“Who wants to be in an army? Do we make the revolution to be in an army? I am willing to fight but not to be in an army.” – Ernest Hemingway, ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls”
It’s turning into something of a performance summer for me! We had the reading last week, we were supposed to have the show last night, but it’s being rescheduled due to smoke in the air1, I’m playing a one-off set with some other teachers soon. Wrapped up in that performance is a bunch of podcasting, and isn’t an interview a kind of performance? Kathleen Rooney was on the L&E podcast last week, and we got Kay E. Bancroft on The Line Break this week! Kay was such a delight to talk to. I love when Bob brings in a guest, I get all nervous because of social anxiety, and then we totally vibe like a theramin in Brian Wilson’s studio. Kay is a delight, and her book sounds rad as hell. Check out the interview! Apple | Spotify | SoundCloud
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
A book that, to my surprise, violated my “summer read’s gotta move” edict. Don’t get me wrong, there was action and adventure and fascist-killing. It’s a book with some truly spectacular sentences. It’s also a book that’s 490 goddamn pages. I’ve read it once before, about 14 years ago, but I forgot how dense it is. Of this author’s major works, it’s maybe my least favorite to read, but it’s still real good and fits into punk rock/antifascist theme of this year. Because what’s more punk rock than traveling across an ocean to blow up a bridge with fascists on it? Well, lots of things, but lemme get a rhetorical flourish. I’m talking, of course, about For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.
I don’t feel like rehearsing plot, because I know this is assigned reading for a lot of people. It’s a well-wrought modernist novel about a USian named Robert Jordan fighting on The Good Side of the Spanish Civil War. He is ordered to go into the Sierra Mountains with a guerrilla band to blow up a bridge behind enemy lines. Over the course of three days, he falls in love with a 19-year-old survivor of horrific war crimes, gets betrayed by the guerrilla leader, meets some other guerrilas, and—how exciting for Robert and Maria—has a bunch of sex. In the end, he blows up that fascist bridge. I suppose that’s sort of a spoiler, but come on. You know that the bridge-blowing isn’t the biggest thing that happens.
Obscenity, I guess I did a plot summary.
The reason I don’t want to do a plot summary is because I don’t feel like re-litigating the baked-in misogyny2 or the thin politics3. A bunch of fascists get shot, sometimes that’s enough politics. I wanna talk about language. Are you wondering why I said “obscenity” up there? Well, that’s because it’s just one of the strange tics of this novel. What passes with thou and thy Spanish? Canst thou recall the informal/formal conjugations? Did you ever think you’d read a novel that did such literal, clumsy translation?
In addition to Hemingway’s already signature style—generally short sentences but also many run-on sentences and we find the run-on sentences are good—we have this odd thing where he’s treating Spanish translation more literally than you might think someone should. It’s vibes-based translation, or using the syntax of another language for aesthetic purposes. Anne Carson does something like this in her work. According to the FWTBT Wikipedia, many critics didn’t like this choice. My hot take, I guess, is that I enjoy big linguistic swings like this. It’s the same part of me that’s drawn to Jessica Lévai’s vampire opera in sonnets or a bro-down translation of Beowulf. The strange squeamishness around curse words, paired with literal translations, results in wonderful sentences like “I obscenity in the milk of thy mother.” This is why I’ll always defend Hemingway4. Dude is really underrated for what he does with language, which is ironic because his style is so groundbreaking and oft-imitated/parodied. Give him a try if you haven’t.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Erik Hansel, one of the guitarists from Chon, is putting out a solo album under the name Betrayflip. These first two singles are, uh, all I’m going to be listening to for a while. The Chon Discord seems to be saying the album is coming out this morning, but as I write on a Thursday when my own show was canceled, I’m not chicken-countin. Check these two singles. Summer instrumental vibes, my dudes.
- This week in ICE: big week for the boys! They killed so many new people! Mexican man is killed by truck as he flees immigration agents in St. Augustine by Syra Ortiz Blanes and Claire Healy in Miami Herald, What to know about the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE by Lekan Oyekanmi, Jack Brook, and Jeffrey Collins in AP (accessed via PBS), AP Exclusive: ICE officer in Maine shooting has history of violent behavior, family and records say by Jack Brook, Michael R. Sisak, Amanda Swinhart, and Claire Galofaro in AP, Man fatally shot by ICE officer in Maine wasn’t the target of arrest warrant, senator’s spokesman says by Suzanne Gamboa, Julia Ainsley, Jean Lee, Phil Helsel and Nicole Acevedo at NBCNews, ICE’s Mission Is Murder by Noah Berlatsky in Everything Is Horrible, ICE orders officers to stop vehicle pursuits nationwide amid Houston and Maine shootings by Ninfa Saavedra in Click2Houston, Should City Seek Compensation For Midway Blitz? Voters May Be Able To Weigh In by Quinn Meyers in Block Club, Memphis Is “Under Full-Blown Occupation” by ICE. Here’s Why You May Not Know That. by Samantha Michaels in Mother Jones, Milwaukee group protests deadly ICE agent shootings in Maine, Texas by Mimi Sinotte in WISN, Chicago Police Promised To ‘Fix’ Secret Traffic Stops. A Year Later, The Problem Has Only Gotten Worse by Pascal Sabino in Injustice Watch/Bolts (yes, that’s ICE related)
- Some Spanish Civil War history? Here’s The Birth of Spanish Fascism and How Fascism Won The Spanish Civil War from Behind The Insurrections (a Behind The Bastards spinoff from 2021).
- The Anarchist Revolution In The Spanish Civil War, Part 1 and Part 2 from Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
- Black Antifascists In The Spanish Civil War, Part 1 and Part 2 from Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
- 10-Minute History of The Spanish Civil War by History Matters
What’re you still doing here? There’s more Betrayflip to listen to! This one has vocals. Still immaculate summer vibes tho. Hey, go play Super Smash Bros this weekend.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Hey, if you’ve read For Whom The Bell Tolls? Every job has a Pilar. The hardened middle-aged women who sees everything before everyone else does, who takes care of everyone while cursing them out, the person we all know is the real brains and heart and liver and kidneys of any worthwhile operation. Listen to the Pilar in your life.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
- I am, obviously, extremely bummed about the show being canceled/postponed. We have every intention of rescheduling, with Ester and Routine Fuss, at Rivers and Roads—but all of that is out of my hands. Next week, this blog will talk about what a bummer the weather has been this summer ↩︎
- holdupyou’retellingmethat 1930s Spain as seen by Hemingway wasn’t a fun place for women??? ↩︎
- the novel itself calls Jordan’s political education underdeveloped ↩︎
- I used to be a Hemingway completionist, but not any more. A little goes a long way. My personal canon for him, fwiw, is The First Forty-Nine, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls, and The Old Man And The Sea. I’ll get around to A Moveable Feast eventually—my parents got me a nice copy like 10 years ago which I started but haven’t finished. That’s a representative collection of Ernie, I think ↩︎