"For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway; 10/10

Read By Campbell Scott

Unquestionably one of the greatest books I have ever read. 

As a seller of books I have, over the years, periodically been asked to make recommendations, both to individuals and to help fill out the "Staff Recommends" section.  This is a perennial choice of mine, and when I write the blurb to go with it, I say something like, "This Is Hemingway's definitive statement on death, love, war, peace, betrayal, loyalty, hatred, and friendship, set in the Spanish Civil War." Hemingway was a correspondent in Spain during the Civil War, itself a proxy war against fascism for many Western ideologues, along with a number of other famous writers. 

This book, like my description of it, is in some ways a series of contrasts.  It is set over just a three-day period and yet is one of the longer novels you'll find.  The action is confined to a small mountain and village in Spain, and yet it manages to be one of the definitive statements on the country in that period, and on the Spanish Civil War in general.  You feel like you have been to all of Spain and lived through the whole war when those three days have ended.  He makes you feel like you understand, which is mostly an illusion, but it is an illusion which may be the primary goal of writing.

There is just so much substance to this book... I can't even tell you how moving it is.  I had read and liked Hemingway before, but this was one of those instances where it became obvious that I would be reading all of the important work by the author as soon as I could get to it.  Hemingway's writing strikes such a chord with me.  It is simple, deceptively so, but extraordinarily honest.  He does not spare you anything, he does not lie to make some people sound better than they are and other people sound worse, he just gives you the real thing.  The characters are just out of this world well-written.  What genius.

I have, to date, rated seven books a perfect 10.  The leap from 8 or 9 to 10 is a leap from being something I recognize as great or brilliant writing to something I recognize as being highly meaningful to me in the utmost.  In each one of those  seven I can tell you the specific point where I realized it was a 10. War movie in reverse in "Slaughterhouse." The scanner darkly passage in "Scanner." The ending of the third chapter in "Lord of Light." The opening passage of "Lolita." The final chapter of "Ubik." The opening passage of "1984."  The first chapter of "Hitchhiker's Guide." 

In "For Whom The Bell Tolls," the passage where Pilar tells about the overthrow of the fascists in her village was just one of the most extraordinary bits of good writing I've ever encountered.  I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.  If you can get it, I recommend the audio book.  Campbell Scott, son of Oscar-winning actor George C. Scott, is one of the best readers out there, and while his baritone perfectly suits this book, his voices and accents are the real prize. 

There was a year or two there where I would cite this book as my favorite, and strangely I had that in common with BOTH presidential candidates in 2008.  Yes, McCain and Obama have the same favorite book, and this is it.  Go figure.

Many people are thrown off by the length of this book, which is ample, but I find more and more as I read that if I get this attached to a book, I will actually be more unhappy if it is short than if it is long, because I become invested and want more.  "For Whom The Bell Tolls" bites off exactly the right amount of material, and ends exactly when and as it should end. I love Hemingway, and I think this is his best. It made me want to go to Spain and to become knowledgeable about the Spanish Civil War, and if you bet that I make both of these things happen someday, you'll be making a pretty safe bet.

This one really shook the Earth for me.