The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War

by Ernest Hemingway

Featuring Hemingway's only full-length play, which--like the stories here--grew out of his experiences in and around a besieged Madrid, this volume brilliantly evokes the tumultuous years of the Spanish Civil War. These works, which grew from Hemingway's adventures as a newspaper correspondent in and around besieged Madrid, movingly portray the effects of war on soldiers, civilians, and the correspondents sent to cover it.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Plays, Spain, Literature, Spanish Civil War

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.

Reviews

[Mohammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

۴ داستان کوتاه از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا
فوق العاده تاثیر گذار و روان

[Karl Jorgenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's a book where the publisher had somebody sweeping the warehouse, and out of the pile of trash they saw a couple things with Hemingway's name on them. Not useful in any way, but if packaged together, we could pretend it makes a book. Most of this volume is 'The Fifth Column', a Spanish Civil War play. I can't read a script--absent the actors to give the dialogue meaning, it's like reading the transcripts from the hearings of the House Committee on Internet Protocols.
The four short stories are nice enough without being particularly memorable. Hemingway's dialogue-heavy style lets the characters talk around the problem, permitting the reader to discover hints of hidden emotions and get a feel for the personalities. This wouldn't be any news in today's fiction, but apparently it was in 1938.

[Haman · Rating 3 out of 5]

وقتي مهربون مي شي افتضاحي . فقط آدماي مهربون مي تونند مهربون باشند . تو وقتي كه مي خواي وانمود كني كه مهربون هستي واقعا وحشتناك مي شي .

[Sergio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dopo molti anni mi sono riavvicinato a Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961] più per leggere queste storie sulla guerra civile spagnola che è un argomento che da un po’ mi ossessiona, piuttosto che per una reale volontà di rileggere il grande scrittore del quale già supponevo di aver letto il meglio in passato e ne ho avuto conferma dopo aver terminato i quattro racconti e il dramma che compongono questo libro: nessuno nega che la scrittura di Hemingway è sempre affascinante, i lunghi dialoghi il suo punto di forza, le trame fragili e a volte inconsistenti che per magia sembrano assurgere sotto la sua mano quasi a capolavori ma nell’insieme il volumetto non aggiunge niente a quanto già risaputo e cioè che le sue migliori composizioni brevi sono quelle del gruppo dei “Quarantanove Racconti” e infine che “Per chi suona la campana” é il romanzo epico che meglio interpreta gli anni sanguinosi della guerra civile. Con questo non intendo del tutto svilire questa lettura ma da Hemingway, nonostante tutto, ci si illude sempre di trovare quel meglio che gli altri non hanno saputo cogliere….

[S.Zohreh · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب پروانه و تانک شامل چهار داستان کوتاه از جنگ داخلی اسپانیا (شاید بتوان خاطرات همینگوی گفت) است.
‎جنگ داخلی اسپانیا همزمان با قدرت گرفتن نازی در اروپاست؛ این جنگ حدود دو سال طول می‌کشد و همینگوی چهار بار به عنوان خبرنگار جنگ و فیلم ساز به اسپانیا اعزام می‌شود. این داستان ها از جهت اینکه پیش نویسی برای کتاب زنگ‌ها برای که به صدا در می‌‌آیند حائز اهمیت است.

‎صحنه‌ی اصلی سه داستان در یک (بارِ عمومی) به نام چیکوته اتفاق می‌افتد که در یک سر خیابان است و در انتهای آن جبهه جنگ.
‎اما در مورد داستان ها : اگر آثار دیگر همینگوی را خوانده بودم بهتر میشد در مورد این کتاب نظرم را بنویسم ولی گنگ بودن گفتگو ها بین اشخاص را نقطه ضعف این کتاب میبینم.

از متن کتاب:
بیشتر مشتری‌های قدیمیِ چيكوته طرفدار فرانکو بودند.ولی بعضی از آن‌ها طرفدار دولت بودند. از آن جا که جای خیلی باصفایی بود، و از آن جا که آدم‌های واقعاً با‌صفا معمولاً شجاع‌تر هم هستند و شجاع‌ترها زودتر کشته می‌شوند، عده‌ی زیادی از مشتری های قدیمیِ چیکوته حالا دیگر مرده‌اند.


۱۳/مرداد/ ۱۴۰۰

[Hossein · Rating 2 out of 5]

این کتاب به درد کسی میخوره که تمام آثار همینگوی رو خونده باشه و یک طرفدار دو آتیشه اش باشه. برای من که تا حالا هیچی از همینگوی نخونده بودم تجربه بدی بود. داستان ها به شدت بی سر و ته بود و من یکی که هیچی ازش سر در نمیاوردم.
پ.ن: کلا دلیل خرید این کتاب گیر کردن تو رو در بایستی بود. وارد یک کتاب فروشی تازه تاسیس شدم فروشنده بنده خدا 45 دقیقه داشت انواع و اقسام کتاب ها رو معرفی میکرد برام. روم نشد دست خالی بیام بیرون. به خاطر جلد خوش رنگش این کتاب رو انتخاب کردم.

