At OU today, I found some of the dispatches Ernest Hemingway wrote about the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Sadly, my borrowing ability has been withheld, and I didn’t have money to photocopy. So I typed out some of his dispatches. I will probably have carpal tunnel syndrome.
How Convenient!
The Hemingway Review
Sorry for not posting very often. I find it difficult to document my actions regularly.
Anyway, I found this resource called the Hemingway Review. Though I can’t use articles exclusively from the Hemingway Review for this project, I think it’s a pretty good place to start. I’ve gone through two or three articles already, trying to find something that suits the themes I want to address.
Later.
Is Hemingway Game?
A Personal Commentary
Shib and I were discussing whether or not Hemingway is game. I said it could be. Take for example this excerpt below:
“Drink that,” she said. “It will make me seem even better. It is necessary to drink much of that for me to seem beautiful.”
“Then I had better stop,” Robert Jordan said. “Already thou seemest beautiful and more.”
(Chapter Six)
It’s funny how now that I’m taking AP English that’s the first thing I look for. Well, that’s also due to the fact that Hemingway can write some pretty damn depressing books. When I read A Farewell to Arms, I was looking for a little romance in the midst of the war, to serve as a beam of hope, something to brighten the story. I guess the same goes for For Whom the Bell Tolls. Robert Jordan’s job is to blow up trains and bridges during the Spanish Civil War, so any relief from that heavy matter would be welcome. I’ve found some already. Granted, I’m only eight or nine chapters into the book, so the deepest writing hasn’t hit yet, but there’s already a little romance and some humor if you’re looking for it.
So, is at least some portion of For Whom the Bell Tolls “game”?
I would say it could be, if it’s catered toward a special type of girl/guy. If they like to talk about war, or if they’re fascinated by Hemingway’s concept of strong men and women with “grace under pressure”, then I think they would like it and might think it’s cute that you’re trying to flirt with them with a novel about fighting Spanish fascism. But I think most people wouldn’t see it that way — they’d just look at you like a freak! I guess it’s the same way with John Donne’s poem “The Flea” — if a girl found the parallel between a parasite and premarital sex humorous, she might go for it; but don’t count on it.
I brought up Donne because For Whom the Bell Tolls derives its title from Donne’s Meditation XVII, which is printed on the page before Chapter One of FWTBT. I’ve read it a couple of times over but I’m not exactly sure what it means yet, or rather how it connects to FWTBT so much that it is the source of the novel’s title. However, in Shakespeare class we are reading MacBeth, and in Act II MacBeth notes that the tolling bell is “a knell/ That summons thee [Duncan] to heaven, or to hell”. Mr. Mason pointed out that those lines always remind him of “never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” I laughed because I recognized it as Donne, who I’ve at least heard of, thanks to AP English.
Whether or not Hemingway is game is up for thee to decide.
(Ah, yes, I might have forgotten to note that in FWTBT a lot of thee’s and thou’s are used. This I find curious.)
1/21/2009 StartNow
I have a book in mind. Since I liked Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, which we read in Honors English 10, I decided I should check out some of his other books. I decided upon For Whom The Bell Tolls because it deals with a war, and I appreciated the anti-war message in A Farewell to Arms.
More later.
