For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway had a genius for bringing his reader into his stories and into the minds of his characters. And yet, his use of language was so understated and so deceptively simple that it becomes impossible for me to analyze the way he can do this. I find myself submerged in the experience and unable to separate individual words and thoughts. I read one of his books every 5 years or so because I want his body of work to fill my lifetime. I read more slowly than is my habit and I think and I savor and I weep with the beauty and poignancy of his stories.

As I read about the guerrilla fighters of the Spanish Civil War, I am there with them and feeling the moment in the mountains surrounding Madrid. I have also been reading other works about Civil War, US Civil War, English/British Civil War, Iraqi Civil War. As I read, fiction and non-fiction, I have many thoughts and observations -- but this is for a later post.

Robert Jordan is the kind of character that brings us into his moral dilemma -- how will he reconcile his participation in the killing of the war with the need to support the Republic. He shows both strength and sensitivity and a tremendous depth of character. Pilar also shows a similar depth, but I am amazed at the one-dimensional Maria, the love interest of the story. She is there to make him question the beauty of life as it can interfere with the performance of duty.

Right now, I write because I must set aside the book -- I want to savor it, make it last, keep it in my thoughts for a long, long time.