Late May 2009
A small but elegant group (in the words of Steve) at the Star last Thursday - Steve, Ras, Neil and myself. Plus, emailed comments received in advance from Chris W.
Despite the small number of people - and indeed a remarkable degree of agreement amongst those present - the debate about 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' (I will henceforth adopt Mark Th's abbreviation of 'Frome') was full, lively and varied. Despite CE's departing comment that Frome drove him over the edge, we all rather liked it. Not only was the writing style appreciated (with one caveat - see below), we collectively found it educational, thought provoking and almost moving in some ways. One of the best things about the book was the way in which it prompted us into debates at the meeting about issues connected to both the story and its context. As Neil said at the end, one of the good things about the book club is the way in which the discussion helps us to see and/or recall things in books that we perhaps hadn't been fully conscious of at the time of reading it.
So, brief summary of some of the main areas of discussion:
All very impressed with the writing style and in particular his ability to paint a picture of a place, event or person.
The one significant disagreement around writing style was around his 'Thou', 'Thee' and 'I obscenity in the milk of your mother'. Ras, Neil and I found it very annoying. Steve and Chris didn't.
Unanimous agreement that the description of the lynching of the Fascists in the village square was incredibly powerful and well written. Using the style of monologue through Pilar worked well and drew us all into the story - to the extent of each thinking how they would have behaved in that situation. An ensuing discussion was around the nature of peer group pressure to behave in ways that might be alien to individual characteristics but perhaps bring out deeper (and darker) elements of human nature.
A bit like the previous book (Quiet American) it was set in a time and political situation of which we all had a vague outline knowledge, but didn't really know the detail. It therefore had an educational component. Resultant discussions around this element included (i) the extent to which it was written in a politically 'neutral' manner. On one hand it did appear written in a fairly balanced way, but is it really possible to write without personal political prejudices coming into play and Hemingway clearly must have had those given him living through that period in the area., (ii) the extent to which the scars of that period are still around in Spanish society today. Given that people are still alive who lived through it, there must surely be some residual animosity around the place, and it is, after all, only around 20 years since Franco and his repressive regime were ruling the country. This led into numerous other discussions covering topics such as Gibraltar, why Spain has returned to a monarchy and the extent to which his description of the role of the Russians was influenced by wider political events on the early 1940's and how it made sense to describe their involvement in Spain. Finally, the interesting question of how and why fascist Spain stayed theoretically 'neutral' in the 2nd world war and how, had they not, the whole course of the war and subsequent history would have been different e.g. the Allies would almost certainly have lost control of the Mediterranean
The extent to which some of the writing style might have been innovative for its time e.g. the reflective wondering out-loud by Robert Jordan about the risk of imminent death, elements of his life etc. It didn't really feel like a book that was nearly 70 years old (apart from the thee, thou and obscenities).
The sex scenes were particularly appreciated - not because of the sex (as it wasn't really there in terms of the words) but because the writing style of those paragraphs eloquently described the emotions without being at all graphic.
Some suggestion that Hemingway had actually written very sympathetically about the female characters (surprising for a man with a reputation as a misogynist) i.e. Maria showing strength after the rape, Pilar being the strongest character in the book. I was a bit less convinced about this, thinking that Maria was being portrayed as an accepting, obedient subservient female whilst Pilar was enabled to be a strong person by having had most of her feminine characteristics stripped from her.
Robert Jordan's death scene - generally felt to be well written - which in turn led to a conversation about how we might react when faced with death - deep stuff eh?
In true Stalinist tradition, CE has now been erased from the records of the book club and shall forever have a 5.6 average and be just slightly grumpy about the books in our memories.
7.47
