothing about bullfighting and allowing us to see it through his eyes.

The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles

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A light page turning thriller with a surprising set of on-line reviews
Comintern-agent?
Hollywood will never make a movie of this great story, but somebody should
"They have sown the wind
Two novelists observed by a third

The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles
Stephen Koch
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1582432813

Book Description

"[A] pungent mix of literary biography, history and international political thriller.... A story steeped in intrigue, duplicity and nefarious figures, all told with...imagination and bold interpretation." (Baltimore Sun)

When John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway went to Spain to witness the Spanish Civil War firsthand, the devastation they met was far from impersonal: As Spain was unraveling thread by thread, so was their friendship. They had arrived in Spain as comrades, leftist writers-in-arms. But when Dos Passos's friend Jose Robles went missing, Dos Passos's search for Robles would eventually take his literary career and his friendship with Hemingway to the breaking point.

"A gripping narrative.... [The Breaking Point] dexterously navigates the political minefields of the era and has the pace and drama of a detective novel. There are many books on writers and the Spanish Civil War. This is one of the most important and original, and one of the very best." (New York Sun) "A definitive account of this defining moment in 20th-century intellectual history." (Weekly Standard)

"What makes The Breaking Point such stampede reading-a kind of Guernica-is precisely Koch's partisanship, a furious choosing of sides in the bloody past, back when history was breaking hearts." (Harper's)

Customer Reviews:

A light page turning thriller with a surprising set of on-line reviews.......2007-01-18

I was thrilled to read this book. As a young man, my first reaction when I read the early Hemingway was literary enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that waned as I matured. I also have been ambivalent about Dos Passos. I was never quite convinced by the official story that Dos Passos' writing got progressively worse as his politics did too. I have read the late Dos Passos and the early Dos Passos. Whatever "changed" about his work to justify condemning the later works to oblivion while keeping the early works in print was lost by me - the late Dos Passos was as good a writer as the early Dos Passos.

This book filled in a lot of gaps and lacunae in my own understanding of Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the 1930s. It should be noted that for many decades there was an official story about Spain, America, and communism in the 1930s. In the official story, the Spanish civil war was a real war fought to win between the leftist republicans (the good guys) and the fascists of Franco (the bad guys) and in the end the bad guys won.

The fall of the Soviet Union has turned the official story on its head, but only for those who have paid attention. Anyone unfamiliar with this change in our historical understanding of the nature of the role of the Soviet-Stalinist machine in the US, Spain, and elsewhere should review the "annals of communism" series published by Yale.

In general Koch makes a good case as a detective, putting forth a plausible hypothesis that fits the the post-soviet facts. Koch's argument is consistent with what we now understand the situation in Spain in 1936 to be. I found nothing Koch says about Hemingway or Dos Passos that is inconsistent with what I already knew about these two and their relationship. And Koch hangs all the facts together in a fun, vulgar, cheap, pot-boiler, pulp fiction style that actually makes it fun.

What I find amazing are the reactions other readers have had to this book on Amazon. They range from the enthusiastic (like me), to those who find Koch's style awful, to those who are upset by either Koch's post-soviet notion of the history of communism, Spain and America in the 1930s or by Koch's depiction of particular people, most notably, Hemingway. Koch is not a bad writer. But he has written this book in a rather crass, tabloid style that, in my mind, fits the material of his story perfectly. Heavily footnoted, academic prose would have suffocated the story Koch is telling. Instead, we get a chummy narrator who cajoles, contradicts himself, back tracks, and then sets the record straight. It is all quite entertaining and easy to read. If you want the footnotes, they are in the back of the book, and should be consulted in due course. As I mention above, some people have difficulty believing that Stalin was able to play the world as we now know he did. Everyone got played. Hemingway the least of them.
As for Koch's depiction of Hemingway, there is nothing outrageously new here for anyone who has ever done any sort of real research into Hemingway. Hemingway changed women like he changed underwear. Hemingway was drunk most of the time. Hemingway had a peculiar moral compass that placed great importance on personal bravado and acts of courage. Hemingway was a politically uncommitted, largely disengaged, and easily influenced by the times. Hemingway had the ego of a rock star. And now we know, Hemingway, like dozens of others of his generation, got played by the Stalinists. Is any of this controversial? And yes, To Have and Have Not was a cut-and-paste job. Who can fault Koch for opining that the book was trash?

For me, Koch's story does what every good piece of non-fiction should do - send me to the end notes to find out what books to read next.

