For Whom the Bell Tolls - 09/27/2007

Well, I finished Mr. Hemingway's book, thank GOD. Let me say though that the last 4-6 chapters were actually very good & fast paced. It was getting to the last chapters that was painful.

The book is about the Spanish Civil war in the 1930's. I know nothing about it. I wikipedia'd it and still know nothing. The main character, Robert Jordan, is an American Volunteer helping the rebels/guerrilla's/whatever. He's not "official" and neither are the other American Generals, corporals etc. "official" who are trying to help these rebels overthrow the government. Right there, I am over it. Sorry, but military stratagem is not my forte. THEN Mr. Hemingway takes an odd twist to the writing. He's in Spain, so let's write in Spanish...but translate it to English. Let me try to explain: he's writing in English, but in the way it would sound if it were being translated directly from Spanish. For me, I got it. I could do the translations in my head.

Example: the Spanish word for the verb "to bother" (as in don't bother me) is "molestar." In English, the word "molest" does NOT mean bother. It has a more nefarious connotation. In Spanish we say "No me molestes," or "don't bother me," so Mr. Hemingway "translated" that back from Spanish to English by writing "Do not molest me." It doesn't jive.

Also, Spanish people have two forms of the word "You." The formal "Usted" or "Vosotro" which is used to people you just met, your elders, your superiors. Then there is the informal "Tu," for people you know. To show the difference in the Spaniards' speech, Mr. Hemingway would write things like "Does thou understand?" when the formality was necesary in Spanish.

The whole book was like this. Only when we are reading Robert Jordan's private thoughts do we hear our everyday vernacular. It was tiring. Also, the tangents Robert Jordan took were too long and sometimes made no sense; they were the internal arguments one has with oneself and it was odd. There were too many back stories being told by the Spaniards that had nothing to do with anything. I just wanted to know if they got the job done. We did not need 700+pages to do so.

Sorry, not one of my favorites of my top 100 books.