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For Whom the Bell Tolls (Paperback)
by Ernest Hemingway
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Full of poetic beauty and insightful symbolism, this novel appeals with two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. |
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Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition
Pub. in: July, 1995
ISBN: 0684803356
Pages: 480
Measurements: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.0 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00454
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Set during the Spanish Civil War, Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American who is serving as a demolitions expert for the Republican cause. The novel follows his experiences with a band of guerrilla fighters as he undertakes a mission to blow up a strategic bridge. The whole novel, except for some flashbacks and reminiscences of various characters, covers just a few days.
Although the novel focuses on a small number of characters in a fairly compressed time period, Hemingway attains a real epic feel with this book. The novel is fairly lengthy (471 pages in the 2003 Scribner edition), but I found it to be a swift read - indeed, often difficult to put down. There is much that is noteworthy about this novel. It offers a compelling perspective on war from the viewpoint of guerrilla forces, rather than conventional forces (interested readers might want to check out Mao Tse-Tung's On Guerrilla Warfare for some theoretical and historical perspective). The novel also deals with the phenomenon of ideologically committed foreign forces in Spain's Fascist-versus-Republican conflict.
Hemingway deals with the issues of love and sex in a combat zone, as well as with the roles of women in a guerrilla force. Other significant issues include loyalty, leadership, communications, military hardware, the impact of weather and terrain, and the connection between guerrilla and conventional forces. Particularly interesting is Hemingway's portrait of Robert Jordan as a technically and tactically skilled guerrilla fighter, and as a leader of guerrilla fighters. Thus the book should interest not just lovers of literature, but also serious military professionals and students of the history of warfare.
Hemingway offers a grim and graphic look at the brutality of 20th century warfare. War is not glamorized or sanitized, and atrocities are described in unflinching detail. The characters explore the ethics of killing in war. As the story progresses, Hemingway skillfully peels back the layers of Jordan and other characters to reveal their psychological wounds. But the book is not all about pain and violence. In the midst of war Hemingway finds the joy and beauty that keep his characters going. He also incorporates storytelling as a powerful motif in the book; his characters share stories with each other, recall missing untold stories, or resist a story too hard to bear. In Hemingway's world storytelling is as essential a human activity as eating, fighting, and lovemaking.
Hemingway's writing appeals to all the senses as he creates some vivid scenes. He demonstrates his mastery of the art of fiction; he continually makes interesting choices and creates some really striking and beautiful passages. For Whom the Bell Tolls is an exceptionally haunting work of literature; I consider this rich and rewarding text to be an essential volume in the canon of war fiction.
(By quoting Michael Mazza, USA)
Target readers:
General readers
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Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the expatriate writers of Paris along with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gettrude Stein, and others. He fought in the Spanish Civil War and wrote A Farewell to Arms and other stories on war and its unseen costs, including For Whom the Bell Tolls. Other titles by Hemingway include A Moveable Feast and The Sun Also Rises.
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From the Publisher
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.
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Chapter One
He lay 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 mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight.
"Is that the mill?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I do not remember it."
"It was built since you were here. The old mill is farther down; much below the pass."
He spread the photostated military map out on the forest floor and looked at it carefully. The old man looked over his shoulder. He was a short and solid old man in a black peasant's smock and gray iron-stiff trousers and he wore rope-soled shoes. He was breathing heavily from the climb and his hand rested on one of the two heavy packs they had been carrying.
"Then you cannot see the bridge from here."
"No," the old man said. "This is the easy country of the pass where the stream flows gently. Below, where the road turns out of sight in the trees, it drops suddenly and there is a steep gorge - "
"I remember."
"Across this gorge is the bridge."
"And where are their posts?"
"There is a post at the mill that you see there."
The young man, who was studying the country, took his glasses from the pocket of his faded, khaki flannel shirt, wiped the lenses with a handkerchief, screwed the eyepieces around until the boards of the mill showed suddenly clearly and he saw the wooden bench beside the door; the huge pile of sawdust that rose behind the open shed where the circular saw was, and a stretch of the flume that brought the logs down from the mountainside on the other bank of the stream. The stream showed clear and smooth-looking in the glasses and, below the curl of the falling water, the spray from the dam was blowing in the wind.
"There is no sentry."
