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Loading... For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)by Ernest Hemingway
No current Talk conversations about this book.  JaapNoordzij | Nov 13, 2013 |  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. (  ) delta61 | Nov 4, 2013 | Une histoire fantastique de la résistance espagnole sous Franco. L'organisation d'un sabotage est en fait une formidable occasion de se faire rencontrer des personnages avec des parcours de vie incroyables. (  ) Lhiscock | Oct 27, 2013 | 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." (  ) Schmerguls | Oct 20, 2013 | 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 (  ) PiyushC | Sep 22, 2013 |
 ". . . a tremendous piece of work. . . . Mr. Hemingway has always been the writer, but he has never been the master that he is in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' . . . his finest novel." The greatness of this book is the greatness of these people's triumph over their foreknowledge of death-to-come... For Whom the Bell Tolls, unlike other novels of the Spanish Civil War, is told not in terms of the heroics and dubious politics of the International Brigades, but as a simple human struggle of the Spanish people. The bell in this book tolls for all mankind. Is contained inErnest Hemingway: Four Novels by Ernest Hemingway The Novels Of Ernest Hemingway . by Ernest Hemingway Five Novels: The Sun Also Rises / A Farewell to Arms / To Have and Have Not / The Old Man and the Sea / For Whom the Bell Tolls (FOLIO SOCIETY) by Ernest Hemingway "For Whom the Bell Tolls" ; "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" ; "Fiesta" ; "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" ; "Across the River and into the Trees" ; "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway Book-of-the-Month-Club Set of 5: A Farewell to Arms, A Moveable Feast, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, & The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (The Finca Vigia Edition) (Book-of-the-Month Club) by Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms/ For Whom Bell Tolls/ The Sun Also Rises (Three Book Set) by Ernest Hemingway Set of 4 hardcover Ernest Hemingway Book-of-the-month classics: "A Moveable Feast," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "A Farewell to Arms," and "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway Four Novels The Sun Also Rises; A Farewell to Arms; For Whom the Bell Tolls; The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway Boxed Set: Comprising Farewell to Arms; for Whom the Bell Tolls; Sun Also Rises; Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway 5 Volume Set : Comprising 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', 'A Farewell to Arms', 'To Have and Have Not', 'The Old Man and the Sea', 'The Sun Also Rises' by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 6 Volume Set, "A Moveable Feast", "The Old Man and the Sea", "A Farewell to Arms", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Complete Short Stories (Finca Vigia Edition)","the Sun Also Rises" (Ernest Hemingway's 6 most famous works) by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway - Four Novels - Complete and Unabridged: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 6 Vols: A Moveable Feast / The Old Man and the Sea / A Farewell to Arms / For Whom the Bell Tolls / The Complete Short Stories / The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Hemmingway - The Sun Also Rises, a Farewell to Arms, to Have and Have Not, for Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 6 Volume Set, "A Moveable Feast", "The Old Man and the Sea", "A Farewell to Arms", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Complete Short Stories (Finca Vigia Edition)","the Sun Also Rises" (Ernest Hemingway's 6 most famous works) by Ernest Hemingway ContainsHas the adaptationHas as a student's study guide
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0684803356, Paperback)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 (retrieved from Amazon Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:20:12 -0400) 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, 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 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.… (more) |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Hemingway's verhaal is vrij simpel en speelt zich af in ruim drie dagen. Een jonge Amerikaan, _Robert Jordan_, krijgt de opdracht om achter de vijandelijke linies een brug op te blazen. Hij neemt contact op met een lokale guerrilla groep onder leiding van "Pablo". De groep heeft zich ontfermd over een 19-jarig meisje, Maria. Bij een overval op haar dorp zijn haar ouders doodgeschoten en is zij verkracht door Falangisten. Robert Jordan wordt verliefd op Maria en dat plaatst zijn moeilijke opdracht in een ander licht. De groep van Pablo kan het niet alléén af en zoekt hulp bij de bevriende groep van El Sordo. Pablo ziet de noodzaak van de actie niet in en probeert het werk van Robert Jordan te saboteren omdat hij zijn groep niet onnodig in gevaar wil brengen. Ondanks het verraad van Pablo en de vernietiging van de groep van El Sordo door een bombardement slaagt Robert Jordan in zijn opzet en blaast hij de brug op. Bij de terugtocht wordt zijn paard geraakt en breekt hij zijn been als hij onder het paard terechtkomt. Hij neemt afscheid van Maria en op zijn verzoek laat de groep hem achter.
_For Whom the Bell Tolls_ is één van de mooiste boeken van Ernest Hemingway. Hij kreeg er bíjna de Pulitzer Price voor in 1941. Het boek is gebaseerd op de persoonlijk ervaringen van Hemingway gedurende zijn verblijf in Spanje tijdens de burgeroorlog.
Hoewel het plot niet spectaculair is weet Hemingway er een geweldig spannend verhaal van te maken. Hij doet dat door knap met emoties te spelen. De "harde" Robert Jordan contrasteert hij prachtig met de "softe" Pablo. Totdat blijkt Robert Jordan verliefd raakt op Maria en hij zijn eigen keiharde houding in een ander licht gaat zien. Hij merkt dat Pablo tot voor kort gewerkt heeft als een keiharde guerrillastrijder die zonder wroeging honderden onschuldige burgers (veronderstelde fascisten) liet vermoorden. Door de liefde van Pablo voor Pilar, ook lid van de verzetsgroep is hij zich anders gaan gedragen en wil geen onnodige risico's meer lopen. De strijd die beide hoofdpersonen met elkaar en met hun geweten voeren maakt het verhaal indringend en uitzonderlijk.
Taal speelt een grote rol. _Robert Jordan_ was in de VS leraar Spaans en hij kent de Spaanse taal goed. Maar het dialect in de streek is voor hem vreemd. Hemingway geeft dat prachtig weer door een archaïsch taalgebruik ("Thou shalt"). Verder vertaalt hij veel Spaanse uitdrukkingen letterlijk in het Engels waardoor het Engels in meerdere opzichten niet meer klopt en ook dat draagt bij aan het vervreemdende effect van de taalbarrière. Enige kennis van het Spaans helpt om sommige passages goed te kunnen begrijpen. Het is een burgeroorlog waarin Spanjaarden vechten tegen Spanjaarden maar ze worden geholpen door heel veel andere nationaliteiten. Hemingway mengt daarom Franse, Duitse, Russische, Italiaanse en soms zelfs Nederlandse uitdrukkingen door zijn verhaal.
Hemingway benadrukt de verschrikkingen en gruwelijkheden van de burgeroorlog waar Spanjaarden tegen hun volksgenoten vochten. Hij weet fraai weer te geven dat "fascisten" niet altijd de slechten zijn en de republikeinen ook niet altijd de goeden. Verschillende scènes zijn huiveringwekkend realistisch beschreven, zoals die in het dorpje waar Pablo alle fascisten laat uitmoorden en ze door een meute in een afgrond laat werpen (werkelijk gebeurd) maar andere scènes laten je weer voluit lachen bijvoorbeeld die waarin een afgezant van de verzetsstrijders wordt aangehouden door republikeinse soldaten. De kneuterigheid van die situatie is komisch.
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