Comintern-agent?.......2006-10-12

A very nice read, with much feeling for the atmosphere of the period. However, Stephen Koch has written a book halfway between fiction and non-fiction, and it is too often unclear where fact ends and fantasy begins. In many cases historical facts are presented incorrect. This is especially problematic where negative qualifications of (at the time) living persons are given without a shade of proof. A small example, is his qualification of Joris Ivens's Dutch cameraman John Fernhout (in the USA known as filmmaker John Ferno) as a 'Comintern-apparatchik' (page 62). On the basis of the available archive material in the Netherlands and the USA there is no reason whatsoever to assume that Fernhout had anything to do with the Comintern. Never in any research about Dutch persons and their connections with the Comintern or Soviet-services did Fernhouts name turn up. He is mainly remembered as, well, Ivens's cameraman, and as the filmmaker in the household of Crownprinces Juliana of Holland during her exile in Canada in Woldwar II. In Stephen Kochs book, Fernhout is just one of many people who are called Comintern agents rather rashly.
The main matter I would like to adress is Stephen Kochs verdict on Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, who is one of the main characters in his book. The author says Ivens was a 'Comintern agent' and 'Comintern apparatchik'. It is fair to admit that Ivens's position was a lot more complicated than that of others. Stephen Koch writes himself that his judgement on Ivens is based on my book 'Living Dangerously. A Biography of Joris Ivens'. But I never used the term 'Comintern agent'.
There is no doubt about the fact that Ivens was a member of the Dutch communist party at the time, and that in the thirties he was in almost permanent contact about his filmwork with communist and Comintern organisations. Unfortunately Stephen Koch does not define what a Comintern agent is, but I would suggest that such an agent was at least
1) Not free to do what he liked. Defecting or disobedient agents were liquidated or called back to Moscow and never heard of again.
2) He would have some serious secret mission.
I have called Ivens a freelance communist. In my view he was one even as a partymember. He was completely loyal to party politics, but nevertheless remained largely independent at an organisational level. The relationship between Ivens and Comintern organisations was one of consultation between two parties rather than one of giving or receiving orders. An obvious exception was his work at Meshrabpom Studios in Moscow - a studio that was part of the Comintern apparatus - where he was an employee before he went to the United States.
As for the secrets, in Spain Ernest Hemingway was fully aware of the fact that Ivens was a card carrying communist. John Dos Passos knew that he was an unconditional admirer of the Soviet Union well before they departed for Europe (Ivens's views were apparent even from his public speeches in the USA). It was clear from the beginning that Joris Ivens would be the director of their film 'Spanish Earth' and would thus have a decisive say.
The secret mission from Moscow that Stephen Koch suggests is: Ivens came to destroy the literary avant-garde of which John Dos Passos was considered the main representative in the US. For this reason Ivens was supposed to stir up contradictions between Hemingway and Dos Passos. This theory is a red line through Stephen Kochs book, but in my view this is mere speculation and hardly realistic. Such a plot would have been contrary to communist policies of the time: every Western artist, modern or old-fashioned, was hailed by the communists as long as he or she sympathized with practical communist policy. In general I don't believe in, and see no proof for, the suggestion that Ivens's doings connected to Hemingway and Dos Passos were concocted on forehand since 1936 or even earlier.

Hollywood will never make a movie of this great story, but somebody should.......2006-09-05

This book is absolutely important for people interested specially in the following topics: Spain, 20th century history, communism, literature (Dos Passos, Hemingway), politics, and modern history in general. It is recommendable for any book reader also because it is masterfully written. Like a detective story, the author has done a tremendous work of investigation.

By the way, this follows Stephen Koch's previous work "Double Lives", which is, I believe, the "intellectual father" of this new book, since they are very related.

There is much to be amazed of, much to learn about, in this story. The role of the Soviet Commintern in world politics and its consequences in our social lives is something that I can't stop being amazed at. How they handled people, propaganda, ideas, and changed evil into good and viceversa in (mostly) everybody's minds deserves more attention from us, the people, so we don't go through the same story again.

There are three contending sides in this political/criminal story: the communists (aka Stalinists) and their servants (propagandists, artists, hit-men), the independents (non-stalinist communists, anarchists, and other revolutionaries), and the vanity fair people (rich, stupid, intellectual and irresponsible fellows who lent their names to one or the other side of the battle that caused the lives of many REAL working-class people. This book is a good incentive to pause and reflect upon the miseries that many irresponsible self-called intellectuals have caused on us, common folk. They never fought, they never risked their lives, but they helped to provoke (and still do) the wars and dictatorships of the 20th century immensely. From Marx (who never met a factory worker in his rascal life) to Picasso, Garcia Marquez, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Hammett, Orwell, even Einstein or Delano Roosevelt, were practically puppets in the hands of the soviet agenda.