"There is smoke coming from the millhouse," the old man said. "There are also clothes hanging on a line."
"I see them but I do not see any sentry."
"Perhaps he is in the shade," the old man explained. "It is hot there now. He would be in the shadow at the end we do not see."
"Probably. Where is the next post?"
"Below the bridge. It is at the roadmender's hut at kilometer five from the top of the pass."
"How many men are here?" He pointed at the mill.
"Perhaps four and a corporal."
"And below?"
"More. I will find out."
"And at the bridge?"
"Always two. One at each end."
"We will need a certain number of men," he said. "How many men can you get?"
"I can bring as many men as you wish," the old man said. "There are many men now here in the hills."
"How many?"
"There are more than a hundred. But they are in small bands. How many men will you need?"
"I will let you know when we have studied the bridge."
"Do you wish to study it now?"
"No. Now I wish to go to where we will hide this explosive until it is time. I would like to have it hidden in utmost security at a distance no greater than half an hour from the bridge, if that is possible."
"That is simple," the old man said. "From where we are going, it will all be downhill to the bridge. But now we must climb a little in seriousness to get there. Are you hungry?"
"Yes," the young man said. "But we will eat later. How are you called? I have forgotten." It was a bad sign to him that he had forgotten.
"Anselmo," the old man said. "I am called Anselmo and I come from Barco de Avila. Let me help you with that pack."
The young man, who was tall and thin, with sun-streaked fair hair, and a wind- and sun-burned face, who wore the sun-faded flannel shirt, a pair of peasant's trousers and rope-soled shoes, leaned over, put his arm through one of the leather pack straps and swung the heavy pack up onto his shoulders. He worked his arm through the other strap and settled the weight of the pack against his back. His shirt was still wet from where the pack had rested.
"I have it up now," he said. "How do we go?"
"We climb," Anselmo said.
Bending under the weight of the packs, sweating, they climbed steadily in the pine forest that covered the mountainside. There was no trail that the young man could see, but they were working up and around the face of the mountain and now they crossed a small stream and the old man went steadily on ahead up the edge of the rocky stream bed. The climbing now was steeper and more difficult, until finally the stream seemed to drop down over the edge of a smooth granite ledge that rose above them and the old man waited at the foot of the ledge for the young man to come up to him.
"How are you making it?"
"All right," the young man said. He was sweating heavily and his thigh muscles were twitchy from the steepness of the climb.
"Wait here now for me. I go ahead to warn them. You do not want to be shot at carrying that stuff."
"Not even in a joke," the young man said. "Is it far?"
"It is very close. How do they call thee?"
"Roberto," the young man answered. He had slipped the pack off and lowered it gently down between two boulders by the stream bed.
"Wait here, then, Roberto, and I will return for you."
"Good," the young man said. "But do you plan to go down this way to the bridge?"
"No. When we go to the bridge it will be by another way. Shorter and easier."
"I do not want this material to be stored too far from the bridge."
"You will see. If you are not satisfied, we will take another place."
"We will see," the young man said.
He sat by the packs and watched the old man climb the ledge. It was not hard to climb and from the way he found hand-holds without searching for them the young man could see that he had climbed it many times before. Yet whoever was above had been very careful not to leave any trail.
The young man, whose name was Robert Jordan, was extremely hungry and he was worried. He was often hungry but he was not usually worried because he did not give any importance to what happened to himself and he knew from experience how simple it was to move behind the enemy lines in all this country. It was as simple to move behind them as it was to cross through them, if you had a good guide. It was only giving importance to what happened to you if you were caught that made it difficult; that and deciding whom to trust. You had to trust the people you worked with completely or not at all, and you had to make decisions about the trusting. He was not worried about any of that. But there were other things.
This Anselmo had been a good guide and he could travel wonderfully in the mountains. Robert Jordan could walk well enough himself and he knew from following him since before daylight that the old man could walk him to death. Robert Jordan trusted the man, Anselmo, so far, in everything except judgment. He had not yet had an opportunity to test his judgment, and, anyway, the judgment was his own responsibility. No, he did not worry about Anselmo and the problem of the bridge was no more difficult than many other problems. He knew how to blow any sort of bridge that you could name and he had blown them of all sizes and constructions. There was enough explosive and all equipment in the two packs to blow this bridge properly even if it were twice as big as Anselmo reported it, as he remembered it when he had walked over it on his way to La Granja on a walking trip in 1933, and as Golz had read him the description of it night before last in that upstairs room in the house outside of the Escorial.
