for whom the bell tolls book reviews

• Read TIME’s Original Review of <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i>

Read TIME’s Original Review of For Whom the Bell Tolls

W hen Ernest Hemingway’s now-classic novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was released, exactly 75 years ago on Wednesday, the author’s fans had some cause to tamp down their expectations. Hemingway’s stock-in-trade–finely-detailed stories of drinking and sporting in foreign lands–struck some as ill-suited to a period of great suffering.

“There was a feeling abroad that Hemingway was a little too obsessed with sex, a little too obsessed with blood for the sake of blood, killing for the sake of killing. Even his admirers wondered where he was going to find another experience big enough to make him write another A Farewell to Arms, ” TIME noted in its review of For Whom the Bell Tolls . “If ever he did, they thought, he would produce another great book. They misunderstood Hemingway’s apparent obsession with killing, forgot that the dominant experience of this age is violent death.”

But, TIME’s critic declared, any doubts about his abilities had been misplaced:

In 1936 Hemingway found the great experience—The Spanish Civil War. This week he published the great novel— For Whom the Bell Tolls . He took the title from a passage by Preacher Poet John Donne: “No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, . . . any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” For Whom the Bell Tolls is 1) a great Hemingway love story; 2) a tense story of adventure in war; 3) a grave and sombre tragedy of Spanish peasants fighting for their lives. But above all it is about death. The plot is simple, about a bridge over a deep gorge behind Franco’s lines. Robert Jordan, a young American International Brigader, is ordered to blow up the bridge. He must get help from the guerrillas who live in Franco’s territory. The bridge must be destroyed at the precise moment when a big Loyalist offensive begins. If the bridge can be destroyed, the offensive may succeed. If the offensive succeeds, the struggle of the human race against fascism may be advanced a step. The courage of the Spanish peasants is linked to the fate of all mankind.

Read the full review, here in the TIME Vault: Death in Spain

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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

by Ernest Hemingway ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 21, 1940

This is good Hemingway. It has some of the tenderness of A Farewell to Arms and some of its amazing power to make one feel inside the picture of a nation at war, of the people experiencing war shorn of its glamor, of the emotions that the effects of war — rather than war itself — arouse. But in style and tempo and impact, there is greater resemblance to The Sun Also Rises . Implicit in the characters and the story is the whole tragic lesson of Spain's Civil War, proving ground for today's holocaust, and carrying in its small compass, the contradictions, the human frailties, the heroism and idealism and shortcomings. In retrospect the thread of the story itself is slight. Three days, during which time a young American, a professor who has taken his Sabbatical year from the University of Montana to play his part in the struggle for Loyalist Spain and democracy. He is sent to a guerilla camp of partisans within the Fascist lines to blow up a strategic bridge. His is a complex problem in humanity, a group of undisciplined, unorganized natives, emotionally geared to go their own way, while he has a job that demands unreasoning, unwavering obedience. He falls in love with a lovely refugee girl, escaping the terrors of a fascist imprisonment, and their romance is sharply etched against a gruesome background. It is a searing book; Hemingway has done more to dramatize the Spanish War than any amount of abstract declamation. Yet he has done it through revealing the pettinesses, the indignities, the jealousies, the cruelties on both sides, never glorifying simply presenting starkly the belief in the principles for which these people fought a hopeless war, to give the rest of the world an interval to prepare. There is something of the implacable logic of Verdun in the telling. It's not a book for the thin-skinned; it has more than its fill of obscenities and the style is clipped and almost too elliptical for clarity at times. But it is a book that repays one for bleak moments of unpleasantness.

Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1940

ISBN: 0684803356

Page Count: 484

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1940

LITERARY FICTION

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More by Ernest Hemingway

BOOK REVIEW

by Ernest Hemingway with Patrick Hemingway ; edited by Brendan Hemingway & Stephen Adams

by Ernest Hemingway ; edited by Seán Hemingway

by Ernest Hemingway edited by Rena Sanderson ; Sandra Spanier ; Robert W. Trogdon

HOUSE OF LEAVES

by Mark Z. Danielewski ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2000

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...

An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad.  The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized).  As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest ) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses).  Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture.  Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."

Pub Date: March 6, 2000

ISBN: 0-375-70376-4

Page Count: 704

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000

More by Mark Z. Danielewski

by Mark Z. Danielewski

OF MICE AND MEN

by John Steinbeck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 1936

Steinbeck is a genius and an original.

Steinbeck refuses to allow himself to be pigeonholed.

