Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls

Pros: Well written, tense and action packed.

Cons: None

The Bottom Line: Don't be put off by Hemingway, this is a great read.

Review: When a friend suggested I read this book I thought I had a fairly good idea of what to expect. I had never read any Hemingway before but I had seen some film adaptations of his novels and I knew enough about his life (the love of bullfighting, the big ...

Pros: Superb prose, focused plot, and beautiful description

Cons: Somewhat long

The Bottom Line: Despite the length, For Whom the Bell Tolls is one of the greatest war novels and deserves a place on your shelf.

Review: When I first came upon Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, I was surprised how much of a better writer Hemingway had developed into as compared to his previous works, A Farewell To Arms and The Sun Also Rises.

His prose is the most beautiful...

Pros: Action, Human Interest, War, Love, Great Storytelling

Cons: What Cons?

Review: I approached reading the book "For whom the Bell Tolls" with some trepidation. Since I knew it is considered a classic, I wondered if it would be the type of classic that was a chore to read, like "Moby Dick", or a page-turning...

Pros: heroes and storytelling

Cons: none

Review: After graduating from college this past year, I decided that I hadn't, in my 16 years of school, been taught enough Hemingway. So, I decided to pick up a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls at the library, thinking that a book named after a John Donne poem...

Pros: action packed, emotional, educational, contains some of the greatest love scenes ever

Cons: is slow in certain parts

Review: After recently finishing "For Whom the Bell Tolls" the book left me stunned and greatly changed by the educational, emotional interpretation of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of an American demolitionist/teacher.

The book...

Pros: a beautiful novel about war

Cons: kind of depressing

Review: Hemingway experienced the grime and blood of the Spanish Civil War through his gig as an ambulance driver. He takes his first-hand knowledge of the war and applies it neatly to FWTBT. In this story, an American, Robert Jordan, is assigned to blow up a...

Pros: detail and character

Cons: politically incorrect

Review: When I browse through my home library for a good read, my eyes often come to rest on "For Whom the Bell Tolls", or other's in Hemingway's collection of works. Hemingway is an author who's works are starting to disappear because many deem them...

Pros: The prose.

Cons: Stasis. Conversation. Characters.

The Bottom Line: was there in front of a white rigid computer in a room with a dark hue with a glass by his side.

Review: "The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding though 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 ...

Pros: very realistic. Very entertaining.

Cons: the beginning moves very slowly

The Bottom Line: Love, War, Issues of trust.. what's not to like?

Review: This is a story about a young man on a mission. Sent alone to meet up with a bunch of "peasants"- resistance fighters in the Spanish Civil war.. They are taking on the superior force both in technology and in numbers, and things aren't looking too...

Pros: Great adventure story

Cons: Hemingway turns commercial

Review: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was the first Hemingway I ever read. I was a high school kid in the early 1970s, working on my campus newspaper, newly graduated from Jack London but not yet ready for Jack Kerouac.
To my young eyes, it was a...