In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from “the good fight,” For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, … courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan’s love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo’s last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. “If the function of a writer is to reveal reality,” Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, “no one ever so completely performed it.” Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author’s previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.
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Widely considered the greatest war novel in the English language for good reason.
Hemingway’s epic about the Spanish Civil War centers on Robert Jordan, a Spanish professor from Montana fighting for the Republican side of the war in Spain who finds himself tasked with blowing up a bridge behind enemy lines with a team of guerrillas. In a civil war, there is no choice of whether or not to fight, only a choice of sides: if the war comes to your town, you’re caught up in it whether you like it or not, and will have to pick a side one way or the other. That’s what makes Jordan unusual: he hasn’t been forced into this fight like the guerrillas, nor is he politically inclined like the Communists. He’s chosen to fight when he did not have to.
This is in stark contrast to the types of stories we see overplayed in modern novels and films, which frequently focus on characters put in situations where violence is required of them: women who are attacked by killers and must murder their attackers to stay alive, parents whose children have been abducted who must kill to get them back, heroes besieged by terrorists who, although they swore they wouldn’t go back to that life, take up arms again to protect everything they believe in. When there’s a character who’s against violence, there’s usually another person telling them how naive they are, and by the end of the book/movie we see the nonviolent character pull the trigger because sometimes… you just have to. Put up against these repetitive narratives, For Whom The Bell Tolls is refreshing in how it focuses on a character who has chosen his path and does not have the luxury of necessity to defend his actions.
In this way, the book does have something to tell us if we’re able to avoid viewing it through the narrow lenses we habitually trot out to dismiss art of the past. It’s true that the logline of “Super-skilled American drinks a lot and knows way more about war than all the Spanish and tells them all what to do because he’s so smart and also the 19-year-old rape victim like totally falls in love with him and he has hot sex with her bro” is enough to make anyone’s eyes roll, but once you get past all the Hemingway cliches, there is an intricate narrative that takes a difficult look at how we live with our choices, the things we tell ourselves to avoid acknowledging our insignificance, and how the line between victory and failure is as thin as the line between ally and enemy. It’s a classic for a reason.
The audiobook is read by Campbell Scott, and if you know who that is, then you know he’s the perfect choice.
I’ve been reading one Hemingway after another. This one is a must! Classic Hemingway. I’m not a big war novel reader so trust me when I say this story transcends that genre.
Hemingway wastes no words. The stories are always personal, intimate, yet void of TMI. His stories carry you all the way through.
Some people dislike Hemingway’s bare-boned prose, but in this novel it works beautifully. In the opening paragraphs you can almost feel the heat and smell the grass, and all done with such an economy of style it’s pure genius. I absolutely love it and treasure the first edition I possess.
Aside from the impeccable objective style which at the same time portrays emotion and drama seamlessly, this novel’s strength is in the romantic tragedy inherent in political tragedy (the Spanish Civil War).
Hemingway is IMHO the greatest American writer and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is a classic for a reason.
Set in the Spanish Civil War it is a personal picture of war and what drives it. They everyday people and forced by circumstance to chose between 2 very imperfect choices. A study in why going too extreme in politics is dangerous for everyone.
Another of my favorites. Hemingway believed writing should reflect real life, which means his stories rarely had a happily ever after, and I love that.
Great read.
Hemingway’s masterpiece