[Jonfaith · Rating 2 out of 5]

He had not even had time to be disappointed in the Garbo picture which disappointed all Madrid for a week.

The play was unexpectedly overwritten. Not like Papa at all. It would be absurd, almost like Sara Kane, but it wasn't. Wasn't intended as such.

The play was brutal, likely in all senses, but it was superior to the stories. These appeared to be outtakes that didn't make For Whom The Bell Tolls.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The important thing about this collection is that it is Hemingway and it is about the Spanish Civil War. Without that understanding, this would be a play and 4 stories from a generic writer/survivor of that war.The reason I read this is that in the recent: Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 Nicholas Reynolds poses that in fear of the HUAC Hemingway suppressed production of his only play, “The Fifth Column”.

Now that I’ve read it, It seems that the HUAC might like this play. The protagonist is an American communist: Philip, and he is no hero. He is highly compromised, willing to swallow a lot for his cause. The manipulative relationship with his handler (was he modeled on Joris Ivens who tried to pull Hemingway to the Russian orbit?) seems to demonstrate what the HUAC was (witch) hunting. Dorothy Bridges, beautiful, stylish well-educated, professional and liberal, (Martha Gellhorn?) has all the qualities men of the Mad Men era (the HUAC ers) loved to hate. While the character of Max, Stalin’s recruiter, may be a bit close to the sore point, I also suspect “The Fifth Column” never made it to the stage because it was a lousy play and Hemingway knew it.

The 4 stories are terse pieces of Hemingway’s experiences at the Florida Hotel, in the club Chicote, on the front and with the film crew of “The Spanish Earth”. The stories cover how one betrays an old acquaintance, what a raid on a club is like, what people talk about before a battle and life on the front. “Under the Ridge” was most compelling for me for its cameo human portraits of the distraught general, the boy who lost his hand and the French soldier who had had enough.

[Fatemeh · Rating 3 out of 5]

بد نبودا ولی حس می‌کنم کتاب‌های دیگه‌ای که از همینگوی خوندم (زنگ‌ها برای که به صدا در می‌آیند و پیرمرد و دریا، با وجود اینکه توصیف‌هاشون اذیتم می‌کرد) انتظارم رو بالا بردن. این چهار تا داستان کوتاه این کتاب خیلی جاذبه نداشت برام.

[Chequers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non ho ancora capito bene se mi e' piaciuto, e quanto. Mi aspettavo un resoconto giornalistico sulla guerra di Spagna, invece la Quinta Colonna e' uno spaccato sulla vita di un militante piuttosto intimistico, ed i racconti sono scorrevoli ma sinceramente non mi hanno impressionato.
Tra i due, ho comunque preferito comunque la Quinta Colonna, ma sono ancora perplessa.

[Carl R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hemingway famously chronicled the Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell Tolls) being his most prominent work from the period.) Probably most Americans' knowledge of that conflict comes as much from him as from history texts, since the whole thing got pretty much drowned out by WWII. I've reviewed a few of Rebecca Pawel's novels of the period, which has added to my own knowledge, and I have friends with relatives who actually joined the Lincoln Brigade, a group of American volunteers who went over to fight the Fascist Franco. Unfortunately, the western powers felt more comfortable with people like Stalin and Franco than with mercurial revolutionaries, so there was little support and little success for the insurgents.

The volume which contains the play The Fifth Column and Four Short Stories gives another take on the action in that conflict. The Fifth Column makes it clear why Hemingway did not stake his career on playwrighting. Set in a Madrid hotel where erstatz playboy Phillip works undercover to sabotage government operations while at the same time carrying on a love affair with a shallow magazine writer, he's created a situation so artificial as to be nearly comic. I suppose we're supposed to see the tug toward normalcy in Phillip's attraction to the blonde who wants him to marry, go stateside, and settle down. However, her character is so vapid, it's hard to believe he's attracted at all.

Nevertheless, we get a lot of insights into the kind of action that can and perhaps did take place in and around hotels among urban revolutionaries. There are are successes, failures, deaths. Every location, name, role, is temporary and every personal agenda must be subsumed to the cause.

The stories are another matter. Linked by their locale in various Madrid bars and hotels and by a filmmaking crew who is supposed to document the revolution, we meet combatants and civilians. Those who are being starved by the war as well as those who are being killed on the battlefield. So meticulously does Hemingway detail his locales and events that the prose is almost journalistic. And there's that famous limpid prose and those wonderfully crafted sentences.

