Nije ovo literatura na visokom nivou. Jezik je jednostavan, poprilično direktan i jasno je zašto Hemingvejev stil opisuju kao novinarski. Takođe, za moj ukus i suviše temelji na dijalogu; ponekad su pred nama čitave strane samo razgovora. Priča je i prilično spora - 500 strana za 4 dana života španskih partizana. Ne zvuči kao materijal za oduševljenje. Međutim, čitajući je, shvataš da je to ona vrsta staromodnih priča koje bude uzbuđenje. Kad shvatiš da si pročitao 60 strana ni ne primećujući svet oko sebe, dok te nije prekinuo bol u leđima zbog čudnog položaja u kom si se nalazio. Uzbuđenje čitanja koje si imao kao tinejdžer, čitajući avanturističke romane. I zbog toga je ovo odlična knjiga.

Hemingvej je proveo nekoliko godina u Španiji za vreme rata i to se ovde primećuje. Sposoban je da uverljivo predstavi likove - posebno Robert Džordan je junak koji se pamti. Malo zbog toga kako nam je naslikao njegove svakodnevne strahove, zaljubljivanje i nesigurnosti, kao i idealizam zbog kog je spreman da umre u stranoj zemlji. Malo zbog toga što je član Internacionalnih brigada, za mene metaforu borbe za slobodu i pravičnost u 20. veku. A nešto i zato što ga Hemingvej kroz ceo roman oslovljava imenom i prezimenom. Uvek je to Robert Džordan. Meni je to bilo jako simpatično.

Osim Roberta Džordana, pamtiš i opise događaja, pošto je Hemingvej odličan pripovedač. Kad jedna od partizanki iz grupe koju pratimo, prepričava dan u kom su oni, kao republikanci, ubijali lokalne fašiste, to je nezaboravnih desetak strana, i verovatno nešto što ću pamtiti kao najupečatljiviju sliku iz ovog rata.

I can't understand how anyone would dislike this book. I loved "The Windup Bird Chronicle," but I understand how one wouldn't enjoy it. "For Whom the Bell Tolls," however, was one of those classics that was so perfect, so profoundly moving and yet just enjoyable to read, that I can't comprehend the negative review. Like "Anna Karenina," "Crime and Punishment," or "Native Son," its one of those cornerstones of literature that utterly justified its spot in the cannon. The characters were perfectly wrought, and achingly human, with each life being so significant and yet miniscule in the face of war.

It's true that Hemingway can't write a real woman to save his life (Pilar is fantastic, but really he writes her as a man), and Maria's adoration of Robert gets tiresome, but really that's the only false note in this entire epic. For everyone who complains about the stilted dialogue, the dialogue is one of the strokes of absolute genius. Yes, it sounds unnatural, but that's because Hemingway is perfectly capturing how people who don't speak the same native language communicate -- the dialogue is in actually in Spanish between the American Robert and the Spanish guerillas. It's brilliant.

Okay, if I don't write this now, then I never will, because I don't know when I'll read Hemingway again. Despite that ominous note, though, I did enjoy FWTBT...with MANY hedges and reservations.

1) Most people claim (and this is backed up on the back of my copy) that Hemingway wrote "short, declarative sentences and was known for his tough, terse, prose." And I ask, have any of these people read much Hemingway? This is like claiming that Don Delillo writes sentences like "She had important hair." He does, and did write that one, but it would be misleading to argue that most of his sentences are like that, and if they were like that, then he'd be the awful writer that people who haven't read him tend to think he is. But back to Hemingway. Here's a typical sentence from FWTBT, pulled from a random page:

"The robe was spread on the forest floor in the lee of the rocks beyond the cave mouth and as he slept, he turned, and turning rolled on his pistol which was fastened by a lanyard to one wrist and had been by his side under the cover when he went to sleep, shoulder and back-weary, leg-tired, his muscles pulled with tiredness so that the ground was soft, and simply stretching in the robe against the flannel lining was voluptuous with fatigue."

The defining feature here, and one that holds true for most of the rest of the prose of the book, is that there's only one word of more than two syllables. And that's fine. I don't even have an ethical problem with the length of the sentence. But where are my short declaratives? A sentence this long about tiredness is likely to put ME to sleep.

So the ultimate effect of all this verbosity is a novel that's about 150 pages longer than it needs to be - a criticism I rarely hear leveled at Hemingway. But it's true.