"To blow the bridge is nothing," Golz had said, the lamplight on his scarred, shaved head, pointing with a pencil on the big map. "You understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Absolutely nothing. Merely to blow the bridge is a failure."
"Yes, Comrade General."
"To blow the bridge at a stated hour based on the time set for the attack is how it should be done. You see that naturally. That is your right and how it should be done."
Golz looked at the pencil, then tapped his teeth with it.
Robert Jordan had said nothing.
"You understand that is your right and how it should be done," Golz went on, looking at him and nodding his head. He tapped on the map now with the pencil. "That is how I should do it. That is what we cannot have."
"Why, Comrade General?"
"Why?" Golz said, angrily. "How many attacks have you seen and you ask me why? What is to guarantee that my orders are not changed? What is to guarantee that the attack is not annulled? What is to guarantee that the attack is not postponed? What is to guarantee that it starts within six hours of when it should start? Has any attack ever been as it should?"
"It will start on time if it is your attack," Robert Jordan said.
"They are never my attacks," Golz said. "I make them. But they are not mine. The artillery is not mine. I must put in for it. I have never been given what I ask for even when they have it to give. That is the least of it. There are other things. You know how those people are. It is not necessary to go into all of it. Always there is something. Always some one will interfere. So now be sure you understand."
"So when is the bridge to be blown?" Robert Jordan had asked.
"After the attack starts. As soon as the attack has started and not before. So that no reinforcements will come up over that road." He pointed with his pencil. "I must know that nothing will come up over that road."
"And when is the attack?"
"I will tell you. But you are to use the date and hour only as an indication of a probability. You must be ready for that time. You will blow the bridge after the attack has started. You see?" he indicated with the pencil. "That is the only road on which they can bring up reinforcements. That is the only road on which they can get up tanks, or artillery, or even move a truck toward the pass which I attack. I must know that bridge is gone. Not before, so it can be repaired if the attack is postponed. No. It must go when the attack starts and I must know it is gone…
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Donald Adams (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
This is the best book Ernest Hemingway has written, the fullest, the deepest, the truest. It will, I think, be one of the major novels in American literature. |
An America reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
For Whom the Bell Tolls was the first Hemingway I ever read. I was a high school kid in the early 2000's, working on my campus newspaper, newly graduated from Jack London but not yet ready for Jack Kerouac.
To my young eyes, it was a good action story: Robert Jordan, the passionate American teacher joins a band of armed gypsies in the Spanish Civil War. He believes one man can make a difference. The whole novel covers just 68 hours, during which Jordan must find a way to blow up a key bridge behind enemy lines. In that short time, Jordan also falls in love with Maria, a beautiful Spanish woman who has been raped by enemy soldiers. The whole spectrum of literature was refracted through the prism of my youth: Good guys and bad guys, sex and blood, life and death. For me, just a boy, the journey from abstraction to clarity was only just beginning.
Re-reading For Whom the Bell Tolls at 18 (roughly the age Hemingway was when he published it), I have lost my ability to see things clearly in black and white. My vision is blurred by irony, as I note that two enemies, the moral killer Anselmo and the sympathetic fascist Lieutenant Berrendo, utter the very same prayer. For the first time, I see that the book opens with Robert Jordan lying on the "pine-needled floor of the forest" and closes as he feels his heart pounding against the "pine needle floor of the forest"; Jordan ends as he begins, perhaps having never really moved. I certainly could never have seen at 16 how dying well might be more consequential than living well. And somehow the light has changed in the past 1 year, so that I now truly understand how the earth can move. |
Dominique (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
"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." This is very typical Ernest Hemmingway diction in his book, For Whom the Bell Tolls. He always manages to use very descriptive imagery in his writing. In this book, Hemmingway tells a story of group conflict and romance.
In this novel, Hemmingway tells the story of a man named Robert Jordan and his life as a guerilla soldier in the mountains of Spain in the year of 1937. In his journeys, Robert Jordan is allied with another soldier, Pablo, his lady, Pilar, and a girl named Maria. Robert Jordan is sent to these mountains on a mission to blow up a bridge. In his time with his these people, Jordan deals with conflict within the group and his growing interest with Maria.
