- home :
- browse :
- add a book review :
- search :
- contact
| purchase: $15.00 |
For Whom the Bell Tolls:
For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest, somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reason Jordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their local leader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him, Jordan has his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems, has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd of horses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as little attention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriously alarmed him."I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?"In one short chapter Hemingway lays out the blueprint for what is to come: Jordan's sense of duty versus Pablo's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Complicating matters even more are two members of the guerrilla leader's small band: his "woman" Pilar, and Maria, a young woman whom Pablo rescued from a Republican prison train. Unlike her man, Pilar is still fiercely devoted to the cause and as Pablo's loyalty wanes, she becomes the moral center of the group. Soon Jordan finds himself caught between the two, even as his own resolve is tested by his growing feelings for Maria. >For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving El Sordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but the quieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfill his mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to his creator's psychological acuity. By turns brutal and compassionate, it is arguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the 20th century. --Alix Wilber
Price: $15.00
Published by Scribner on 1995-07-01.
Average rating (252 reviews):
|
 Rating: 9.0 |
Recent reviews:
Reviewed by anonymous on 2007-12-26: In case you stumble upon this review amidst all of the other droning articles, I'll try to keep mine short.
This was my first Hemingway, I finished it just recently, and man is he overrated. There are moments of greatness (read more ...)
Rating: 4.0
Reviewed by anonymous on 2007-11-20: Hemingway has a way of getting into our heads. The characters are plain spoken; almost Shakespearean at times; with powerful, philosophical paragraphs sprayed in. His interest in bullfighting is obvious if you have read any of his work; and is not (read more ...)
Rating: 8.0
Reviewed by anonymous on 2007-11-18: Ernest Hemingway wrote another great adventure story with FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. His style is very vivid, and reading the book is like being on the scene of the Spanish Civil War itself. Prior to reading FOR WHOM THE BELL (read more ...)
Rating: 10.0
Reviewed by anonymous on 2007-11-06: Hemingway's "For Whom the Bells Toll" an entertaining read but more importantly a very moving read. It does not say that war is terrible it says what's terrible about war. Everything in the book has a meaning; the imagery beautifully shows (read more ...)
Rating: 8.0
Reviewed by anonymous on 2007-09-25: I first read this about 40 years ago. I just re-purchased it. This is a classic novel.
Rating: 10.0
