For Whom The Bell Tolls

By Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls is Ernest Hemingway’s brilliant war novel, telling the story of Robert Jordan, a young American fighting with an antifascist guerilla unit in Spain. Jordan wages war, forges friendships, and falls deeply in love with the beautiful Maria. First published in 1940, For Whom the Bell Tolls has been adapted for movies, television, and stage. It is widely viewed as Hemingway’s greatest literary triumph.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781443425209

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. His classic novel The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His life and accomplishments are explored in-depth in the PBS documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Hemingway. Known for his larger-than-life personality and his passions for bullfighting, fishing, and big-game hunting, he died in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961. 

Reviews for For Whom The Bell Tolls

[raphaelmatto · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The most satisfying eding of the Hemingway books I've read. & the characters in the forest are wonderful.

[stpnwlf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Possibly the best opening paragraph in modern literature. Brilliant story about the realities of partisan warfare in Spain.

[sadiebooks_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

another hemingway. another nap. i honestly have never finished this book. i get to the same spot every time and give up. i can't stand it.

[jusneuce · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Maddeningly slow and repetitive

[tess_schoolmarm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Since I had previously read The Sun Also Rises and thought it was a real snooze; I thought I would give Hemingway another try......zzzzzzzzzz. This novel is set in Spain during the Spanish Civil War It is about an American, Robert Jordan, who is working with a guerilla group. His one job is to blow up a bridge. 98% of the book is about his thinking about it and debating it with other guerillas. Absolutely no better than the last Hemingway.

[algybama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A book with very little action about a man of action who spends most of his time thinking. I think a contemporary writer would've written the book about half as long and cut the middle section entirely. This is a book that makes a bold and stubborn decision to be slow and dish out the good stuff sparingly. Yet it's very, very worthwhile and satisfying once the whole thing comes together at the end. Once all the dragging bits in the cave and the boring romance have fallen away, you're left with a story of wonderful symmetry, fantastic dialogue, and very memorable scenes.

[leandrod-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bit of a self-pity trip, no? But I should reread it.

[sparkleandchico · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Oh dear, I fear this review will be lambasted and that people will note that this is the second time I have dismissed a "classic" this week. In my defence, I did enjoy Orwell's Animal Farm.

I really wanted to like this and persevered to past the half way point. But when I got to the stage where I was dreading picking up the book as I was finding it so monotonous, I decided enough was enough--it was going back to the library from whence it came.

The lengthy novel tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.

By the half-way point, he still hadn't blown up the bridge but was instead engaging in seemingly never-ending debate about why it needed blowing up, how to do it, whether or not everyone in his group was in favour of the destruction .....the list could go on but I will spare you. I turned each page wondering if it would be the culmination of 250 pages of planning but sadly it was not to be. Or maybe that was a good thing because the soldiers guarding the bridge were spared for another day.

Imagine writing down every single action you take in a typical day from morning until evening whether relevant and interesting or not. Then gather a group of people and ask them to do the same. Then merge the pages and you have this book.

There is limited bad language although I found it amusing that for the stronger language they have simply inserted the word "obscenity" whether it made sense or not. There is some violence and some sexual content. The content wasn't offensive enough to put me off. I just thought this was extremely dull...

I now await the barrage of comments bemoaning my ignorance and explaining why I should have been excited about this book.....please feel free.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story of the Spanish Civil War takes place over three days. it tells of an American professor who has been fighting the Fascists for about a year when he is given the assignment of blowing up a bridge. To do this, he works with local people, and this is the story of this small group with tragedy in their pasts, fierce determination and love of their country, shifting loyalties, love, friendship...everything a good story needs. Mr. Hemingway is a great writer and I enjoyed this book.

[bpeters65 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was kind of a long haul for me. If I could give it another half a star, I would. I wanted to give it 4 stars, but I couldn't. It was just a little too slow for me. The characters were well developed and interesting, but Hemingway's prose and style I did not take to as I hoped I might. A little too terse and short in it's delivery. Definitely written in a world where men are brave heroes and women are there to love them.