Ernest Hemmingway is very effective in telling the struggles of Robert Jordan when he is trying to blow up the bridge, and the romance he has with Maria. Hemmingway's descriptions of the bridge and the mountains of Spain creates a crystal clear image of the setting Robert Jordan is in. "The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass."
Hemmingway's character description in this novel is terrific. Each character is described with vivid details of their personality and physical characteristics. When talking about Robert Jordan, Hemmingway says, "The young man, who was tall and thin, with sun-streaked fair hair, and a wind- and sun-burned face, who wore the sun-faded flannel shirt, a pair of peasant's trousers and rope-soled shoes.." Hemmingway provides each character with their own individual description and background in this book.
The plot of this novel is one of courage, loyalty, and romance. Hemmingway tells about an American man in an International Brigade who shows bravery in his mission to blow up a bridge. Hemmingway also describes his loyalty to his comrades in his time in the mountains. Most of all, Hemmingway tells of Jordan's growing love of the girl Maria. "Her teeth were white in her brown face and her skin and her eyes were the same golden tawny brown. She had high cheekbones, merry eyes, and a straight mouth with full lips. Her hair was the golden brown of a grain field.."
Ernest Hemmingway uses wonderful diction throughout the entire novel. Hemmingway uses Spanish words and phrases often in this book such as, "Hola", "Salud", and "Dentro de la gravedad". All of these examples give more detail to the characters, and the Spanish culture as well.
Hemmingway also uses imagery very well in this novel, always trying to give you the best mental picture possible of the situation. "..and the four knelt, looking very awkward with their heads against the wall and their hands by their sides, and Pablo passed behind them and shot each in turn in the back of the head with the pistol, going from one to another and putting the barrel of the pistol against the back of their heads, each man slipping down as he fired."
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a fairly easy-reading book and tells a very good story. This is a perfect example of Ernest Hemmingway at his best. He delivers a great account of one man's adventures in the civil war of Spain, while tying in romance and the brutality of war along with it. |
Brent Wiqen (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Hemingway's story of Robert Jordan, an American college instructor
fighting for the Spanish republic, is a beautiful story of desperate love and the death of an ideal.
Robert Jordan has been assigned the task of blowing up a bridge behind Fascist lines in support of a Republican offensive. He is sent to a guerrilla camp in the mountains behind the lines, where he meets those who are to help him with this task. He also meets and falls in love with Maria, a young Spanish woman who was brutalized by the fascists, and rescued by the band in a previous raid.
Hemingway details the nature of the war in the way that only he can, using his stark prose to depict the decay of the idealism that characterized the beginning of the Spanish Republic. This is particularly evident in the character named Pablo, a once-fervent fighter for the Republic who has lost hope in the cause and just wants to be left alone in the hills. Each character has his own idea of the Republic and why they are fighting, which is as truthful a depiction of the Republican cause as could be hoped for.
There were three parts of this book which really stood out for me. The first was Pilar's account of the execution of the fascists in her village. Pablo's ruthlessness, along with the growing terror of the people who go from reluctant participants to bloodthirsty mob, is terrifying in its escalation and horrible finish. Second is the final stand of El Sordo, who accepts his fate, but draws a little pleasure and satisfaction in his efforts. Third is the final battle in Chapter forty-three. Hemingway doesn't overdramatize things, he realizes that things are dramatic enough, and the straight-forward presentation of the battle as things go well and then get worse carries much more impact as a result. The stark, straight- forward writing makes these events come to life as tragic circumstances not only for the dead, but for those who survive as well.
I would suggest that any reader do a little research into the Spanish Civil War before reading this book, as a little knowledge of the circumstances and people of the war (like Marty and La Pasionaria) will enrich the story immensely.
This book is very compelling reading, as Robert Jordan struggles with love and duty, while both fearing and accepting his dangerous assignment. In the abstract, this book is about the death of the ideal in Spain, the corruption and dissent which led to the demise of the Republic. Hemingway conveys these ideas in a way that only Hemingway can, weaving a fabric of sadness and beauty amid hopeless circumstances. |
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