You could see it [the battle] spread out below you and over the hills, could smell it, could taste the dust of it, and the noise of it was one great slithering sheet of rifle and automatic rifle fire rising and dropping, and in it came the crack of the guns and bubbly rumbling of the outgoing shells fired from the batteries behind us, the thud of their bursts, and then the rolling yellow clouds of dust. But it was just too far to film well.

All that poetic description followed by a simple sentence about some prosaic, practical dilemma.

All in all, the volume is a worthwhile historical journey as well as an interesting, if not superlative, literary one.

[Inessakos · Rating 3 out of 5]

ЕРНЕСТ ГЕМІНҐВЕЙ “П'ЯТА КОЛОНА”
⠀
📝Писати правду про війну дуже небезпечно і дуже небезпечно дошукуватися правди.
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"П'ята колона" оповідає про роботу контррозвідки в Мадриді під час Громадянської війни в Іспанії.
⠀
Хоча ні... Твір про життя під час війни. Про відносини та про вибір.
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П'єса, від якої мурашки по шкірі. На стільки вона прониклива!
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Цікаві факти:
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🌟Це єдина п'єса, написана Хемінгуеєм.
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🌟 Автор писав свій унікальний твір у готелі "Флорида", в який потрапило більше тридцяти снарядів, поки він її створював.
⠀
🌟Щоразу, виїжджаючи на фронт, Хемінгуей ховав п'єсу в скатаний матрац. Щоразу, повернувшись і знайшовши кімнату і п'єсу, він радів.
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🌟П'єса була закінчена, переписана та надіслана перед самим падінням Теруеля.

[Sarvenaz Taridashti · Rating 4 out of 5]

«خیلی از آدما رو موقع مرگ دیدم ولی هرگز ندیدم یه
سیاستمدار راحت بمیره.»
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ضعف ویراستاری کاملا هویدا و گاه اذیت‌کننده بود. متن اصلی یا ترجمه دیگری را پیشنهاد می‌کنم اگر که تا به‌حال نخواندید.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fifth Column: **
The Denunciation: ***
The Butterfly and the Tank: **
Night Before Battle: *****
Under the Ridge: *****

[Moniek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obrzydliwe. Bezustannie marnujesz czas, a twoje życie jest wstrętne i głupie.

A ja taki młody i obiecujący.

Zawsze wracam do Ernesta Hemingwaya i tak samo od nowa zachwycam się pięknem jego słów.

Piąta kolumna to dramat, jedyny w twórczości Hemingwaya, napisany w oczekiwaniu na następną akcję zbrojną wojny hiszpańskiej. Utwór podąża za agentem hiszpańskiego kontrwywiadu oraz członkami faszystowskiej piątej kolumny. Sztuce towarzyszą cztery opowiadania, również osadzone w Madrycie w latach 1936-1938.

Cztery kolumny maszerują na Madryt, piąta kolumna czeka wewnątrz miasta, aby nas powitać. Emilio Mola, generał hiszpański

Długo czekałam na nieuchwytną Piątą kolumnę. Wiedziałam, że oprócz licznych kontrowersji, wzbudziła niesmak krytyków. Twórczość Ernesta towarzyszy mi od dawna, byłam świadkiem jego tryumfu i upadku, niełatwo mnie odstraszyć. Za to byłam jeszcze bardziej zaintrygowana.

Jest jednak coś w Piątej kolumnie, co wymyka mi się z rąk, i postaram się to wytłumaczyć.

Ernest w swoim pisarstwie nie zakładał, że każda historia musi być prawdą (i nie tak powinno być to odczytywane). Zwracał jednak uwagę, by czerpać inspirację z tego, czego sam doświadczył lub był świadkiem; miało to zagwarantować nie prawdę, ale prawdziwość.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Nie we wszystkich, lecz w dużej części utworów Hemingwaya możemy odnaleźć jego samego. Losy bohaterów takich jak Frederic Henry, Robert Jordan czy Jake Barnes potoczyły się inaczej niż biografia autora, ale w pewnym momencie tych powieści mamy wrażenie, że w tym momencie to Ernesta obserwujemy, że to on się do nas zwraca. Z głównym bohaterem Piątej kolumny odczuwam to w inny sposób. Filipa i Hemingwaya łączy kilka cech, takich jak obeznanie w świecie, romans z zawodem korespondenta wojennego czy wątek miłosny (bo Dorota to żywcem ściągnięta do dramatu Martha Gellhorn). Nie sądzę jednak, by sam autor był tak zaangażowany w działania kontrwywiadu (możecie mnie poprawić albo zrobi to kolejna przeczytana biografia). Myślę, że fascynowały go działania kontrwywiadowcze i jego agenci, sądzę, że mogła to być pewna aspiracja, do której jednak odnosił się z trzeźwym umysłem (widać to po jego krytyce organizacji). Mógł odnaleźć cząstkę siebie w tych postaciach, lecz nie wsiąkł w ich rolę całkowicie; a Filip staje się bohaterem dwuznacznym. Są to całkowicie normalne pobudki do stworzenia historii, opisywanie czegoś, co nas fascynuje, i Hemingway nie odstaje tu negatywnie od innych pisarzy. Na pewno był świadkiem działań agentów i znał ich osobiście. Po prostu nie odnoszę takiego wrażenia jak przy innych jego utworach, że ta historia płynie z głębi serca, z samego dna.

