AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Alexander Adams, Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemmingway ISBN: 0-7366-4429-6 Publisher: Books on Tape Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 11 List Price(USD): $34.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4.28 (179 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: You cannot beat this!
Comment: Having read two Hemmingway novels, I was not impressed. Frankly, I was surprised that I did not enjoy them. After growing up and hearing about the great Hemmingway, the man's man, I found his characters weak and whinny. Ready to give up, I gave him one more try and I am glad he did. This is a magnificent novel.

Set in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s it tells the story of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer fighting against Franco and his fascist allies. This is first-rate story telling, it grabs the reader from the offset and pulls him into the story. Unlike other Hemmingway novels (i.e., The Son Also Rises), these are heroic characters that we deeply care about.

The imagery is magnificent. I can still see in my minds eye, the retreating Republicans, the panicked soldiers, the horses out of control and the cartridge casings spilled in the road way. If you are unfamiliar with Hemmingway, read this book first. All the others will pale in comparison.

Rating: 5
Summary: A true masterpiece of human redemption
Comment: It is not by mere circumstance that a novel is considered a classic. It takes years and years of the work standing up to critique, criticism, public response, and the test of time. The latter is perhaps the greatest of example of why Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is labeled among the great works of the twentieth century. This novel's moving and intense story has not lost meaning over the years of its existence. The romance and adventure appeals to fans of many different genres, but to call this book a war narrative is missing the scope and depth of the work by a long shot. Hemingway, as he does in many of his books, brings into view some of the most basic questions and sought-after answers that have always been at the heart of the nature of man. Hemingway explores the very simple yet profound principles of death and honor in this work, and his conclusions are by no means simple reflections.
While only occurring over the course of several days, the events that take place in For Whom the Bell Tolls, along with the superb style of writing, draw the reader into the world of Robert Jordan, the book's protagonist, while he attempts to destroy a fascist-controlled bridge, and along the way discovers humanity, love, and himself. This is possibly Hemingway's greatest feat in the novel: the creation of a connection between oneself and humanity; that we all share a responsibility with each other and that our honor lies in the hands of our neighbors.
As a fairly long book, For Whom the Bell Tolls is by no means a story for inexperienced or pedestrian readers, and even an older audience might find the plot tedious at some points. However, there is ample swashbuckling to satiate the thirst for adventure of any war genre fan, and plenty of romance to keep a reader of softer disposition happy. The journey is well worth the effort, and I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of great literature.

Rating: 4
Summary: Emotional depiction about the calamities of war
Comment: The book is about an American dynamiter, Robert Jordan, who embeds himself with a republican guerilla group. His mission was to blow up a bridge controlled by a fascist soldiers. But the context of the story wasn't really focused on the Spanish Civil War but rather the toils and calamities of war in general. War took an emotional toll on the partisans and the book does a good job explaining the background of the characters. There is also some humanity even in the midst of the war. To take the edge of the harsh plot of the story, Jordan meets Maria, another victim of the war. Her father and mother were killed in cold blood when fascist had captured their town while she fell captive under the fascists.
One can suspect that the book was published for a wide audience at its first printing because of the censoring and substitution of the word "obscenity". This book probably had an impact for the raw emotion for its audience but yet the book was written before WWII and the Vietnam War--wars that brought in Americans center stage to the battlefront in the 20th century. In fact blitzkrieg battle tactics made famous by Hilter's German army were perfected on the grounds of the Spanish Civil War. But the onset of these subsequent war pushed aside the Spanish Civil War aside from the American memory of historical events. I would think that by this reasoning, that a book like this would stand the test of time if it had some uniqueness, something unique about the war that couldn't be compared to any other war like fighting on the basis of an ideological idea (fascism, republicanism, socialism, etc.) instead of by ethnic ties or religious beliefs. Otherwise, the story just sounds like another wishy washy critique about war itself and how destructive it is which has been written by many other writers of the twentieth century. Nevertheless I applaud the raw writing talent of Hemingway and admire his storytelling but I wouldn't think that a typical reader today would feel that this book was really cutting edge.