For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

In his tale of the Spanish civil war, Hemingway stretches out a period of three days into nearly epic proportions. He does so not by tedious glamorization but through a sincere and brutal study of war and all its paradoxes. His characters breathe with intensity and a sense of purpose - for the short time shown they live in the present, and that alone gives validation to their existence. The story focuses on an American mercenary fighting with the Spanish rebels. A special mission takes him to a mountain camp, where the unstable leadership threatens to hinder his task. The language is typical Hemingway - terse and confident - and the dialogue is strange and almost poetic, even at its most vulgar moments ("I obscenity in the milk of thy...!" curse his characters). Through the constant moral struggles of the American and the group of makeshift soldiers, Hemingway gets to the harsh truth of war - that even if killing is necessary one must never believe in it. This is a beautiful, honest book.

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4 out of 5
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