Hemingway pracował nad tą sztuką w ciężkich warunkach i nie zastosował tutaj tak dogłębnej i zwyczajowej dla niego korekty. Żałuję, ponieważ historia Filipa jest poruszająca i wartościowa, brakuje jednak wykończenia pewnych wątków pobocznych i przez to sztuka wydaje się niepełna. Za to zachwyciły mnie detale, takie jak komentarze o otwieraniu okien na noc czy epizodyczne sceny dyrektora hotelu i ciągniący się za nim wątek narastającego głodu w Madrycie. Filip jest charyzmatyczną i bardzo ludzką postacią, stanowi swego rodzaju autorytet. Romans jego i Doroty też przypadł mi do gustu; jestem zdania, że nikt nie pisze dialogu kochanków tak pięknie jak Hemingway. Tych zdań może nie wypowiedzieliby z obawy, ale to tak, jakby mówiły ich serca. Szczególnie myśle teraz o fragmencie z burzą śnieźne.

Widzę, dlaczego Ernest zdecydował się na tę formę literacką, ale czuję, że gdyby zmienić Piątą kolumnę w powieść, byłaby stawiana zaraz obok Pożegnania z bronią. Takie wątki oddziałują na wyobraźnię i uczucia widzów, pobudzają empatię.

Z opowiadaniami miałam takie szczęście, że większość ich znam już z wydania Motyl i czołg. Piątej kolumnie towarzyszą Denuncjacja, Motyl i czołg, Noc przed bitwą i Pod zboczem. Truman Capote, mimo pewnej antypatii wobec Hemingwaya, powiedział kiedyś, że jeśli coś zostanie zapamiętane z twórczości Ernesta, to będą to właśnie opowiadania. Podzielam to zdanie. Uważam autora za mistrza krótkiej formy; wraz z jego teorią góry lodowej, prostym językiem i porażającą bezbronnością w prozie, utwory wywołują wstrząsający efekt. Hemingway zamyka w zaledwie kilku stronach ogromny świat i zabiera nas do niego, naturalnie, podając dłoń, będąc z nami cały czas. W opowiadaniach z wojny hiszpańskiej wzbił się na wyżyny. Prawdopodobnie przyczyniła się do tego ogromna miłość do tego kraju oraz świetne oko korespondenta wojennego.

Niesamowite, jak... jak bardzo w swojej twórczości Ernest Hemingway wraca do życia. Tak jakby nigdy nie odszedł.

[...] kiedy pisałem tę sztukę, hotel "Florida", w którym mieszkaliśmy i pracowali, został trafiony przeszło trzydziestoma pociskami o wielkiej sile wybuchowej. Jeżeli więc ta sztuka nie jest dobra, to może właśnie dlatego. A jeżeli jest dobra, to może tych trzydzieści kilka pocisków pomogło mi ją napisać.

[Pooya Kiani · Rating 3 out of 5]

- حالا یک زن بیشتر، چه فرقی می‌کنه؟
- یکی بیشتره.
گفت: من عین خیالم نیست که بمیرم، ولی مردن خیلی هچل هفه. فقط تلف شدنه. حمله بی‌فایده‌ست.

از داستان «شب پیش از نبرد»
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جان پرسید: از چی حرف می‌زنن؟ من که چیزی نفهمیدم.
- یه مردی اینجا هست که از قدیم می‌شناختیمش. توی تیراندازی به کفترها محشر بود و من تیراندازیش رو دیده بودم. فاشیسته، و اومدنش به اینجا، اون هم حالا، به هر دلیلی که باشه خیلی احمقانه‌ست. ولی اون همیشه خیلی شجاع و خیلی هم احمق بوده.
- بهم نشونش بدید.
- اونجا سر اون میزه، با خلبان‌ها.
- کدوم یکی؟
- همونی که صورتش خیلی آفتاب‌سوخته‌ست. کلاه روی یکی از چشم‌هاشو گرفته. همونی که الان داره می‌خنده.
- فاشیسته؟
- آره.
- از پوئنتس دل اورو تا حالا فاشیست از این نزدیکی ندیده بودم. این طرف‌ها فاشیست زیاده؟
- گاه‌گداری، یه چندتایی هست.
جان گفت: داره همون مشروبی رو می‌نوشه که شما می‌نوشید. نکنه ما هم که داریم همونو می‌نوشیم، فاشیستیم؟

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و خیلی هم ناراحت شدم که شماره‌ی تلفن دفتر مرکزی ضدجاسوسی را من به پیشخدمت داده بودم. می‌توانست شماره را خیلی راحت از مرکز بپرسد، ولی من در یکی از همان حالت‌های افراط در بی‌طرفی، درستکاری و پونتیوس پیلاطسی، و با این اشتیاق رذیلانه که ببینم مردم موقع درگیری‌های مهیج چه عکس‌العملی دارند که نویسنده‌ها اینطور مجذوب آن می‌شوند، کوتاه‌ترین راه را برای دستگیری دلگادو به او نشان داده بودم.