Pub Date: Feb. 26, 1936

ISBN: 0140177396

Page Count: 83

Publisher: Covici, Friede

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1936

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by John Steinbeck & edited by Thomas E. Barden

by John Steinbeck & edited by Robert DeMott

by John Steinbeck & edited by Susan Shillinglaw & Jackson J. Benson

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For whom the bell tolls, common sense media reviewers.

Profound novel offers brutal view of Spanish Civil War.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Through internal monologues, flashbacks to convers

In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway is not squea

Regardless of whether the reader, or the author, c

Battles rage in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the d

Two characters' lovemaking is explained up to a po

The words "whore" and "bitch" are used, as well as

One character is often drunk on wine, and a good d

Parents need to know that For Whom the Bell Tolls takes an unvarnished view of the Spanish Civil War. It's emotionally and politically complex, and creates a profoundly honest picture of war and the individual personalities involved; parents and teachers will want to bolster readers' understanding of fascism…

Educational Value

Through internal monologues, flashbacks to conversations, and changing points of view, Hemingway reveals the complex political and religious ideas behind the Spanish Civil War. Readers of For Whom the Bell Tolls learn about the different factions opposing Franco's fascist armies, weaponry used during the war, and some Spanish geography. Hemingway also directly compares the guerrillas' courage to the feelings of bullfighters in the ring, so that aspect of Spanish culture is described in detail, too.

Positive Messages

In For Whom the Bell Tolls , Hemingway is not squeamish about revealing the hypocrisy, violence, and flawed principles of the Spanish Civil War. The novel gives an intense portrayal of the bravery and pointlessness that coexist on both sides of the conflict. This is not an uplifting novel by any stretch, but it's a very meaningful one.

Positive Role Models

Regardless of whether the reader, or the author, considers Robert Jordan's mission pointless, Hemingway's anti-hero is a brave, capable, intelligent man who is acting on his belief in the anti-fascist cause. Jordan also has very well-formed internal strategies for mustering his courage when he needs it, and for controlling his temper. Oftentimes, he sees the danger of letting anger consume him, and he finds ways to subdue his own emotions. Also, he is very loving and gentle to Maria, despite the fact it could be argued that their "love" has a pretty thin foundation.

Violence & Scariness

Battles rage in For Whom the Bell Tolls , and the destruction is described at length. Men, including main characters, are shot and killed. People also talk about having the courage to shoot each other to avoid capture and torture. One female character is emotionally and physically damaged after having been gang raped.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters' lovemaking is explained up to a point. The feeling of a woman's body is described, and it is evident that they have sex, but the act itself is conveyed in lyrical/poetical terms ("the earth moved") rather than graphically. One character has been raped in the past, and her physical and emotional scars affect her relationship in the novel.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

The words "whore" and "bitch" are used, as well as some Spanish curse words. However, the author uses an affected device to address more taboo curse words, replacing them with words like "unprintable" and "obscenity."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One character is often drunk on wine, and a good deal of wine is consumed by all. A few men drink whiskey, and one drinks from a flask of absinthe. Alcohol is unapologetically used to help the guerillas cope with their stress and discomfort.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that For Whom the Bell Tolls takes an unvarnished view of the Spanish Civil War. It's emotionally and politically complex, and creates a profoundly honest picture of war and the individual personalities involved; parents and teachers will want to bolster readers' understanding of fascism and communism in Spain in the late 1930s. Though the lead character, Robert Jordan, finds some pleasure and humanity under extreme duress, he lives in a brutal world full of violence, death, and deprivation. Many consider For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway's greatest literary achievement, but it is not for the faint of heart. Also, one note on the text: Hemingway uses an unusual literary conceit in this novel: All of the conversation that takes place between Jordan and his Spanish comrades is written as a literal translation from Spanish, to inform the reader that these people would actually be speaking to each other in Spanish, so the language can sound slightly strange.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (2)

Based on 2 parent reviews

Classic read about the brutality of war

What's the story.

In 1937, American professor Robert Jordan is working with Spanish guerrillas in the mountains of Spain, attempting to sabotage fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Assigned to blow up a bridge, Jordan struggles to obtain the manpower and supplies he needs to achieve his objective at the appointed time. Dissent among the guerrillas, and his affection for a beautiful young girl, distract from Jordan's mission, but he is committed to performing his duty, even though he has lost some faith in its purpose.

Is It Any Good?

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS is a rich, complex novel about the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway offers several points of view into the tragic events -- from Jordan's personal memories of his family, which explain the man he is and wants to be, to the inner workings of the Communist Party members in Madrid, to soldiers on the battlefield -- creating an enormously effective and multifaceted picture of what the war did to individuals. This is a profound novel, on a grand scale -- just as upsetting and confusing and sad as it should be.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what Hemingway is trying to tell readers about the Spanish Civil War, and about war in general. Is war glorified in the novel?

