Top 30 Modern Classics - II

For Whom The Bell Tolls

By Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, an American author, wrote this book on his experiences as a reporter during the Spanish Civil war. The book was published in 1940. 

The story features an American protagonist, named Robert Jordan, who fights with Spanish soldiers in an international army for the Republicans. Jordan had lived in Spain during the pre-war period. Set in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range between Madrid and Segovia, the action takes place during four days and three nights.

An experienced dynamiter, he is ordered to destroy a bridge with the aid of a band of local anti-fascist guerrillas. On his mission, Jordan meets the rebel Anselmo who brings him to the hidden guerrilla camp and initially acts as an intermediary between Jordan and the other guerrilla fighters.

In the camp, Jordan encounters María, a young Spanish woman whose life had been shattered by her parents' execution and her rape at the hands of the Falangists (part of the fascist coalition) at the outbreak of the war. His strong sense of duty clashes with both the unwillingness of the guerrilla leader Pablo to commit to an operation that would endanger himself and his band, and Jordan's own new-found lust for life which arises from his love for María. Pablo's wife, Pilar, usurps Pablo's leadership and pledges the allegiance of the guerrillas to Jordan's mission. However, when another band of anti-fascist guerrillas, led by El Sordo, is surrounded and killed, Pablo steals the dynamite detonators and exploder, hoping to prevent the demolition and thereby avoid fascist reprisals. Although he disposes of the detonators and exploder by throwing them down a gorge into the river, Pablo regrets abandoning his comrades and returns to assist in the operation.

However, the enemy, apprised of the coming offensive, has prepared to ambush it in force and it seems unlikely that the blown bridge will do much to prevent a rout. Lacking the detonation equipment stolen by Pablo, Jordan and Anselmo coordinate an alternative method to explode the dynamite by using hand grenades with wires attached so that their pins can be pulled from a distance. This improvised plan is considerably more dangerous because the men must increase their proximity to the explosion. While Pablo, Pilar, and Maria create a distraction for Jordan and Anselmo, the two men plant and detonate the dynamite, costing Anselmo his life when he is hit by a piece of shrapnel. 

I will not divulge the climax. It is for the reader to read.

The reader will be gripped to the novel by the style of narration and its raw beauty. The reader will be in those Spanish hill range with Jordan.

A must read. A collector's piece.

Namaste

Prabir

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