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جان پرسید: کجا می‌رید غذا می‌خورید؟
- یه کمی گوشت برای همه‌مون دارم و می‌تونم بپزمش.
جان گفت: من می‌پزمش. آشپزیم خوبه. یادم می‌آد یه وقتی توی کشتی آشپزی می‌کردم.
گفتم: ممکنه خیلی سفت باشه. تازه همین الان قصابیش کرده‌ن.
جان گفت: اوه، نه. در جنگ چیزی به اسم گوشت سفت وجود نداره.

چند برش از داستان «خبرچینی»

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spanish civil war. The play disappoints. The stories are OK.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fifth Column and Four Stories is a Hemingway collection published in 1969 by Mary Hemingway after her husband’s suicide. It includes Hemingway’s only play, which had been published previously in 1938, and four short stories that he wrote while in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.

They (both play and stories), given their themes, might be considered creative foreshadows to For Whom the Bell Tolls. But beyond that timing, they are Hemingway’s first-hand descriptions of what life might have been like in Madrid during Franco’s siege of that city. As windows into a time and place not often seen with any considered subjectivity, they are also reflective companions to George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Much as Orwell’s journalistic descriptions of the conflicted politics of Barcelona during the same time period, these fictional pieces lay bare some of the suspicions, tensions, camaraderie and hostilities that gripped Republican Madrid during the Civil War. As historical fiction, they are far better testimonies of the times than is For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Philip Rawlings (another Hemingway alter ego) is the dominant character of Hemingway’s only play, which is centered for most of the time in two rooms of Madrid’s Hotel Florida. An undercover agent of the Republic who is working ostensibly as a journalist, Rawlings primary mission is to aid in the abduction of two Fascists working in Nationalists-controlled territory and who are in possession of information about the fifth column (=Nationalists and/or Nationalist sympathizers) living secretly in Madrid. Fleshing out Rawlings' military mission is his amorous relationship with Dorothy Bridges (a character based on Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s then current mistress and a journalist in her own right who will become his third wife).

The narrator for all four short stories is Edwin Henry, an American journalist stationed in Madrid in order to report on the war itself. Much like Ernest Hemingway (with whom he shares initials and a job) and Philip Rawlings of the play, Henry is ensconced in the Hotel Florida. When not at the hotel or on the edges of the urban battlefield, he is at Chicote’s, which “in the old days in Madrid was a place like The Stork, without the music and the debutantes, or the Waldorf’s men’s bar if they let girls in. You know, they came in, but it was a man’s place and they didn’t have any status.”

There is cohesiveness to the four stories. In addition to the fact that the action in all four takes place in Madrid, each one dances with death or its shadow. They are in their collectivity similar to the war-related stories in the Nick Adams cycle, although, with the possible exception of “Under the Ridge”, not entirely of the same quality.


For Hemingway’s own discussion of the play: http://books4spain.com/blog/?p=1510. Hemingway mentions at the end of the discussion of the play the short stories. He is referring to the first collection in which the play appeared. In that collection, he included his first 49 short stories. The four stories published in this later volume were not in the earlier one.

[Ian Racey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recently came across (in Hotel Florida by Amanda Vaill) Arturo Barea's assessment of Hemingway as "a spectator who wished to be seen as an actor", and I don't think there could be any better exemplar of this than The Fifth Column. Philip Rawlings is transparently Hemingway's attempt to make himself into the hero he wasn't--an American journalist covering the Siege of Madrid, only, you see, the journalism is JUST A COVER to hide that he's really a communist hero, hunting out fascist sympathisers in the besieged city and sneaking across the battle lines during nighttime bombardments in order to kidnap German generals and bring them back to government headquarters for interrogation. What makes the play really reprehensible, though, is the way he complements his self-aggrandising daydream of a hero with such a dismissive, contemptuous portrait of his mistress Martha Gellhorn ("Dorothy Bridges"--or "Britches", as Rawlings's accomplice mispronounces it--in the play) for a heroine. In her very first appearance on stage, she announces to the audience that she's really too stupid to understand anything that's going on in the Spanish war; on page one, before she'd even appeared, she'd already been equated with a prostitute for being a woman writer. Hemingway (through the characters of Philip and her previous lover, Robert) attacks her simply for having gone to college, says she WOULD be a good writer were she not so lazy, damns her for purchasing fine clothing, and explicitly says that his attraction to her derives entirely from her blonde hair and long, shapely legs.