What kind of man is Robert Jordan? Do you admire him? Is he doing the right thing?

What do you make of Jordan's relationship with Maria? What is Jordan doing when he fantasizes about what their life will be like after the war?

Many consider For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway's greatest novel, and one of the greatest novels ever written about war, and it is often required reading in school. Why do you think this is the case?

Book Details

• Author : Ernest Hemingway
• Genre : Literary Fiction
• Topics : History
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Scribner
• Publication date : October 21, 1940
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 18
• Number of pages : 480
• Last updated : July 12, 2017

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Book Review: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the tale of a band of communist guerrillas, led temporarily by American Robert Jordan, who have been tasked with blowing up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. The writing style took some getting used to, but I ended up really liking it.

This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. (This in no way affects the honesty of my reviews!) All commissions will be donated to the ALS Association.

I read For Whom the Bell Tolls as part of the 12 Months of Reading Goodness challenge. July’s challenge was to read a book by Hemingway (this post is a day late – gosh, where did July go?). While he was alive, Hemingway published only seven novels, a fact which surprised me and also made the selection of this month’s read pretty easy since I had already read two of the seven. I recalled that an American character in Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility also went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War and it intrigued me. What motivates someone to fight in someone else’s civil war? By choosing For Whom the Bell Tolls, I was hoping to gain further insight. (Note: Hemingway also published six short story collections and two nonfiction books while he was alive, and several more were published posthumously.)

I feel foolish critiquing classics so instead I’ll just give you some of my primary reactions to the novel.

First, I really had a tough time of it for the first several chapters of For Whom the Bell Tolls.  The book is heavy on dialogue. In fact, I’d estimate that about half the story is told through dialogue. Hemingway has his characters speaking in a way that simulates a direct translation of the dialect of Spanish they speak. Spanish has both a formal and informal version of the pronoun “you.” Being good communists, the band of guerrillas used the informal version of you, signifying that they were all equals. Unfortunately, thee/thou/thy is the English equivalent (thank goodness we dropped that somewhere along the way), which means the dialogue was full of gems like this, “Then after thou hast studied thy bridge we will talk tonight with El Sordo.” Eventually, I got used to it and started to enjoy the story rather than be distracted by a dialogue technique. Understandest thou?

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Second, I’m still not sure why someone would, on their own, go fight in someone else’s civil war. It’s not something the US government was involved in. This was just an individual US citizen who decided to take a leave of absence from his college teaching job to go fight in the Spanish Civil War. And he wasn’t alone. By one estimate, 2800 Americans volunteered and fought on the communist side. It’s an oversimplification, but the Spanish Civil War was essentially communists versus fascists, so I imagine ideology was a big factor in noncitizens deciding to fight. Germany and Italy had recently fallen under fascist control and people wanted to help Spain avoid the same fate. In Robert Jordan’s case, he just really loved Spain and he thought it would do best in communist hands.

The Hemingway House in Key West, Florida.

Hemingway had a cunning sense of humor. He really captured some of the inane arguments that crop up among people that have been in close quarters too long. Funny, funny stuff. I wish I could hear some of the dialogue professionally performed because, like when I see Shakespeare performed versus just reading him, I imagine that would further and greatly magnify the humor. Additionally, funny Mr. Hemingway self-censored the swear words because he knew he wouldn’t be able to get them through the real censors. Here’s one example of the results, “What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable unmarried gipsy obscenity.” Hoo boy. I genuinely thought I had gotten a hold of a censored version until I did a little research.

A couple of additional thoughts:

War can bring out the best and worst in people. Mobs just bring out the worst in people.

Insta-love doesn’t work for me as a plot device, no matter how skilled the writer.

I started out not liking For Whom the Bell Tolls and ended up enjoying it. I cared about the characters, I was pulled in by the suspense, and I was riveted by the action. The novel also made some insightful comments about the nature of conflict, relationships, power and the human conscience. Glad I read it!

Did you read a book by Hemingway in July? Tell us about it. And if you’ve read For Whom the Bell Tolls, I’d love to hear thy thoughts.

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9 thoughts on “ Book Review: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway ”

I’ve read this book, and yes, I struggled with all the thees and thous. I also don’t think I was very clear in my head about Jordan’s motivations. Overall, not my favorite Hemingway.

Like Liked by 1 person

Agree, there are better Hemingway novels to read!