Here we have the Stalinists (Commintern) killing thousands of anti-fascists and saying they were fascists, and at the same time pacting with the nazis in Germany in order to share Europe between the two countries. And everybody believed it! But what this book is about is not so much the big picture, but the involvement of some of its most relevant artistic protagonists. We deal here with very personal and human stories.

Jesus was right, you mustn't hate your enemies, you must love them.If you go out looking for enemies, whether it is "the rich" or the "Jews", you may find him where you never thought: in your own side. Robles looked for enemies among the rich in Spain (paradoxically, he was one of them), took sides with those he thought were the "good" side against those he thought were the "fascist" side; well, he got himself his due reward.

Or also:
"Judge not, that you be not judged." Matt. 7:1 (Robles judged wrong)

"They have sown the wind .......2006-08-01

and they shall reap the whirlwind."

"Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles" is Stephen Koch's excellent examination of the destruction of the friendship between American writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War served as a crucible on which many relationships (between people and between people and their ideology) were either forged or broken. In the case of Dos Passos and Hemingway once they entered the political whirlwind of the Spanish Civil War that friendship was irretrievably fractured.

It is not well-remembered that, at the height of his fame, Dos Passos was placed on the same pedestal as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. The first two volumes of his masterpiece, the USA Trilogy (42nd Parallel and 1919) had been enormous successes. By the time Volume III, "The Big Money", was released in 1936, Jean-Paul Sartre hailed him as "the greatest writer of our time". Edmund Wilson's review went so far as to claim that Dos Passos was "the first of our writers, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, who has successfully used colloquial American for a novel of the highest artistic seriousness." Dos Passos' literary reputation began to change during the Spanish Civil War. Dos Passos, along with Hemingway and many other literary figures including George Orwell made his way to Spain to assist in the Republican cause. Like Orwell, Dos Passos was deeply affected by the brutal infighting amongst Republican supporters. In the case of Dos Passos, he was deeply distressed by murder of a friend, anarchist and Johns Hopkins Professor Jose Robles, apparently executed by Stalinist cadres for his nonconforming radicalism. Hemingway mocked Dos Passos for his unmanly concern for his friend. Dos Passos reports that he told Hemingway that "the question I keep putting to myself is what's the use of fighting a war for civil liberties, if you destroy civil liberties in the process?" Hemingway replied "civil liberties, [__ _ _ ]. Are you with us or against us?" It is no surprise that Dos Passos' next book was criticized severely. The New Masses magazine referred to it as a "crude piece of Trotskyist agit-prop". Dos Passos never reclaimed the popularity he had achieved with the USA Trilogy.

The Civil War proved to be the point in time during the first half of the 20th-century at which many intellectuals and artists (literary and otherwise) of the left had to face an apparent conflict between their personal sense of morality and their ideology. Until the Civil War the various factions of the European and U.S. left seemed to live together (with the exception of post-revolutionary Russia) in a fractious and far from symbiotic relationship. However the Civil War transformed what had merely been a dysfunctional relationship among various Marxist groups, anarchists, and socialists into one that was physically dangerous and fratricidal. Although Koch's "Breaking Point" focuses on the relationship between Dos Passos and Hemingway (and Dos Passos and Robles) the story also paints a broader picture of a time and place where many intellectuals and artists (literary or otherwise) on the left had to face an apparent conflict between their personal sense of morality and the socio-political imperatives of their ideology. Orwell and Dos Passos resolved this conflict on the side of their personal morality. Others were not so well-inclined. "Breaking Point" paints a vivid picture of the life of the 'intelligentsia' in the crucible that was Spain.

Koch provides the reader with background information on the friendship between Dos Passos and Robles and between Dos Passos and Hemingway. This background also provides the literary and political milieu in which Dos Passos, Hemingway and their contemporaries operated. Koch does not paint a flattering picture of Hemingway. He comes across (rightly I might add) as a raging bully tormented by a lethal combination of arrogance and insecurity. This arrogance and bullying shows up in stark terms once the story moves to Hemingway's and Dos Passos' time in Spain reporting on the War. Dos Passos is confounded and depressed by the murderous political intrigue while Hemingway adopts his typical macho "war is war" posture and doesn't appear to give these horrors a second thought. Hemingway's arrogance and bullying is not news to be sure but it is always worth being reminded that there is no correlation between great talent and a pleasing personality. In fact, to the extent there is a correlation it is just as likely to be an inverse rather than direct one. Dos Passos, though treated better by Koch, does not come across as a hero either. Rather, there seems to be an indecisive, almost Hamlet-like aura to him and his ongoing inability to stand up to Hemingway's verbal and psychological onslaughts. Nevertheless, it is clear that Dos Passos had, like Orwell, a keener, far less naïve eye when it came to the political in-fighting that did as much damage to the Republican cause as Franco (and Hitler's and Mussolini's) bombs. Hemingway was a political naif who had neither the time nor inclination to question Stalin's and the Comintern's murderous intrigues in Spain. In many respect's Hemingway fit Lenin's definition of a "useful idiot" to a t.

