I’m almost done with For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. I’ve quite enjoyed reading it and was surprised by the complaints of some people online regarding Hemingway’s writing style. The book indeed reads like it was literally translated from Spanish, but it was a creative choice given that the plot is set in the Spanish civil war. Hemingway navigated censorship of profanity in a humorous way by replacing slurs like “fuck” and “shit” with “muck,” “obscenity” and “unprintable.” Also, the protagonist’s inner dialogues are insightful.