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Title: Plodding plotting
Review: I entered this book thinking highly of Hemingway, having read some of the Nick Adams stories as well as The Old Man and the Sea. But Bell is quite a disappointment. The 1930s-era characters seem to be speaking an off-putting and unwieldy gringo Shakespeare ("Thou hast crossed the arroyo, Ingles"). Moreover, the revolving themes of duty and honor and the instrument of war / administration vs. the individuals who carry out the specific deeds don't seem to develop. Rather, the reader is subject to endless conversations with rather boring people, then Robert Jordan muses in an unenlightening manner upon the conversations he's had. About 1/3 of the way through the book I was thinking "just blow the damn bridge up, make love to Maria, and go home." Having skimmed the Cliffs Notes, apparently it takes a few hundred more pages for that to happen; pages I am unwilling to read.
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