All four stories are essentially Hemingway recounting anecdotes of his time in Madrid, and all four involve him assuming that the people actually fighting and dying against fascism in Spain held him, watching them from the sidelines, in admiration and saw his contribution as either just as great or greater than theirs. I enjoyed "Night Before Battle" and liked "Under the Ridge" a lot, but felt "The Denunciation" and "The Butterfly and the Tank" rather meandered along pointlessly. Both would have been better if they'd been from the point of view of someone actually central to their events (the narrator in "The Denunciation" really should have been the Spanish waiter, who spent the story wrestling with a genuine moral crisis and is the only character who actually does anything, but whose role is reduced to showing up at Hemingway's table every couple of pages to reiterate how torn he feels) rather than the writer sitting back and watching it all unfold.

[Nasim.Radfar · Rating 2 out of 5]

٤ داستان كوتاه درباره جنگ.
&&&&&&
مردی که بسیار خوشحال است سعی می کند با پاشیدن عطر به این و آن در کافه شادی کند ولی احساسات لطیف او مانند پروانه ای است که در جنگ به تانکی بخورد . انتخاب نام زیبایی داشت
&&&&&&

[Julia Korzeniewska]

świetna! krótkie opowiadania, które miały w sobie tyle czaru. bardzo podobał mi się zabieg opowiadania historii, w których sam autor uczestniczył. narrator tak idealnie opisał otoczenie i zrobił klimat, ze miałam wrażenie jakbym razem z nimi siedziała przy stole w barze:)

[ola k · Rating 2 out of 5]

i wasnt invested at all. great title tho

[Homersevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man wird hineingeworfen. Mitten nach Spanien, mitten nach Madrid. Irgendwann in das Jahr 1938.

Der spanische Bürgerkrieg tobt. Der faschistische Putschist Franco kämpft gegen die Verteidiger der zweiten spanischen Republik, die durch die Internationalen Brigaden unterstützt werden. Ein Krieg der auch als Generalprobe für den großen unvermeidbaren europäischen Krieg angesehen wird.
Mitten in dieser unscheinbaren Auseinandersetzung verfolgt man die Erlebnisse eines amerikanischen Kriegsberichterstatters, der auf Seite der spanischen Republik diesen, so ungewöhnlichen Konflikt erlebt, kommentiert und dokumentiert.

In vier kurzen, aber dennoch sehr atmosphärisch dichten Geschichten lässt Hemingway den Leser an der politischen Problematik der beiden unvereinbaren Parteien, dem Leiden der Zivilbevölkerung, der Sinnlosigkeit von Befehlshörigkeit und der einfachen und so oft sinnlosen Grausamkeit, die jede Kriegshandlung zur Folge hat, teilhaben. Oftmals spielen sich dabei die Geschichten in Bars, Kneippen, Restaurants und Hotels ab. Doch auch die harte, manchmal auch ziemlich unwirklich scheinende Realität an der Front, die zumal auch nur zwei Straßen von einer Bar in der sich der Protagonist befindet entfernt liegen kann, wird auf so eine unvergleichbare und sonderbare Erzählweise von Hemingway in leisen unaufdringlichen Tönen und Worten zu Papier gebracht.

„Wir können doch noch ein bißchen hier sitzen“, sagte er. „Hier ist es nett.“
„Es ist merkwürdig. Am anderen Ende der Straße tobt ein Krieg, den man zu Fuß erreichen kann, und dann geht man einfach weg und kommt hierher.“
„Und geht dann wieder hin“, sagte Al. – S.62

Doch nicht nur der Kampf gegen den Faschismus, auch die menschenverachtende Haltung auf eigenen Seiten, auf Seiten der Republik, die sich teilweise nicht von denen der Faschisten unterschied, wird über verschiedene Bilder und Begebenheiten zum Thema gemacht. Krieg ist eben Krieg. Egal wer ihn führt.

„Wir waren den ganzen Vormittag dort gewesen, wo der Franzose weggegangen war. Ich konnte verstehen, wie ein Mann schlagartig erkennen mag, daß es unsinnig ist, bei einem gescheiterten Angriff zu sterben […] Ich konnte verstehen, wie ein Mann der sieht, wie es wirklich ist, einfach aufsteht und weggeht, wie es der Franzose getan hatte. Das mußte nicht Feigheit sein; er konnte weggegangen sein, weil er zu klar gesehen, weil er plötzlich gewusst hatte, daß er weggehen mußte, daß es das einzig richtige war.
Der Franzose war mit großer Würde aus dem Angriff zurückgekommen, und ich konnte ihn als Mensch verstehen. Als Soldat hingegen hatten ihn diese Männer von der Militärpolizei verfolgt und gestellt, und der Tod, dem er entgangen war, hatte ihn eingeholt, als er gerade den Hinterhang erreicht hatte und, sicher vor den verirrten Kugeln und dem Artilleriefeuer, zum Fluß hinunterschritt.“ – S. 117

Wer bisher noch nicht mit Hemingway in Berührung kam, das aber schon immer wollte. Zudem auch ein gewisses Interesse an den Geschehnissen des spanischen Bürgerkrieges am Vorabend des zweiten Weltkrieges an den Tag legt, dem sei dieses gerade mal 124 Seiten starke Büchlein wärmstens ans Herz gelegt.