2) The translation. Oh wait, this novel was written in English? Well, you could have fooled me. Hemingway tries to represent the rhythms and cadences of Spanish, with varying degrees of success. He even tries to accommodate different provincial dialects. What this results in, though, is a lot thees and thous and my personal favorite, "wert." And what it really seems like is if Hemingway had had his novel translated into Spanish, and then translated poorly back into English. Not particularly appetizing, and as far as a strategy to make the writing "real" or "authentic" or "immersive," I think it fails completely. Really, this should have been reservation number one.

3) The gratuitous love story. Actually, it's not gratuitous, because it provides the conflict. But it feels gratuitous, because the girl falls into Robert Jordan's lap near the beginning of the book and there's never any question about whether he's going to "get" the proverbial girl. He gets her, effortlessly, perhaps because he's American, although they call him English. And this just reeks of some sort of fantasy that's basically incompatible with the rest of the story. Sometimes I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that makes Hemingway as famous as he is. It may not be that he's good at what he does; he's occasionally brilliant, but has plenty of clunkers too, just like any other good writer. It may be that he's so eminently studiable. He just throws all of his masculinity complexes and neuroses right onto the table. I mean, wouldn't this sort of love story which TOTALLY objectifies the girl in question be very fertile ground for feminist criticism? Or maybe it's too simple.

3b) The only other woman in the story is Pilar, who's not only intelligent and funny but also mystically inclined, and furthermore does not take any shit from anyone whosoever. Naturally, she's hideous. For Hemingway, smart girls can only be repulsive.

3c) I'm no feminist critic, but here's what I'm starting to think about the love story thing. Robert Jordan dies at the end, but before he goes, he has a painful and interminable conversation with the girl, Maria (no last name; see point 4) about how he'll be dead but will live on in her. The clear implication is that she feels her life is not worth living without him, and he agrees. So he's sending his soul to inhabit her body with her and make her a full person. Because a woman without a man is not a full person.

4) Robert Jordan. Robert Jordan, Robert Jordan, Robert Jordan. Robert Jordan is the main character of FWTBT. Robert Jordan is rarely referred to as anything other than Robert Jordan, and never by just one name or the other. It's like Hemingway is trying to make up for A Farewell to Arms, wherein he mentions the main character's name a mere handful of times (it's Frederick Henry; who knew?). It happens so often that it's almost a deal-breaker. What's the significance? No Spanish character is granted a surname, or if they are, I missed it. Is this an assertion of American might and importance? Is it a subtle mockery of the idea of American might and importance? I'd like that, maybe, but it's a stretch. The handful of Russian characters are referred to only by surname, which is also interesting. I could maybe draw some conclusions based on that, but the constant Robert Jordan this, Robert Jordan that, is so irritating that I can't be bothered.

I didn't want to trash this book entirely, so here are a few things I liked enough to potentially recommend the book to someone: the battle scenes, which are lovingly crafted and extremely vivid; certain descriptions of liquor and food, including this about whiskey: "That is what kills the worm that haunts us"; the bewildering and supremely menacing cameo by André Marty; and, finally, the (very) ending. At first I was pissed. I thought, vicissitudes of fate, shmicissitudes. But I came around, and at this point I think any other ending would have been dissatisfying.

ارنست همینگوی در کتاب این ناقوس مرگ کیست ؟ خواننده را با خود به اسپانیا و جنگ داخلی وحشتناک آن برده ، او که در جنگ داوطلبانه شرکت کرده بود از تجارب خود به استادی استفاده کرده و محیط داستان ، کوهستان های آن ، برف ناگهانی اواخر ماه مه ، روحیه پارتیزان ها ، همه عوامل را با استادی در داستان توصیف کرده و رمانی ساخته فراموش نشدنی .
آشکار است که همینگوی هم بر موضوع جنگ داخلی اسپانیا اشراف کامل دارد ، در دل این داستان جنگی ، نویسنده فرصتی پیدا کرده است تا ریشه های شر و خشونت را در جامعه اسپانیا را نشان خواننده دهد ، خشونتی که تنها مربوط به فاشیستها نیست ، جمهوری خواهان هم پا به پای فاشیستها آدم می کشند ، خشونت نهادینه شده ای که در اسپانیا وجود داشته و پیشتر نمونه ای از آن را در کتاب خانواده پاسکال دوآرته خوانده بودیم در این کتاب به صورت کامل
خانواده پاسکال دوآرته
و شوکه کننده ای خود را نشان می دهد . گویا سرنوشت محتوم جامعه اسپانیا و افراد حاضر در کتاب
لاجرم باید به این جنگ داخلی و تسویه حسابی خونین ختم می شد .
اما در دل این دنیا سیاه و تار ، عشقی هم غنچه می زند و کم کم پا می گیرد( این هم از نبوغ نویسنده است که هر دو وجه اسپانیا را نشان می دهد : این مردم زمانی که خوب باشند بهترین هستند و زمانی که بد باشند بدترین ) . نویسنده با بیان گذشته سخت و غم انگیز ماریا ، آرامش و آسایش او را در دل جنگل به خواننده نشان می دهد ، گویی تنها زمان خوش زندگی او همان چند روز اندک زیستن با یار است .
همچنین همینگوی یکی از مرموزترین کاراکترها را در سیمای پابلو آفریده است ، پابلو داستان کم از هیولا یا شیطان ندارد ، یک شر مطلق است که در هر صفحه کتاب خواننده را می تواند کاملا شوکه کند .
در پایان روز ماموریت فرا می رسد ، ناقوس مرگ هم به صدا درمی آید ، یک نبرد بیهوده دیگر هم تمام می شود و می گذرد ومانند همیشه این خشونت و شر است که ادامه پیدا می کند ....