[maggieflo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This story takes place over a period of four days near Segovia, Spain.The main character, Robert Jordan, is an American fighting for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil war. It is early spring and his role is to blow up a bridge as part of the battle against the fascists who have over turned the democratic election of the 2nd republic.Other characters include Pablo, his wife Pilar, Maria, Anselmo and several other fighters. All are sheltered in a a well stocked mountain cave while they await the orders to blow the bridge and fight. Roberto speaks fluent Spanish from teaching at a an American university so he is able to easily communicate with all. Pilar explains how Pablo was a war hero but became washed up. Roberto falls in love almost instantly with Maria, a very vulnerable young woman who has lost her parents and has been physically and likely sexually abused by the Fascists. This is the weakest part of the story.There is much discussion among the characters about the reasons for the war, the role of the Russians, communism and the need for reform. Robert has many interior monologues about his family, his grandfather and his views on democracy.I did not a want to like this book as I’m not a big Hemingway fan but I was impressed with the writing, the characters, the atmosphere evoked in the mountains and the cave. I like books that force you to do some research on the central theme, in this case the Spanish Civil War.The ending is very well described as Robert and fighters prepare to blow up the bridge and prepare to fight the military.

[tess_w · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Since I had previously read The Sun Also Rises and thought it was a real snooze; I thought I would give Hemingway another try......zzzzzzzzzz. This novel is set in Spain during the Spanish Civil War It is about an American, Robert Jordan, who is working with a guerilla group. His one job is to blow up a bridge. 98% of the book is about his thinking about it and debating it with other guerillas. Absolutely no better than the last Hemingway.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best novel of an overrated writer. Compelling. For once his minimalist writing is well used in creating an aura of imminent danger. Good book.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It isn't a great sign when the epigraph is the part of a novel that you found most affecting and memorable. For me this was the case with For Whom The Bell Tolls.

There were some interesting segments here, like the depiction of how a town was rid of fascists or the chapter where soldiers wait for the enemy mortars to arrive, but most of the book just wasn't interesting to me, nor did it feel authentic or personal. For a less removed depiction of the Spanish Civil War try reading A Moment of War by Laurie Lee.

[magicians_nephew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The problem with Ernest Hemingway I guess is that, well, he's Ernest Hemingway.He was the first author in modern days who consciously forced an image of himself out on the world - and that image was a big bluff self-contained "Man's Man" who could shoot and fish and drink and run with the bulls with the best of them.And and one who let us say had complicated relationships with women. So a book like For Whom The Bell Tolls it has to come with a lot of baggage. Easy to forget that Hemingway also hung around with Gertrude Stein and was in his own way constantly experimenting with prose style and narrative structure. You probably know the plot - from the movie anyway. Spanish Civil War. American in love with Spain joins up with a ragtag band of Rebels to blow up a bridge. Along the way he meets and falls in love with a damaged young girl, a child of the forest, and meets others who represent archetypes of different kinds of people in Spain. Farmers who just want a bit of land to farm. Generals who order their soldiers to kill and sometimes stop and wonder why. Foolish people and angry people and complex loving people too. Each one has his story and his moment.The futility of war. How quickly idealism changes into something else, but never quite quite dies. Can't say enough about the writing - it's tight and clear and at times deeply lyrical. The chapters about the massacre of the "Fascists" and the clear sharp description of El Sordo's last stand are amazing and almost journalistic. And yet . . . and yet. I think to see Hemingway as a "Journalist" is to miss something. He's after bigger game here, I think. (He even sneaks in a little tribute quote to Stein late in the book - just to see if you're paying attention.) A lot of people in my book group had trouble with it - or with him. But I cared deeply about the people and stood openmouthed in awe at the writing. Sometimes it's too formal and sometimes it doesn't work - but when it does work it's amazing. A big ambitious book with a lot of little lovely surprises. Recommended

[4bonasa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read the book in high school and all I remember now is the sleeping blanket!

[steve1966-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Spanish Civil War novelExcellent account of killing of fascists hiding in a ChurchLead character tasked with blowing up a bridge - book deals with disorder among the group of communists and hostility within republican parties - all within an intense relationship with a republican girl who had been abused by the fascists

[ffortsa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh boy. The printer almost did me in with this one. I got to page 442 and the next page was 412. Only the fact that Jim had the text on Kindle saved me from self-explosion. And it's a library book! Didn't anyone tell the librarian about the defect?!?!ok. got that said. Now, about the book.I was somewhat surprised by how many people in my f2f reading group actively disliked this book. They objected to Hemingway's portrayal of women (gee, the younger one is pretty naive, and the older one isn't. right). They objected to his attempt to represent the difference between 'usted' and 'tu' in Spanish by using 'you' and 'thou', etc. in English. And I admit that some of the attempts to make the text sound like a translation from the Spanish were worse than awkward,and the editor did the story no favor in insisting that the naturally obscene language be masked so clumsily.But what about the story? What about the naive volunteer trying his best to be a good soldier for a cause he thinks he believes in, in spite of what we know about the errors and excesses of that cause? The partisan band in the hills, trying to say alive so that they can go back to being farmers and vintners, each one delineated as a distinct person with frailties and honor in unique proportion? And the honesty of the brutality on both sides of this gruesome war, the ineptitude and cynicism of the commanders, the pain of both dying and killing, and the fatalism war can engender.The intense writing made me see everything as if through a close-up lens. Although the language can seem moderately straightforward (and no, it's not all simple declarative sentences by any means), I had to slow down to capture the vivid detail, even when I wanted to story to move faster because the tension mounts even though the inevitability of the outcome seems clearer every step of the way. Bad grammar, bad usage can pull me right out of a mediocre story, but nothing could pull me out of this one.

