Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls

I am not a person that loves reading books. It has been only recently, when mathematics studies become tiresome, book comes into my hands. Still, it happens really rarely. Sometimes I wish it happened more often, but let us face the truth. However, it was time when I attended school and there was some compulsory literature to read. One of the books fascinated me truly. It was Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

First time I read it in Lithuanian when I was in the 11^th grade. Afterwards it became my little dream to find the book in English and to read it once more. I tried all the libraries I could think of but that did not help. Then I started visiting bookshops with this purpose, but it did not help either. And only a year ago, accidentally, I went to an academic bookshop. I bought there some English books for my classes and just asked the shopgirl if they had For Whom the Bell Tolls. They did not, as I could expected, but they offered me to order it. And I did. Then, after a month, I held THE BOOK in my hands!

For Whom the Bell Tolls is about life and its virtues; undoubtedly, it includes the most important one – love. What would you do if you knew you have four days left? The book tells how precious every single moment in your life is. It helps to understand how happy you should be every minute you are living. Moreover, the every minute you should live fully, not missing any chance life throws out for you. Without a doubt, the psychological angle is very deep in the book. Characters can communicate without any words – one look is enough. Almost all the feelings human can have are shown. Furthermore, they are shown in a way we probably never think of them. Reading the book you just realize how many truthful things happen in your life that you either did not notice before, or did not pay much attention to. Furthermore, you realize how much life depends on the way you present it to yourself.

E. Hemingway writes about the Spanish Civil War and he describes one life of a soldier who is sent to fulfill a duty for his country – to blow up a bridge. He meets a group of people in the mountains, where he is supposed to accomplish his task. Some of them are faithful and determined to help. Others are concerned with their own problems and do not want to contribute the task. And there he meets a girl, as he calls her “my little rabbit” (Hemingway 252). The story continues and it becomes clear that everyone will be involved in the task, but let me leave the details for the reader.

The style of writing delighted me a lot. I was surprised to see how assuredly everything could be described. Hemingway has such a manner of writing that involves reader into the book. And the involving has to play not with some effects or run of events. The involving plays with the sentences, the language the author uses, the characters he creates, and the angles the book shows. That is why it is so important to read the book in its original language.

Let me finish with John Donne’s quotation which Ernest Hemingway uses to start his book:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee

Works cited

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Penguin Books, 1966 (first published by Johnathan Cape 1941).