Pablo

Pablo is a main character in Ernest Hemmingway’s 1940 novel set against the Spanish Civil War, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (made into a film in 1943 with Akim Tamiroff playing Pablo). He is a leader of a guerilla band, a complex and puzzling character, who squares off against the American protagonist, Robert Jordan. Pablo is presented as a crass and slovenly figure who is determined to undermine the Republic’s efforts against Fascism, but continuing association with him brings one to a kind of empathetic understanding of him. Once a brave and fearless fighter for the Republic, he has been so disillusioned by the length and brutality of the ongoing war that he clings to his single-minded devotion to staying alive. In sharp contrast to the lofty heroism of Robert Jordan, who is willing to risk all for a country not even his, we find Pablo to be refreshingly real. His goal is to retire to the countryside with his horses and his “woman”, Pilar. Not at all an unreasonable aim, we think. In the end, he comes through for the Republic and manages to save his skin as well, while young Jordan loses his life for a lost cause.

Pablo Sanchez is a character in John Steinbeck’s 1935 novel, "Tortilla Flat", a modern day take on King Arthur and his Round Table, featuring a rollicking band of “paisanos” living communally in this Monterey County, California district after having served in World War I. They are all intent on the pure business of living – eating, drinking, laughing and loving. If this mode of living freely must involve idleness, thievery, trickery and drunkenness, well, so be it. Conventional they are not, and our Pablo fits right in, a happy, generous, humorous and fiercely loyal member of the band of “knights”, devoted to each other and living harmoniously in their environment. The novel was made into a movie of the same name in 1942, and guess who played Pablo – Akim Tamiroff! (Well, Google him.)