Like you, I had difficulty getting through For Whom the Bells Tolls when I first read it, probably because it is so slow in the beginning. But there is something fascinating about the complex themes discussed in the story. Your review makes me want to reread it about!

He does take on a lot of meaty topics!

Maybe I should have chosen the For Whom the Bell Tolls; I could have used the humor. I read The Old Man and the Sea. Being a woman in the desert who doesn’t eat fish, it was certainly not my similar to my life. I do have friends who sail, though, and I can’t help but think they’d have cut line and turned around for mimosas long before things got worse! Quite an adventure and a good ending that left me imagining he’d go out to sea again with better luck (plus help and the respect of other fishermen).

Oh, the humor was only sprinkled in here and there. There were many parts that were quite grim and sad.

I read The Old Man and the Sea in either high school or college. I recall having a visceral reaction to it – frustration? Pity? Sadness? I can’t remember which emotion it was. I only remember my reaction was uncomfortable enough to make me not want to re-read it. But maybe now that I’m “all grown up” I would handle it better.

I was excited to read For Whom the Bell Tolls for many reasons: my family and I lived in Spain for three years and loved living there; I have read other books about the Spanish civil war so the topic is of interest; oh, and Old Man and the Sea is quite possibly my favorite novel (apparently I’m the only one on this thread who loved it!)

BLUF: I thought it was an interesting book that did lots of things well. On the downside, I too just couldn’t get past the premise of instant love and that tainted the novel for me.

I will be the first to admit that I didn’t get the Thee, Thy, and Thous until half way through the book. Then, there was a sentence in Spanish followed by the English with the Thee. Ah ha! Hemingway was not writing as a Puritan but in the “tu” in Spanish! He was emphatic that the characters all spoke in “tu” instead of “usted,” Having learned Spanish in Central and South America where usted is used much more frequently and is more formal, it was noticeable to our family living in Spain that everyone uses the “tu” with everyone – elders and dignitaries alike. What I am most curious about now is whether current day Spain’s use of the “tu” is a result of the Spanish civil war or simply the way everyone spoke, including the Fascists? But, he captured the essence of Spain with this grammar.

He also adequately captured the essence of the Spanish people. Living there, I was astounded at the self-centered, arrogant, and braggadocios attitude of many Spaniards. (Example: Attending a celebration for Columbus Day where a Spanish dignitary claimed that Spain was responsible for the ascent and success of the US because of Columbus. Yep, that really happened…). This brought a chuckle to me on a few occasions in this book and also again demonstrated Hemingway’s authentic experience in Spain. He just wasn’t writing about some far off place that he had researched. And lest you think I don’t like the Spanish, we have been back and plan to go back again!

Another thing that was noticeable about how Hemingway wrote was that he must have had a great command of the Spanish language and wanted a direct translation to English as opposed to how most people would translate the Spanish to English. Examples: there were many times where he wrote “the Maria” or “the Pilar”. I don’t know about you but I would never say that. But in Spanish, La Maria or La Pilar could be said. Also, el viejo which may sound derogatory would be quite common to describe and older person. Again, this was fascinating to me that Hemingway would choose to write this way for an English audience. It almost seems to me that the book was written to be published in Spanish instead of English.

It was refreshing how Hemingway wrote about the war. There were good and bad people on both sides and no one side was “right” and the other “wrong.” In our society today where everything is politicized, I found his presentation of the war a nice change. Gracias Ernesto!

On the downside, I just couldn’t get behind the 3 day lifelong love story. It was 3 days for heaven’s sake! On the contrary, I found the relationship to be quite shallow and self serving. Robert wants to take her to Madrid but make her wait in the room. Then he decides that she wouldn’t have to wait there but he will change her clothes, change her hair, heck change her altogether. Uh, that don’t sound like love to me… Good luck with that relationship.

I’m glad I tackled this one but I’ll keep The Old Man and the Sea at the top of my Hemingway list.

Ah, the George weighs in!

Thank you for that insightful commentary! Only someone fluent in Spanish could have provided that. You gave me some additional things to think about. Random question – do you speak Spanish with a South/Central American accent or just a straight up American accent? I was wondering if any Spaniards commented on that.

Yeah, that was a very shallow love story and you picked up on the things I noticed, too. Sheesh. I couldn’t figure out if Hemingway was trying to make the statement that war greatly accelerates and amplifies emotions like love? Regardless, I just wasn’t buying what he was selling.