The book was a bit of a slog. Always thought Hemingway was over-rated. In this book, he shows himself to be quite naive and ridiculously inaccurate. The book is a joke, really.

If you have genuine interest in the Spanish Civil War, read Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" instead.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

The writer was a bearded bulk of a man. His carousing had earned him a reputation. He drank hard and worked harder, penning stories filled with drinkers, bullfighters, soldiers and simple words.

He sometimes wrote in short sentences. Sometimes quite short. Sometimes very. Sometimes.

His style was distinctive. It was often parodied. Sometimes in book reviews.

He shot elephants for sport. He murdered lions. He fished Marlins. He watched Andalusian bulls die slow deaths while Spaniards danced around them. This made him look strong and feel strong, a macho man in a world of the same.

Posterity has not been kind to manliness of this sort.

His book, however, has remained strong. For Whom The Bell Tolls’ binding has weathered many summers, the hot Spanish sun etching lines into its covers, but it still has much vigour. It is spry and tough and bristles with sharp sentences that flash in the afternoon light. The book still takes all challengers, holding court in its sun-baked piazza, its old haunches disguising a muscular story that is a match for any young pretender.

This is a story of life and love and death. In the book a young American fights. He fights a vicious war with good people for a doomed cause in a beautiful country. He fights for a bright, true idea knowing that he will never see it realised, fighting all the harder in that knowledge.

The young man meets a young woman, a fellow warrior. She is scarred by the war, her family left motionless at the foot of a pock-marked wall whose surface had been so shaped by fascist bullets. They find something together, peace in the midst of carnage, and both must confront what their duty will mean for their new love.

Through it all vibrant, tortured, politically riven Spain looms in the background. A nation at a crossroads, a place so clearly dear to the writer’s heart.

There is beauty here, in this novel. There are sentences so crisp and clear that you can see the trout sparkling in them as they head upstream. But it is a harsh beauty.

For Whom The Bell Tolls, is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, but this no feel-good story. The writer saw Spain die, prostrate under the boot of fascism. He knew there were no happy endings there. It is a foolish reader who approaches this work expecting cheer in its final pages.

Among the writer’s many strengths was bravery in his work. Hemingway never turned the wheel of his stories when a reef was sighted at journeys end. He clung to the helm while his grateful readers’ hearts were torn and broken on the rocks.

لمن تقرع الاجراس ... قصة جميلة تقع في اسبانيا أيام الحرب الاهلية الاسبانية بين الجمهوريين و حلفائهم من الشيوعيين و القوميين اليساريين و الفوضويين و التروتسكيين من الثوار الاسبان و الاجانب و لا سيما الروس و الامريكان الجمهوريين مقابل الفاشيين و حلفائهم ذو الطبيعة البرجوازية و الاميل الى التديين ...

بطل هذه القصة كما في قصته السابقة وداع للسلاح هو متطوع امريكي جمهوري يقاتل الى جانب الجمهوريين و ينضم الى احدى العصابات الثورية المقاتلة في الجبال بغية تنفيذ عملية نسف جسر و مركزين للفاشية ....