[Tim Weed · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his writings during and after the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway was processing his experiences and looking for new inspiration. Most of the stories from this period take place in and around Chicote’s, which still exists on Gran Via, and which was, at the time, the place to go in Madrid.

“The Fifth Column” is a minor but amusing effort, a stage drama in which an American spy has a flirtation with a tall blonde journalist in the war-assaulted Hotel Florida. “The Butterfly and the Tank” recounts an event that Hemingway actually witnessed: a man comes into Chicote’s and starts firing a “flit gun” at the waiters, and ends up getting shot.

In “The Denunciation,” the protagonist struggles with his decision to denounce an old friend and long-time Chicote’s patron who is a fascist, and ends up getting him shot. Clearly, this was a position Hemingway had taken in real life: fascists were bad, and fascist spies needed to be shot. It’s worth noting that he had made friends with some morally questionable characters in Madrid, including a group of Soviet generals and a highly placed Spanish Stalinist, who is the model for the menacing all-powerful totalitarian spymaster characters in both “The Fifth Column” and “The Denunciation.”

So Hemingway got caught up in wartime politics, which is probably a mistake for any creative artist. But the truth was that he was never comfortable with mass ideologies. Here’s a telling quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls, in the stream-of-consciousness mind of the novel’s protagonist, Robert Jordan:

“You’re not a real Marxist and you know it. You believe in Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. You believe in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Don’t ever kid yourself with too much dialectics. They are for some but not for you. You have to know them in order not to be a sucker.”

Generally, the stories from Hemingway’s Spanish Civil war period are entertaining and good, but not great as the best of his stories can be. The exception to this may be the final piece in the collection, “Under the Ridge,” a short tale of a failed Republican offensive outside Madrid where two would-be deserters are shot. It’s a deeply powerful story, managing to condemn both the Stalinist ideologues Hemingway had been hanging around with AND to introduce the species of simple, courageous, noble, humorous Spaniard that make For Whom the Bell Tolls such a great (though admittedly flawed) novel.

In sum, this book is indispensable if you’re interested in Hemingway, Spain, Madrid, and/or the Spanish Civil War. It’s an entertaining read, too – not a classic, perhaps, but well worth the read.

[Elena Calvo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have just finished this drama written by Hemingway and I have really liked it. It might be true that characters seem plain, specially women, and it might seem a quite simple play, but the truth is that it isn't. Hemingway captured the real essence of such a moment like a civil war, the daily routine of average people and journalists and the ones taking place in the espionage and counter-espionage plot. Everything seen mainly through the eyes and words of Philip, the one that helps us together with the rest of character to realize about how a war can influence your whole life in spite of your own ideals, transform you until a point of no return and how such ideals can be higher than escaping from a war that after all wasn't yours and living a life of joy and pleasure instead of being surrounded by death, enemies and lies.
Being a Spaniard myself, I could recognize the places, some of them still being part of the city, like Chicote, I could remember the memories of my grandparents regarding that war, the fact that even if life had stopped once the war started, it really didn't and people just tried to lead a normal life even in spite of the scarcity of food or the fact that bombs may fall at any moment of the day or night, and you can die in the streets or at home. Hemingway made me really come back to those days that I never lived but that have a deep memory created in my heart due to the ones who lived it, made me see the Madrid I know very well, those places where the war was hard with its citizens and it also made me remember that even if I can't be partial in this war, I will never forget there were many executions that were not fair in both bands. He also reflected how people from different countries came to fight in the Brigadas Internacionales, cause this was maybe the last "romantic war" if a war could deserve such a name, just because ideals still existed in a more spread way than nowadays and many people would die for their freedom or for trying to make other free. After all, in a war there are many people taking part and influecing it, there are many interests with different roots while normal citizens just want to live in peace and recover their daily lives, but recovering our daily lives can always have a cost, cause a life of our own is never got for free, but by fighting each single day to make our conceptions of this world alive.

[Dean William Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The play itself which constitutes about half of the book is compelling and moves at a swift pace, compared to his prose it might be considered somewhat lacking but there is enough here to make this a worthy read. The four short stories that follow are split down the middle. The first two I found to be meandering, boring and fairly meaningless and by this point I had quite a low opinion of the book as a whole. However the final two stories, in particular ‘Night Before Battle’ are Hemingway at his absolute best, they are moving and poetic and finely written and I believe special enough to raise this book up to be something very much worthwhile.