Ahh….my accent in Spanish. It would have to be whatever is considered redneck. Actually, I think we kind of adopt whatever accent we are around. In Uruguay, we definitely took on some of the distinct words and pronunciations. But after being in Spain for 3 years, we adopted more of the Castilian pronunciations, even though I butchered those pronunciations equally as well. Since our kids learned Spanish in Spain, the clearly have an accent that is identified as being from Spain. Me? Simply from the barrio.

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Book Review: For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

One of Hemingway’s most famous works,  For Whom The Bell Tolls  is a masterpiece from start to finish. It can get a little dry at times and is definitely no light read, but if you’re a fan of the old classics, this is definitely one to read.

If any have read the meditation by John Donne entitled For Whom The Bell Tolls (the one with famous phrase ‘no man is an island’), then they will know with relative certainty the outcome of this novel. Having said this, it does not cheapen in any way the reading experience. In fact, I would argue it heightens it, making the reader guess as to what happens next with a feeling of certainty.

The novel itself is surprisingly long given that it takes place in only three days, following the journey of a dynamiter tasked with blowing up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War. It is classic Hemingway, often spending more time on the description of the events than the events themselves, and if you aren’t accustomed to his particularly dry writing style it can get a little heavy at times.

It reads more like a documentary about a particular event than an action-packed war novel. Much of this builds from Hemingway’s experience himself as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War, where he saw firsthand what was happening and heard stories from the men themselves. And because of this it is an excellent, pseudo-factual account of life as a soldier.

In this particular novel by him, I am reminded at times of the novel Moby Dick , where Ishmael spends 95% of the book building up to the climax and then the climax is so brief you wonder what all the build-up was about.

Though with this particular novel the build-up is actually not so long, there is a lot going on throughout the duration of the novel and the climax is actually worth it in the end. But it is by no means an action-packed, pedal to the metal, shoot ’em up.

No, this novel is more cerebral. It takes time to dive into the psyche of each character, learn why they each do what they do and the struggles they each have. It’s a chess match, and a brilliant one at that, rather than a boxing match.

With Hemingway you never quite know what you’re getting into, and you must always be prepared. From the very first sentence For Whom The Bell Tolls dives deep, staying there and not letting up until the last sentence has finished. With its off-the-wall descriptors, emotionally raw (and honest) character development, and use of words like “lugubriously” (three pages into chapter 16), this novel is definitely one for the permanent collection. Read it once, read it again a year later. It’s absolutely dripping with meaning and symbolism, much of which won’t be picked up on the first read. Like seemingly everything Hemingway, this book takes time and matures slowly.

But it’s definitely worth the investment. *

Lugubrious ( adj ):

Looking or sounding sad or dismal.

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October 21, 1940 Books of The Times By RALPH THOMPSON FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS By Ernest Hemingway. ll that need be said here about the new Hemingway novel can be said in relatively few words. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a tremendous piece of work. It is the most moving document to date on the Spanish Civil War, and the first major novel of the Second World War. As a story, it is superb, packed with the matter of picaresque romance: blood, lust, adventure, vulgarity, comedy, tragedy. For Robert Jordan, the young American from Montana, the lust and adventure are quickly drowned in blood. The comedy, as in other Hemingway fiction, is practically indistinguishable from the vulgarity, which in this case is a rich and indigenous peasant brand. The tragedy is present and only too plain; the bell that began tolling in Madrid four years ago is audible everywhere today. Robert Jordan is a partizan attached to the Loyalist forces. He is neither a professing Communist nor a professional soldier, but a college instructor who happened to be in Spain on sabbatical leave. During the three or four days covered by the story, he hides out in Franco-controlled territory, into which he has been sent by headquarters to dynamite a strategic mountain bridge. He doesn't hide out alone; as prearranged, he has made contact with a certain guerrilla band operating from a cave high in the Sierra de Guadarrama. He meets two women there, one middle-aged and as tough and blasphemous as any man, the other young and frightened, her hair still short because the Falangists shaved it off after they shot her parents and rampaged through her native town. He meets the saturnine Pablo, who sits in the cave half drunk and mumbles, "Thou wilt blow no bridge here." He meets old Anselmo, who helps him blow it in the end, and Primitivo, Fernando, Augustin and several more. Once he meets El Sordo, who lives with his band on another ridge some miles way. "Listen to me," El Sordo explains, "we exist here by a miracle. By a miracle of laziness and stupidity of the Fascists which they will remedy in time. Of course we are very careful and we make no disturbance in these hills." But Robert Jordan has come to make a disturbance. He must make it if the Loyalist drive out of Madrid toward Segovia is to have a chance to succeed. Mr. Hemingway has always been the writer, but he has never been the master that he is in "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The dialogue, handled as though in translation from the Spanish, is incomparable. The characters are modeled in high relief. A few of the scenes are perfect, notably the last sequence and an earlier one when Jordan awakes to the sound of a horse thumping along through the snow. Others are intense and terrifying, still others gentle and almost pastoral, if here and there a trifle sweet. It is fourteen years since "The Sun Also Rises" and eleven since "A Farewell to Arms." More than three hundred years ago John Donne said, "No man is an Iland , intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent , a part of the maine . * * * And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee ." Mr. Hemingway has taken this text and, out of his experiences, convictions and great gifts, built on it his finest novel. Return to the Books Home Page