[delta61 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book reminded me of a soap opera. I could skip pages, wander back in and never miss a thing. Dialog sounded like conversations between a bunch of drunks.

[schmerguls · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this in the summer of 1949. On Aug 19 I said: "For Whom the Bell Tolls is not much good - holds my interest but moderately." On Aug 21 I said: "Reading in For Whom the Bell Tolls - I just think the style is not the kind that impresses me. In fact, I can scarcely find a style." SPOILER On Aug 24 I said: "Finished For Whom the Bell Tolls. 'Twas quite good towards the end. He breaks his leg and is left behind to be killed at the end. Hemingway's relation of his subject's thought is novel and realistic and good. All in all, 'twas quite a good book."

[amerynth · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have never been a fan of Hemingway and the pages of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" have a good collection of the reasons why I never find his work enjoyable.The story is set during the Spanish Civil War, which should result in an exciting tale. Instead, there are hundreds of pages of characters repeatedly having the same conversations, musing about their oncoming deaths. Add in Hemingway's bizarre choices (such as using thee and thou and writing "unprintable" for obscenities) this book just felt stilted.There probably is an interesting novella in there somewhere... the last 75 pages or so the plot actually moves forward. Overall, the book just seemed like a lost opportunity to me.

[steadfastreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't like Hemingway, but I found this book fairly enjoyable. Definitely better than 'The Sun Also Rises'. I find that the character of Robert Jordan spends a little too much time in his head -- it gets irritating the back and forth that he has with himself, his fantasies.

I found it interesting that Hemingway chose to situate the American, Jordan, with the communists. It had to be controversial in its time and I wonder how autobiographical it is.

I like the message. Live in today, it's all we have.

I think it's worth the read or in my case, the listen during the commute.

[deldevries · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ok - but certainly not at the top of my Hemingway list.

[maureencean · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Took me a little while to get ready to write this review, I didn't want to rush it. Per my routine, I won't restate the synopsis, I leave that to much better reviewers. First, it is probably the best audio production I have listened to, and even though I don't properly mark the editions on my bookshelves, easily 50% of my reading is done in my car on cd. I am definitely a Hemingway fan, but for some reason I am not interested in reading The Old Man and the Sea, though my husband did. The following are observations, not criticisms.

Not once will you question how the book will end. Anything that starts with a quotation of John Donne's poem by the same name is putting it out there from the start. It is tragic and romantic in the biggest sense. Sidebar: I wish now I had the print edition because looking up the poem, it seems somehow not the same. Different versions or just a crappy memory?

The pace is very slow. A significant amount of time is spent in the innner thoughts of Robert Jordan. I often felt as though the book was set further back in time than I knew it to be because of how the guerilla fighters lived in caves, and the patterns of their speech. The way they spoke and behaved was I can only culturally significant, and the prominence might bother some. I enjoyed the liberal use of Spanish language.

To me, war was presented on two levels, the impersonal mechanics of war, planning an attack, the necessary destruction of a bridge, etc., and then the so very personal, in the account of the slaughter shared by Pilar.

It was interesting to hear the accumulation of mistakes, or betrayals in some cases build up to ultimately ultimately drive the final outcome. All of the characters are flawed, and nothing is hidden. I admire actually the restraint that Hemingway showed in not making the end overly maudlin, it seemed more real that way. It would have been much more like a made-for-TV movie to draw it out an further.

That's it I think - would love to discuss further if anyone is interested :~).

