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Original Essays | October 18, 2009

Victoria Hislop: IMG From Leprosy to Lorca — Strange Inspiration



My first novel, The Island, was inspired by a chance visit to a tiny island leper colony off the coast of Greece on our summer holiday. It was a... Continue »
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    The Return

    Victoria Hislop

For Whom the Bell Tolls

by Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls Cover

ISBN13: 9780684803357
ISBN10: 0684803356
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 1 left in stock at $7.95!

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

Review:

"This new novel of Hemingway will come as a relief to those who didn't like Green Hills of Africa, To Have and Have Not, and The Fifth Column. The big game hunter, the waterside superman, the Hotel Florida Stalinist, with their constrained and fevered attitudes, have evaporated like the fantasies of alcohol. Hemingway the artist is with us again; and it is like having an old friend back.

This book is also a new departure. It is Hemingway's first attempt to compose a full-length novel, with real characters and a built-up story. On the eve of a Loyalist attack in the Spanish civil war, a young American who has enlisted on the Loyalist side goes out into country held by the Fascists, under orders to blow up a bridge. He directs with considerable difficulty a band of peasant guerrillas, spends three nights in a cave in their company, blows up the bridge on schedule, and is finally shot by the Fascists. The method is the reverse..." Edmund Wilson, The New Republic 1940 (read The New Republic's entire review)

Synopsis:

This masterpiece of time and place tells a profound and timeless story of courage and commitment, love and loss, that takes place over a fleeting 72 hours. Drawing on Hemingway's own involvement in the Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls reflects his passionate feelings about the nature of war and the meaning of loyalty.

About the Author

Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Julia PDX, October 28, 2009 (view all comments by Julia PDX)
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a massive dude-bro hero romp. Hemingway does not understand the context of the Spanish Civil War nor the political positions and military roles of the major players; his narrative simply reiterates Stalinist mischaracterization of anarchist organizing. Nonetheless, this novel is valuable for those seeking to understand a variety of perspectives on the war.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780684803357
Author:
Hemingway, Ernest
Publisher:
Scribner Book Company
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Spain
Subject:
History
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
Novels and novellas
Subject:
War
Subject:
Americans
Subject:
War stories
Subject:
Spain History Civil War, 1936-1939 Fiction.
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
War & Military
Subject:
Spain History Civil War, 1936-1939.
Copyright:
Edition Description:
B102
Series Volume:
21
Publication Date:
January 1968
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
480
Dimensions:
800x524x104 87

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