"Breaking Point" is an excellent political and literary biography. It is well worth reading.

Two novelists observed by a third.......2006-05-29

Koch is the author of one of the most interesting books of modern criticism, STARGAZER, one of the first books to take Andy Warhol seriously, so in my book he may be forgiven many sins, but THE BREAKING POINT is pretty bad.

As history, who knows? I can't believe all the things he dishes out about the power of the Politburo to enforce the Popular Front and its supposed hegemony of US culture. And his condemnation of the filmmakers who made THE SPANISH EARTH is just unpleasant. Ivens was no Soviet agent, he was a committed documentarian. (That's not to say that THE SPANISH EARTH isn't a boring piece of schlock.) What sets Koch apart from other writers, however, is his incessant banality as a writer, as a stylist. He is incapable of writing a single sentence without committing some go for broke solecism. He will set your teeth on edge from page one, right from the moment you discover that he plans to refer to his two protagonists as "Hem" and "Dos" all through the text, thus stripping them even of the dignity of their names. (Martha Gellhorn becomes "the Girl.")

His rib poking gets painful around page 9 or 10. Yes, Dos Passos is great, but not for the reasons Koch cites. And despite what Koch asserts, without argument, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and THE FIFTH COLUMN are not bad books. They are indeed among the most interesting US novels and plays of the last century. Koch is like a novelist attempting to enliven history with a novelist's little tricks, gleaned from the WRITERS DIGEST. Get right in there, focus on your characters, make them quirky, show what they're drinking and wearing. Imagine their thoughts. Tell us what they're thinking. Make one an angel, the other a devil, that way the reader will be able to distinguish them. Well, I loved STARGAZER but this one's for the birds.

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Por quien doblan las campanas.

Por Quien Doblan Las Campanas
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Debolsillo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0307273784
Release Date: 2005-05-03

Customer Reviews:

Por quien doblan las campanas........2006-11-05

This book is a jewl and I congratulate Amazon for having it among their books. People should learn about wars, dictatorships, and horrors that occurred in other countries that dismembered a number of generations; people that had to leave their home land and create new ones in strange lands. The courrage of these people and their influence in other countries, such as mine: the Dominican Republic, and our family that comes from one of those silent heroes that believed in a better way of life for alls, without the wrongly used label of being "reds".

Ernest Hemingway's for Whom the Bell Tolls (Barron's Book Notes)

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The Old Songs Still Make Me Dance
Unforgettable Hemingway
Awesome
Incredible
A Novel of Many Flaws

Ernest Hemingway's for Whom the Bell Tolls (Barron's Book Notes)
Jim Auer , and Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Barron's Educational Series
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Notes | Education | Reference | Subjects | Books
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For Whom the Bell Tolls

ASIN: 0812035151

Customer Reviews:

