ABSTRACT
I have said little about the brief strictly political part of the book. Jordan is mainly struck by the religious fervour of the Communist rank and file and bewildered, though suspending judgment, by the Realism' he found among the leaders. The thing was, he thought, to win the war. Afterwards he would see. The political portraits are short but they are packed with life, sceptical observation and shrewdness. His Marty is savage. His anarchists are very funny, his Russians very complicated. There is no doubt that, if you cut out Jordan's romance, the Spanish war has restored to Hemingway his seriousness as a writer.