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest hemingway, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Introduction

For whom the bell tolls: plot summary, for whom the bell tolls: detailed summary & analysis, for whom the bell tolls: themes, for whom the bell tolls: quotes, for whom the bell tolls: characters, for whom the bell tolls: symbols, for whom the bell tolls: theme wheel, brief biography of ernest hemingway.

Historical Context of For Whom the Bell Tolls

Other books related to for whom the bell tolls.

• Full Title: For Whom the Bell Tolls
• When Written: Late 1930s
• Where Written: Idaho, Cuba, Wyoming
• When Published: 1940
• Literary Period: Late Modernism
• Genre: War novel
• Setting: Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains, Segovia, and Madrid, Spain
• Climax: Robert Jordan, Anselmo, and the guerillas detonate the explosives to blow up the bridge.
• Antagonist: Francoist Fascists
• Point of View: Third-person omniscient

Extra Credit for For Whom the Bell Tolls

Movie Adaptation. A film adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls was released in 1943, with Gary Cooper as Robert Jordan and Ingrid Bergman as Maria. Though few in the cast were Spanish, the movie was critically acclaimed (and mostly true to the original plot).

Pulitzer Prize Controversy. For Whom the Bell Tolls was slated to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1941, but committee member Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, voted against the selection, citing the novel’s “obscenity”—likely a response to mildly explicit sex scenes in the novel and Spanish curse words. Hemingway won the Pulitzer for The Old Man and the Sea in 1953.

Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything

I read every kind of book from the absolute serious to the downright silly.

For Whom the Bell Tolls Book Review

Let’s talk about the man, the myth, the bullfighter – Ernest Hemingway. He was known for his concise and masculine style of writing. He also received plenty of accolades for work. His best known titles are The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929) , The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and the subject of today’s review For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). For Whom the Bell Tolls was so successful at the time of its release that it sold over half a million copies and was considered for the Pulitzer Prize ( it didn’t get it because an ex-officio chairman of the board vetoed the jurors’ unanimous choice ). What do I think of it? It’s simply okay. There are parts that work, and others that don’t work as well.

For Whom the Bell Tolls shows the story of Robert Jordan, a young American from the International Brigades who’s fighting in an antifascist guerrilla unit in the Spanish Civil War. It tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. This is basically the fictionalized version of what Hemingway himself experienced while covering the war as a foreign correspondent for the Northern American Newspaper Alliance. Long story short, it’s about a guy who’s assigned to blow up a bridge with an antifascist guerrilla group and all the events that occur in the 3-4 days that he’s with them.

So readers would probably want to know if I have read any of Hemingway’s stories in the past. Yes, I have. In my English class in my senior year of high school, I read one of his Nick Adams stories “Indian Camp.” With that story, we learned how to detect subtext. And man, there was plenty of that knowing how Hemingway coined the phrase “iceberg theory” (or how Lindsey Ellis calls it “K.I.S.S.” [keep it simple stupid]).

Is there plenty of subtext in For Whom the Bell Tolls ? There’s surprisingly not a whole lot. A good chunk of that could be found roughly in the first 100 pages. Afterwards, circumstances and motives become very clear. This makes sense as Hemingway perfected the “iceberg theory” while working in journalism, so writing a full-length novel allows him to discuss more topics explicitly.

Let me start off with the positive aspects of the novel. Hemingway is surprisingly good at writing women. At first, Robert’s love interest Maria feels like any other woman in a book written by a white guy in the mid-twentieth century, where beauty is more valued than personality. However, Maria went through sexual assault at the hands of fascists thugs. When she revealed her backstory to Robert, it made me feel a bunch of things like anger and sadness. Despite protests from him to stop, she was determined to tell her story as a way to heal herself. During a portion of the novel, Robert constantly thinks that if she had longer hair, she would be beautiful. However, when he hears of her tragic backstory, he immediately stops thinking that because he knows that her short hair is not her fault. Additionally, Pilar is a wonderful multi-dimensional woman. She can be manipulative and a bully at times, yet she’s the true leader of and mother to the group. I always looked forward to what she had to say. She’s easily more fleshed out than Maria. It makes me wonder if Hemingway inserted his third wife Martha Gellhorn into Pilar because the book is dedicated to her, and he liked to insert real people into his characters. Also, Pilar was a nickname Hemingway gave to his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer and to his boat that he had in Cuba.

