Spain: For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Thoughts: This book is barely Spain. It could be lifted and reset in lots of different conflicts. But it does take place in Spain so we’ll count it as such.
This book is sparse. I like sparse. Every word is there for a reason and there can be no skimming because you can’t even sort of half-read and expect to understand what is happening two pages later.
That being said, this is a two hundred page novel stretched out to five hundred pages. It is so long. It is so slow. It is so boring. Everything in this book is about white, male, savior who knows more than the locals and bullies and cajoles them into doing what he “knows” to be right. There is no subtly with any of the characters except the American. The Spaniards are no more than cardboard cutouts that each illustrate some one word trait like “broken” or “virginal” or “well-meaning”.
The end, when they finally actually blow up the bridge, is good. But it takes four hundred dull pages to get there.
Oh and the schtick of writing like they are speaking Spanish but in English (lots of thees and thous, etc.). Gets old quickly.
Rating: 2.5/5