الزمن الفعلي للقصة لا تعدو 4 أيام فقط بين وصول روبرت الى الجبال و تنفيذه المهمة و النهاية الحزينة المفتوحة و لكنها تعكس سنيين من الذكريات و الافكار الانسانية الكثيرة و لاسيماالحرب و عدم جدواها الاخلاقية و خاصة أن طرفيي الصراع قد اقترفو العديد من المجازر و البشاعات بحق بعضهم البعض

و ينتقل الكاتب بسهولة في حوار الشخصيات او المونولوج الداخلي من نقاش اخلاقيات الحرب و عبثيتها الى نقاشات حول مفاهيم الحق و القضية و الشعارات المرفوعة و تشبث كل فريق بما يراه مناسبا ظاهريا رغم التشكيك الباطني فيما وصلو اليه الى نقاش أكثر انسانية حول الحياة و الموت و اختلاف نظرة البطل لها و خاصة بعد تعرفه على ماريا الفتاة الاسبانية التي تعرف عليها و أحبها

تقع هذه القصة فيما يقارب 600 صفحة الا انها شيقة و لم اشعر بالملل أبدا و ذلك لان الحركة و السكون و الحوار جعلني أرى الشخصيات من لحم و دم تتحرك أمامي و كأني اشاهد فيلم و خاصة روبيرتو و ماريا و انسليمو و بابلو و بيلار و الجميع بشكل عام

المأخذ عليها هو فكره البطل الامريكي الهوليودي و تشابهه من حيث الفكرة مع وداعا للسلاح رغم اختلاف الظروف و لو اني أعذر الكاتب في ذلك لانه كاتب اميركي بحت و كذلك الفكرة التي وردت عن الهنود الحمر أثارت استيائي الا ان الرواية بالمجمل جميلة و جميلة جدا

sadece 4 günde olanları okuyarak iliklerime kadar savaşa battım. müthiş bir deneyim.

i might attempt to pick this up again some day but at the moment it's marked as dnf. it was just so dull and lacklustre i couldn't make it past the first 100 pages

You know you’ve devoured a good book when after going over the last line you feel somewhat ethereal - an unworldly feeling of satisfaction. Well, that is what I felt with this book.

This is my first of Hemingway and my second war novel (first was Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five).
When I picked it up from my book rack, I told myself “Hmmm.. Hemingway. This must be a difficult book”, but I was proven wrong. Hemingway’s stylistic choice of words, the density and intelligent distribution of his sentences, his judicious use of figures of speech made every part of the book graspable – the scenes, vivid… the sounds, almost audible.

His use of simple Shakespearean language and Spanish profanity, I found really amusing. The former gave added classic tone to the book and the latter, a little jest. But what I really loved about this book was the genuine emotionalism it evoked. There were parts that made me laugh; parts that stirred anger and hate; parts that provoked compassion and fondness and profound pathos for each character that had my eyes pour out lacrimal fluid. There even were times when I had to pause flicking its pages, stare at some random things without even seeing them and smile because of how succinctly beautiful the words were written.

I can give this book a multitude of 5 stars. And if you will ask me how much I love this book, I’ll say, “A bushel and a peck and some in a gourd” :)

Πολύ δυνατό βιβλίο. Το θέμα άλλωστε, προδιαθέτει για κάτι τέτοιο. Ένας εμφύλιος πόλεμος. Ισπανία 1937.

Δεν έχω διαβάσει ποτέ για τον ισπανικό εμφύλιο, που νομίζω παρουσιάζει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον. Ωστόσο η ιστορία που εκτυλίσσεται λέει πολλά, για την κατάσταση. Ένα βιβλίο με πολιτικές και κοινωνικές διαστάσεις. Εσωτερικοί μονόλογοι των ηρώων, την ώρα της μάχης ζωντανεύουν την ιστορία.

Χαρακτηριστικός διάλογος δύο ηρώων στο ίδιο στρατόπεδο, που μου έμεινε:
- Είσαι και συ κομμουνιστής;
- Όχι. Αντιφασίστας.

Δεν έχω πολλά να πω. Από τα καλύτερα που διάβασα φέτος.

بی خود نبود اصلا از کتاب خوشم نیومد، مگه میشه همینگوی عزیز بنویسه و کتاب خوبی نباشه ؟

خیانت بالاتر از این نیست که بیش از 40 سال یک کتاب که بصورت ناقص ترجمه شده اجازه چاپ پیدا کنه و خیانت بالاتر از اون این که هر دو انتشاراتی
که این کتابو چاپ می کردند ( نگاه، امیرکبیر ) در هیچ جا اعلام نکردن که این کتاب کامل ترجمه نشده و اسفناک تر اینکه دوستان سانسورچی و وزارت ارشاد به جای بررسی این مسائل فقط وقتشونو روی شراب خوردن ها یا همخواب شدن آدم ها و هزار مزخرف دیگه میزارن ولی این که کتاب 600 صفحه ای 300 صفحه ترجمه بشه برای این دوستان مشکلی نیست.

پ.ن. کتاب بصورت کامل این اواخر با دو مترجم خوب ترجمه شده،
1. ترجمه مهدی غبرایی نشر افق
2. ترجمه پرویز شهدی نشر افکار