Another aspect that worked was the misunderstandings within one side. During the third act, Robert orders Andres to give a note to Commander Golz calling off the bridge demolition. However, Andres runs into some obstacles like encountering antifacist officials who think he’s the enemy. It takes him hours to accomplish this. By the time Andres presents the note to Golz, Robert decides to go ahead and blow up the bridge. Moreover, early in the novel, the group gets to know one another by finding out the reasons why there’s fighting on the antifacist side. When Robert reveals that he’s an antifacist, one of the other members asks if he’s a communist (since they were backing the Republicans or those who wanted a democracy during the war). He says no, for he’s simply an antifacist. I can understand the misinterpretation since the fighters might not always share the same views as their supporters.

Now, let’s look at the aspects that don’t work as well. First, Hemingway didn’t need to make the novel 471 pages because not much occurs during a good chunk of it, and it takes place over the course of 3-4 days. There’s a lot of waiting and talking about what’s going to happen, but I’m forgiving since a lot of war involves waiting and strategizing, especially when to blow up a bridge. However, there comes a point, where there could’ve been more compelling short stories from the various parts from the novel. For example, Pilar’s recounting of the rampage at a village during the early part of the war was pretty interesting. However, once I came across Chapter 27, the book had a wake up call and started building up to the finale. This held my interest til the very end. 

Nothing and everything occurs in For Whom the Bell Tolls . During the 3-4 days that Robert is with the group, he falls in love with Maria and gets involved in a plot to kill Pablo – the designated leader and Pilar’s husband. So, there’s plenty of action. It could’ve been a lot worse, it could’ve been The Polished Hoe , which has all the events taking place during one night and is 480 pages. Was there much action? Barely!

In addition, Robert Jordan feels a bit bland, for he’s the typical Hemingway Hero. That’s the problem. He’s typical. He displays honor, courage, and endurance like any other hero in Hemingway novels. What makes Robert stand out is that he loves to think long and hard about things like his father’s suicide and contemplates about whether or not this war is worth fighting for. This helps and hinders him, especially when his group tries to convince him to kill Pablo. Heck, even Hamlet does more in the namesake play than Robert Jordan does. I found it hilarious that in Chapter 35, Robert swears like a sailor but with the word muck. In the subsequent chapter, the author inserts the word obscenity like “what the obscenity.” I guess Hemingway wanted to make sure For Whom the Bell Tolls got passed the censors? 

There’s also casual racism. During the course of the novel, Hemingway wanted to make sure that readers knew that the majority of the characters were Spaniards by mentioning their brown skin at almost every possible chance he got. You think that he would be aware of the fact that not every Spaniard has brown skin since he actually was in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, right? A lot of Spaniards have lighter skin. Moreover, there’s a Romani character named Rafael, who is seen as worthless because he’s lazy and a criminal. Robert Jordan even thinks that Rafael is those things because he’s a part of the Roma group.

Others complained about the use of thees and thous, but I really didn’t mind. Early on, Robert identifies that the Spainards speak in the old Castilian dialect. Anytime those characters used those archaic words, it meant they were speaking old Castilian Spanish, and Hemingway incorporated some real Spanish words and phrases to drive home the point.

Overall, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is a rather okay book. I’m not sure if it should be in the literary canon today, but it has its worthy aspects that I’m sure some readers will enjoy. I would recommend it to those who love Hemingway and those interested in reading novels that take place during the Spanish Civil War. It’s no wonder why the book’s legacy basically lies in a 1943 movie version, a great Metallica song , and a Dog Man sequel .

Speaking of that film, there’s a special reason why I read this novel. I made a guest appearance on The 300 Passions Podcast , where we talked about the film version starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman as well as why it failed to make the cut on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…Passions list. I figured it would be best to read the book first, and then see how the film translates it to the screen. So stay tuned for my movie review as well as for that episode!

Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me  here  for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!

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Published by emilymalek.