[Audrey Ashbrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War by Ernest Hemingway is a small collection that was inspired by his time in Spain in the 1930s as a newspaper correspondent. 

Hemingway writes about war in such an engrossing way. The Fifth Column, his only full-length play, is set at the Hotel Florida in Madrid, where he really stayed during the Spanish Civil War with his soon-to-be third wife, writer Martha Gellhorn. It seems that he is the character of Philip while Dorothy Bridges is based on Martha, even down to the silver fox coat. I have to wonder if The Fifth Column is partially satire because I found myself laughing out loud in some parts, particularly at night when Philip tells Dorothy that he will marry her and to never believe what he says at night, nor in the daytime. Philip says to Dorothy, "I don't love you in the daytime. I don't love anything in the daytime" (67). Philip is portrayed as an ornery counter-espionage agent who can be brash and cold, while Dorothy is portrayed as vapid but beautiful newspaper correspondent who is lazy with her writing and work. There is a lot of back-and-forth about love. Between this, there is talk of the horrors of war as bombings kill civilians in the streets. It is about "the fifth column" or the people who fight from inside the city against the Spanish people. The play is about self-sabotage. It is about fighting for peace but not getting it. Dorothy says to Philip, "It's hateful! The whole way you waste your time and your life is hateful and stupid" (61) because she wants to leave the dangers of Spain. She wants a life with Philip, but Philip wants to help the Spanish people win their civil war. They are surrounded by death and destruction, always at risk of dying and never fulfilling their "lying" to each other about a happy life after the war. All around, I actually enjoyed this play, even the semi-autobiographical characters. 

As for the short stories, I enjoyed Night Before Battle the best, followed by The Butterfly and the Tank, The Denunciation, and then Under the Ridge. 

[Rosalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

وقتی شروع به خواندن پروانه و تانک کردم، هیچ ذهنیت مشخصی درباره جنگ نداشتم. فقط سعی می‌کردم کلمات را بفهمم و با داستان پیش بروم. اما یک وقفه در مطالعه‌ام افتاد و در این فاصله، ماجراهای جنگ دوازده‌روزه ایران و اسرائیل اتفاق افتاد. بعد از آن، وقتی دوباره برگشتم سراغ کتاب، ذهنم به طرز محسوسی حساس‌تر شده بود؛ نسبت به حرف‌هایی که گفته می‌شد، نسبت به رفتار شخصیت‌ها، و حتی به فضای کلی داستان.

مدام فکر می‌کردم که اگر جنگی طولانی‌تر در ایران رخ دهد، ممکن است همین دوگانگی‌ها، همین سوءظن‌ها و احساسات متناقض بین مردم ما هم شکل بگیرد. فکر اینکه روابط انسانی چطور می‌توانند زیر فشار جنگ از هم بپاشند، برایم خیلی تکان‌دهنده بود. انگار تازه می‌فهمیدم جنگ فقط گلوله و مرگ نیست؛ بلکه چیزهایی را هم در دل آدم‌ها و بین آدم‌ها ویران می‌کند.

در مجموع، پروانه و تانک برایم کتاب خیلی جذابی نبود و آن ارتباط عمیقی که دلم می‌خواست با آن برقرار کنم، شکل نگرفت. اما با این حال، از خواندنش خوشحالم. همان چیزهایی که از دلش فهمیدم و احساساتی که در من بیدار کرد، برایم ارزشمند بودند.

[Kinga (oazaksiazek) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Motyl i czołg" to zbiór trzech krótkich opowiadań poruszających tematykę wojny domowej w Hiszpanii. Ukazują one postawę cywilów, żołnierzy i poniekąd dziennikarzy biorących udział w wojennej rzeczywistości. Widać, że Ernest Hemingway miał z nią bliski kontakt i potrafi opisać ją w sposób niezwykle trafny. Punktem wspólnym wszystkich opowiadań jest między innymi bar u "Chicote'a", w którym toczy się codzienne życie naszych bohaterów. Rano walczą oni o swoją ojczyznę a wieczorem popijają gin z tonikiem w lokalu i dyskutują o życiu.

Hemingway ma tak ciekawy sposób pisania, że z kart tej niewielkiej książki aż bije realność wydarzeń w niej opisanych. Widać, jak bardzo bezsensowna jest wojna, jak wielu ludzi za sobą pociąga. Autor pokazuje, że niszczy ona marzenia, zmienia priorytety i ustala nowe granice.

[Salma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate Hemingway. I have always hated him everything I learn about him makes me not like him. However, this book actually did not enforce my hateful tendencies instead they made me realize he's a loser of a man. (: I like the fitfh column only because it moved fast. At least he's good at short stories.