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Documentair interessant over Spaanse burgeroorlog: vooral relativering van het republikeinse idealisme. Blootlegging Spaanse ziel: de dood centraal. Het liefdesthema is zeer goedkoop, de figuur van Maria komt helemaal niet geloofwaardig over. Enige indrukwekkende vrouw is Pilar, maar die heeft alles van een man. Robert Jordan staat er natuurlijk, als onthechte antiheld, ge?ngageerd en zich pijnlijk bewust van wat hij teweegbrengt in de partizanengemeenschap, maar desondanks toch zijn verantwoordelijkheid opnemend. Het boek komt langzaam op gang, opbouwend naar de grote finale; enkele onvolkomenheden onderweg. Zeker niet Hemingways beste boek. Al in het Nederlands gelezen toen ik 16 was; was er toen erg door gegrepen.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Documentair interessant over Spaanse burgeroorlog: vooral relativering van het republikeinse idealisme. Blootlegging Spaanse ziel: de dood centraal. Het liefdesthema is zeer goedkoop, de figuur van Maria komt helemaal niet geloofwaardig over. Enige indrukwekkende vrouw is Pilar, maar die heeft alles van een man. Robert Jordan staat er natuurlijk, als onthechte antiheld, geëngageerd en zich pijnlijk bewust van wat hij teweegbrengt in de partizanengemeenschap, maar desondanks toch zijn verantwoordelijkheid opnemend. Het boek komt langzaam op gang, opbouwend naar de grote finale; enkele onvolkomenheden onderweg. Zeker niet Hemingways beste boek. Al in het Nederlands gelezen toen ik 16 was; was er toen erg door gegrepen.

[csegura-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For Whom the Bell Tolls was the first novel I’ve read by Hemingway. Before that I’ve only read short-stories from him. I have to say that I didn’t like much the short-stories, they wore too much descriptive for me and this novel continues with that way of writing. So when I started to read this book I was expecting something in the same tone and waiting for the same sense of boredom that the short-stories gave me.

I was completely mistaken, although the book isn’t written in my favourite style, it is one hell of a book. The way Hemingway is able to place the reader in the Spanish mountains, the way he makes us understand the Spanish Civil War, by telling us the story of one attack, of one “guerilla” group, is simply amazing. I have to say, that I was expecting an even bigger disappointment because one of the worst books I’ve ever read was exactly about the Spanish Civil War and also written with the action taking place on the side fighting for the republic (Killing a Mouse on Sunday – Emeric Pressburger) but I was expecting the wrong thing.

Hemingway is able to tell us about the love of a group for a cause, a cause that units them and allows them to fight and die for it. He is able to tell us one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever read, between Robert Jordan, the main character and Maria, a lost soul of the war. He is able to tell us about Pablo that is weak in mind but strong in heart, he’s able to tell us about so many people, all of them different, all of them fighting for different reasons, but all united and willing to die for the idea of freedom... even if that idea takes different shapes inside everyone’s head.

They are all fighting to be free... as should we all.

In the overall this book was a very positive surprise and I’m looking forward to read more of Hemingway’s work.

[alanteder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Supposedly uncensored Estonian edition of "For Whom the Bell Tolls", but...You'll probably wonder why an English speaker would read Ernest Hemingway in an Estonian translation. Aside from the simple answer of "because I can", the main answer is that "For Whom the Bell Tolls” has always been a problematic and awkward read in the original for me.The reason for that is because Hemingway takes an affected stance as if he was writing in Spanish and the text was being simultaneously translated into English, which results in:a. Awkward passages of broken English e.g."Do you come for us to do another train?" - Chapter 2"Is the same to me. Better four good than much bad." - Chapter 11b. Seemingly anachronistic Elizabethan English full of thous, thees and thys in an attempt to approximate the familiar form of address in Spanish e.g. “... when thou wert wiping thy mother’s milk off thy chin.” - Chapter 11“But did thee feel the earth move?” - Chapter 13c. Hemingway’s self censorship with the use of the words “obscenity” & “unprintable” in place of rough language, resulting in passages such as“Care well for thy unprintable explosive.” - Chapter 3“I obscenity in the milk of thy tiredness.” - Chapter 9d. The paradoxical use of those same curse words in the original Spanish, but left untranslated.“But me cago en la leche, but I will be content when it starts.” - Chapter 39All of those problems disappear in this supposedly uncensored 2014 edition of Enn Soosaar’s Estonian translation which was first published in 1970. (Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy of that original so I have to guess that the censorship was in the areas of both curse words and politics.) The speaking is translated normally, the Estonian familiar form is not anachronistic, logical choices of relatively minor curse words are used instead of “rõvedus” (obscenity) and the Spanish is translated in footnotes (with one exception that I noticed).So the only catch is that they may have now printed all of Soosaar’s translation, but they don’t seem to have gone back to check whether he actually translated the entire thing in the first place. i.e. based on at least one example, I suspect Soosaar left untranslated some passages that he felt wouldn’t make it past the then Soviet censor in any case.In chapter 27 aka "Sordo’s Last Stand" there is a paragraph:"That they should aid us now," another man said. "That all the cruts* of Russian sucking swindlers should aid us now." He fired and said, “Me cago en tal, I missed.”In the Estonian translation this reads as:“Et nad aitaksid meid praegu,” ütles üks meestest. Ta tulistas ja ütles “Me cago en tal. Jälle lasksin mööda.”You can probably tell that the middle sentence which curses the Russians has been left out in the Estonian. It would have read something like "Et kõik need sittad Vene imejad petturid peaksid aitama meid nüüd.”Otherwise, this is a terrific translation which now made this work completely readable for me. It would be interesting to know how other international translators solve these sorts of issues.*Hemingwayspeak for “shits”

