For whom the bell tolls

471 pages

English language

Published Aug. 6, 1987 by Collier Books.

ISBN:
978-0-02-051850-1
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4 stars (47 reviews)

High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco's rebels.

67 editions

A masterpiece

5 stars

As a Hemingway die-hard fun, I must say this is for me one his most successful works, alongside Fiesta and a Farewell to Arms. The author perfectly conveys the trauma, the spiritual mangling, the contradictions, the inebitable loss which a civil war, but also describes the lives of those who volunteered to sacrifice their life for the sake of an idea. The driving rhythm of his concise prose makes this book an engaging reading

Review of 'For whom the bell tolls' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

People who watch romantic movies respond better to ads that call on being alone, people who watch violent movies respond better to ads that call on being together, in this novel the romance and violence are wrapped together in three days high in the mountains isolated by the Spanish Civil War. So there's always a tension between the comraderie of the band of guerrilla fighters and Romeo and Juliet.
The romance piece isn't much more developed or modern than Shakespeare despite almost a good 350 years later. Juliette, being Spanish is Maria, is as submissive as male chauvinist's dream.
The violence piece is better, Hemingway gets the realities of war, but still errs on the side of glorifying it, with Romeo's last stand, where A Farewell to Arms didn't.
A Farewell to Arms like the Old Man and the Sea has a timeless truth. For Whom the Bell Tolls is …

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Subjects

  • Americans -- Spain -- Fiction
  • Spain -- History -- Civil War, 1936-1939 -- Fiction