For Whom the Bell Tolls
Summary: Robert Jordan, an Professor from Montana, is fighting a guerrilla war against the Fascists in Spain. He is ordered to blow up a bridge, a difficult assignment. In a few days before his assignment, he meets the band of Pablo in the mountains, the band that is supposed to help him blow the bridge. But the band creates problems for Robert and it becomes a difficult assignment. He meets Pilar, Pablo's wife, who is quite the character, also he meets Maria, a 19 year old that was protected by Pilar in the mountains after her family was executed in her village. Maria and Robert fall in love. They have three moving days of love before the assignment to blow up the bridge. Robert eventually is killed escaping after he successfully blows the bridge.
My take:
I was moved by this book. Hemingway writes like a man, a man's man. This book was quite the departure from A Farewell To Arms, which was nihilistic and had a feeling of hopelessness. This book was the opposite. Robert Jordan was glad to have lived in this world and to have had the chance to make it a little better. He was glad to fight and to live and then die for his cause. The characters were so real and rich and I couldn't put the book down.
A Farewell to Arms
Summary:
Lt. Frederic Henry, another American fighting in a foreign war, this time World War 1 in the Italian Front, is an ambulance driver that gets in good with a set of Italians fighting the Austrians. Henry is first wounded from a mortar, is operated on, and then sent back to the front lines. During his recovery, he has a relationship with a nurse, Catherine Barkley, an English Nurse, whom he impregnates. Henry is sent back to the front after healing his knee. While in the front, the Italians have to retreat from an advance of German and Austrian fighters. The dynamics of the war change very quickly. The peasant soldiers turn on the Italian officers. The officers are picked out from the crowd of retreating Italians by the military police, who summarily execute the Italian officers for retreating. Henry gets caught with the other Italian officers and is about to be executed when he makes a dash for it and falls in the river. He eventually escapes and finds his way back to Catherine in a town in Italy. They make a brave escape to Switzerland in the middle of the night. They reach Switzerland and there they wait for the baby to come. The baby comes, but he is dead. Catherine soon dies afterwards from complications while giving birth.
My take:
An incredible book. It doesn't seem to be as well written as For Whom the Bell Tolls, but it is a great read itself. From this book, it seems the end result is nihilistic and hopeless. Henry describes a time when he was at the front and was burning a log with a bunch of ants on it. The ants would go from one side of the log to the other, but they could not escape the fire. Henry could have saved the ants, like a Messiah, but instead, he poured water on the log, which steamed the ants to death. Henry must have seen a similar sort while he was fighting the Austrians. Soldiers running from one side of the valley to the other, only to face death on each side. There was no Messiah to save them. In the end, the soldiers died the same as the ants.
The Sun Also Rises
Summary:
Jake Barns returns from World War 1 and is finding himself and his life in France and then Spain with a cadre of fellow writers and a lady, Brett Ashley. There is a love triangle going on where Barns loves Ashley, but she's always involved with other men. Barns and a group of friends find their way around Paris and France and Spain, enjoying the cafes and drinking, always drinking. Barnes eventually gets to Spain where he fishes for trout and then makes his way to the bull fights. While there enjoying the festivities, a group of his friends have a falling out, and Brett and the group disbands after enjoying the bull fighting.
My take:
I liked this book very much. It almost has the same format as A Moveable Feast, which I really enjoyed. In all the books I've read from Hemingway, there's always drinking, eating, and love. I've never read an author so concerned with what the characters were always eating, which I enjoy. The end line of the book, "isn't it pretty to think so," reminds me of the dreams we all live in, helping us make it through this life. At the end, Barns realizes the dream will never come, and it's pretty to think of it as happening, but he knows it never will, which was being in love with Brett and her loving him back and they would live happily together. He realizes this won't happen, and he's been living in a dream. This is also a similar theme in The Death of a Salesman, where they say they've been living in a dream for 10 years.