[sageness · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've read this before in excerpts but never the entire novel.

About this edition, this is an audiobook read in a matter-of-fact, almost Bogart-esque style, which fits the era perfectly. It's wry and heartbreaking and rubs like sand in an open wound. Perfect for a gruesome war story.

About the style.
Some people have issues with Hemingway's style. I like him except when he gets too excessively Gertrude Steinian, which he does in two sections of this book -- but it seems intended, to me, as they go along with the protagonist losing his self-control to a resurgence of carefully repressed feeling. The lack of contractions and the strange diction match what Spanish sounds like in translation, and the novel is taking place mostly en español, so it fits. If you live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, it's easier to tell. The rhythm of speech is the same. Not all of the Spanish is translated, incidentally. There's a lot of fabulously vulgar slang that slipped through the censors. *g*

Hemingway writes some gorgeous sentences, let me tell you.

What I missed from the excerpts I had read before was Hemingway's/the narrator's profound sense of disillusionment concerning the Spanish Civil War. It was a travesty and rightfully deserves to be called the *real* second world war, what with the Germans and Italians arming and aiding Franco and Britain, France, and the US standing by watching civilians be massacred and mutilated without lifting a hand. It's a horrible time in history. And no one teaches it now. It's fallen out of the world history curricula because it's too awful. Or because the US and its allies failed to step up. (And if FDR had, would the Nazi war have started early? I imagine someone's written a book on that.)

I've seen criticism of this novel as "sexist" somewhere, but I don't understand where they're coming from unless it's an anachronistic application of the word. To me it seemed the opposite of sexist. A woman is a guerrilla leader. A teenage girl is a survivor of multiple rape and regains her emotional health and sexual identity after her trauma through the nurturing of the female guerrilla leader. I see a celebration of female power in that. The division of labor is what it is (the teenage girl is hardly strong enough to handle a giant old fashioned machine gun), and everyone in the sorry little band of rebels is equally in the shit together.

Which is the main point of the book for me. There was no glory in the war against Franco. It was an obscenity, a crime against humanity, and the international community was as responsible for meddling in the lives of illiterate paisanos as the first wave of idealistic intelligentsia and Communist idealogues.

What a horrific, traumatizing, nation-crippling thing.


Note: this gets a glbt_interest tag because of "maricón" being one of the most serious insults one can call a man (at the time), and also because of the scene where the guerrilla asks the American why he has to get together with the girl instead of finding a buddy to take his pleasure with as the rest of the men do. "Why not go with one of us?" he says (paraphrasing), and it could be taken as a proposition, but Jordan answers that he's in love with the girl and plans to marry her, and totally sidesteps the matter. :)

[piyushc_34 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Read for a RL Book Club. My first feeling after reading this tome of a book, was that I was SCAMMED! Upon further examination, careful consideration and deeper deliberation, I came to the conclusion that my prima facie, snap judgement was indeed spot on! Scammed I definitely was, no two ways about it! Lured by reputation, snared by that horrible book-lust, I was made to read a 400+ page book, a book with little semblance of a plot, a static storyline and god-awful characters who first irritated, then agitated and later annoyed me to no end. And the character development, what to say about the character development, or the lack thereof, that even after wading through this book and making it to the end, we still have only and elementary and superficial understanding about the characters. Was the purpose to show the volatility of Spaniards? Perhaps...but it still doesn't excuse the blatant disregard to even making an attempt at understanding the thought process of any of the characters. I am at a loss to comprehend, how could this doorstopper of a thing be dubbed as a piece of Literature, a Type II error perhaps?The Old Man and the Sea, was probably in the not-good-not-bad category, and even that had a story, which moved, even if painstakingly! Such frivolities and excesses can, however, be overlooked in short stories. My feedback – Stay away from Hemingway! Read Alistair Maclean if you want to read War stories.1.5/5