I work at a public library southeast Michigan, and I facilitate two book clubs there. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in History and Theatre from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI; a Master's degree in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI; and a Graduate Certificate in Archival Administration also from Wayne. In my downtime, I love hanging out with friends, play trivia and crossword puzzles, listening to music (like classic rock and K-pop), and watching shows like "Monty Python's Flying Circus"! View more posts

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For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway)

For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway, 1940 Simon & Schuster 496 pp. ISBN-13: 9780684830483 Summary High in the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There he finds the intense comradeship of war. And there he finds Maria who has escaped from Franco’s rebels More Robert Jordan, a Spanish professor from Montana serving with Loyalist guerrilla forces during the Spanish Civil War, is guided by the old man Anselmo to Pablo's guerrilla band in the mountains above a bridge which Jordan must blow up when the Loyalist offensive begins. Pablo, aware that Jordan's mission will invite fascist forces, refuses at first to participate, but relents, returning with additional men and horses shortly before the mission begins. Knowing that the fascists are aware of the offensive, Jordan sends a message to General Golz, hoping the offensive will be canceled, but the message arrives too late. Jordan blows the bridge, and Anselmo is killed by flying steel. As the group attempts escape, Jordan is seriously injured, and Maria, having been told by Jordan that he will always be with her, leaves with the survivors while Jordan remains behind, waiting for death. ( From the publisher .)

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For Whom the Bell Tolls

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For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943) Review

For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943) Director: Sam Wood

For Whom The Bell Tolls is a beautiful technicolor film version of Ernest Hemingway’s famous novel of the same name. It is impossible to successfully compare the film version to Hemingway’s classic novel, as so much is lost without the modernist reflections of the complex protagonist, Robert Jordan, however Sam Wood’s production does a fabulous job of capturing the main narrative, despite the film being nearly three hours long. The Hays Code, active in Hollywood in the 1940s, blocked certain romantic scenes from being shown onscreen, scenes which are quite scandalous even in the novel. Hemingway was apparently involved in the production. He hand-selected both Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman for their respective roles in the film. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning one well-deserved award: Best Supporting Actress for Greek actress, Katina Paxinou who played the domineering role of Pilar. The novel For Whom The Bell Tolls very nearly won the Pulitzer Prize in 1941 but it was controversially denied the prize that year. For my full reflections after recently re-reading the novel click here .

For Whom The Bell Tolls is about Robert Jordan (played by Gary Cooper), an American soldier in the International Brigades caught in the middle of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, and his newfound love for Maria (played by Ingrid Bergman). He is tasked with destroying a strategic bridge that is a key point of transportation for the Nationalists (i.e. the fascists). He befriends a band of rebels hiding out in the mountains. As with the novel, much of the film explores the complex inter-dynamics of this group. Who is courageous like Anselmo, El Sordo, and Pilar? Who is cowardly, like Pablo?

As with the novel, the film contains a long and slow build-up of tension until the final climax, in which the bridge is destroyed but Robert Jordan is mortally wounded and tragically left behind to fight the coming fascists. The film ends with the haunting image of Robert Jordan shooting from his hiding place, and it fades to a scene of a church bell ringing -an allusion to Jordan’s death and also an allusion to the title which Hemingway borrowed from John Donne’s famous poem.

The film was shot in the High Sierras in California, but it was made to look like the mountains of central Spain. Hemingway was apparently approximately $150,000 for the screen rights, and the full production cost just under $3M to create.

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For Whom the Bell Tolls Kindle Edition

• ISBN-13 978-0684803357
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Scribner
• Publication date July 25, 2002
• Language English
• File size 1757 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review.

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

About the Author

Excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FC0OOU
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (July 25, 2002)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 25, 2002
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1757 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1909621420
• #52 in Classic American Fiction
• #61 in Classic Literary Fiction
• #78 in Classic American Literature

About the author

Ernest hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899. His father was a doctor and he was the second of six children. Their home was at Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.

In 1917, Hemingway joined the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. The following year, he volunteered as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, where he was badly wounded but decorated for his services. He returned to America in 1919, and married in 1921. In 1922, he reported on the Greco-Turkish war before resigning from journalism to devote himself to fiction. He settled in Paris where he renewed his earlier friendships with such fellow-American expatriates as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Their encouragement and criticism were to play a valuable part in the formation of his style.

Hemingway's first two published works were Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time but it was the satirical novel, The Torrents of Spring, that established his name more widely. His international reputation was firmly secured by his next three books; Fiesta, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms.

He was passionately involved with bullfighting, big-game hunting and deep-sea fishing and his writing reflected this. He visited Spain during the Civil War and described his experiences in the bestseller, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

His direct and deceptively simple style of writing spawned generations of imitators but no equals. Recognition of his position in contemporary literature came in 1954 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.

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