The Old Songs Still Make Me Dance.......2001-02-11

For me, this is the best of Hemingway's novels. It combines all the things he could do best as a writer and sustains them throughout an epic story. The basic subject matter is that of much of his work - courage and fear and their consequences, the world of the senses as felt through the enjoyment of food, drink, sexual love and the natural world. As a man, he experienced these things first-hand, and as an artist he rendered them truly. The book's hero is Robert Jordan, an American, who leaves his relatively safe life in the States to fight against the Fascists in 30s Spain. He posseses the attributes of the essential Hemingway hero - an outward simplicity of manner , a knowledge and acceptance of death combined with a love of life, stoicism and integrity. Hemingway's heroes were presented as heroes; not as John Wayne-type caricatures of "manliness" but as men (and women) faced with the forces of death and doing their best. They become afraid, they sometimes do foolish things, but we are never asked to consider them craven or ignoble. We are shown human weakness but the overall message is that of the strength and nobility of human beings. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (or vice-versa) was an expression Hemingway used. He never seeks to make less of the human spirit, as so many modern anti-heroes of literature have done (eg the central character in Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground", the disenchanted figure in Celine's "Journey To The End Of The Night" or the cynical, amoral Renton in Irvine Welsh's "Trainspotting".) The overall effect of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" is of a broad work with several viewpoints. We have the Spanish Civil War as seen by the peasant rebel forces based in forests and caves, the behind-the-scenes look at the military players and politicians and the propaganda machine with its figures such as "La Pasionara" These run simultaneously over the several days of the book's plot, and we see the cause-effect relationship between them. Like some mathematical equation or some structure of taut wires and connections, we are carried along to the plot's climax in which we see how all these threads have run together. This book does it all for me. The characters are just as real as they need to be, the country is beautifully evoked, we are given wonderful descriptions of simple things (the moisture-beaded pitcher of beer in the hotel room after Pablo and Pilar had made love in the hot afternoon) and in the dialogue the way Hemingway has literally translated the Spanish language - the use of "thou" and "thee" and the Spanish expressions that he has avoided rendering into the English equivalent. Hemingway loved Spain - its land,its people and its culture, and this is very evident in the book. He was also a very knowledgeable lover of bulllfighting, boxing and hunting and indeed seemed fascinated with violence and war. This tendency has been used as a stick with which to have a poke at the man, which, in our sanitized, politically-correct times is (sadly) understandable. We may not like the sight of blood and agony, but it is a lot older and more real than the glossy social veneer which tends to coat much of what is modernly offered as art/entertainment/philosophy. When we see death, the fear of death and the triumph of courage, we see some portion of what is still a basic truth in this world. So, maybe those who criticize Hemingway's interest in violence have a point. Bullfighting is certainly no fun for the bull and I'm sure that getting shot in a war has its drawbacks. What I would say to those who condemn the artist along with the man is to consider what kind of work (if any) an artist can produce who stays within the safe harbour of the middle-class, academic world of proffesorships and literary grants. Perhaps Picasso was a nightmare as a husband and perhaps Beethoven had bad breath, but I will opt every time for that which I find true and moving.

Unforgettable Hemingway.......2000-06-22

The title of this great novel gives me chills everytime I hear it. It perfectly reflects Hemingway's purpose. I love his clear and "true sentences" style, but it doesn't appeal to everyone. Thus, if you read a review of this book that is leaning on the negative side, it may be more a reflection of the reviewer's stylistic preferences rather than specific drawbacks to the setting, characters,or plot of For Whom the Bell Tolls. This may not always be true, of course, but Hemingway is unique and tends to polarize readers.

The protagonist/hero of For Whom the Bell Tolls is Robert Jordan, an American who feels passionately enough about The Spanish Civil War to act bravely on behalf of the cause. Robert Jordan doesn't seem to have a national identity at all; another person's life is truly his own--the bell really does toll for him.

The understated love affair between Robert and Maria is wildly romantic. The ending is haunting- it took my breath away. Do read this; it's an unforgettable experience.

Awesome.......2000-05-24

I must admit when I started reading this book I was bored, but that quickly changed as I realized how deep and meaningful this book was. I have NEVER read a book that so simply went to the roots of what it is to be human. Sure some parts were a little simplified like the relationship between Jordan and Maria, but even that made a point of how quickly people can come together in a difficult situation. Plus, I have never read a better scene in a book than that of El Sordo's last stand. In my opinion, that is the best part of the whole book and is what merits this book being a classic. There is one paragraph in the section of El Sordo's last stand that moved me as deeply as any work of art or musical piece ever has. It was truly sublime. And that to me is what makes this book great.

Incredible.......2000-04-12

This book was not long winded as some people say it is. If you don't have the patience to appretiate such a masterpiece don't read it. Hemmingway's simple style of writing is very quick and easy to read and yet explains everything is stunning detail. It made me want to learn the Spanish language and see the Spanish countryside. The message that it delivers is simple yet powerful and should be appreciated by all.

A Novel of Many Flaws.......2000-02-29

This novel is not the great masterpiece that everyone claims it is. The story is extremely slow moving and only encompasses three days of time. There is a great deal of repition and excessive detail. There is not sense of urgency or action as you might think a war novel would include. Many episodes, including Pilar's story about the episode in her villiage, Maria's rape, and Sodo's death could be ommited or at least greatly summarized. Although the book is almost five hundred pages long it could be summarized in ten pages. The love affair between Jordon and Maria is overly idealized and is extremely unbelieveable. Maria's bland and submissive personality and their dialouge make me physically sick. It seems appropriate to say that Hemingway had absolutely no idea about women. This book is not worth your precious time.

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