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For Whom the Bell Tolls  By  cover art

For Whom the Bell Tolls

By: Ernest Hemingway
Narrated by: Campbell Scott
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Publisher's summary

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.

©1952 Ernest Hemingway (P)2006 Simon & Schuster Inc. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This is the best book Ernest Hemingway has written, the fullest, the deepest, the truest. It will, I think, be one of the major novels in American literature." (The New York Times Book Review)

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What listeners say about For Whom the Bell Tolls

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Don't "Clean Up" Hemingway

Editing out the rough language from this book was annoying and unnecessary. I don't even undertand how it was legal!
Selling me this edited audiobook without first telling me that somebody had "cleaned up" Hemingway's lively and realistic language was also unfair to me, your customer.

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315 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Incorrect charges of censorship.

Any additional comments?

Having read some of the previous reviews about censorship, and the editing out of curse words in this audio version, I felt that I should add a quick note on Hemingway's use of language in this novel. To give a sort of Spanish feel to the language, he writes a good portion of his dialogue a though it were directly translated from Spanish. So, "What passes with you?" can bear some getting used to. Also, he uses "thou" and "thy" at times in place of "you" to represent the moving between formal (usted) and informal (tu) Spanish. But, the big kicker (the one that seems to be making listeners upset) is the way he handles cursing. I believe that lines like, "I obscenity in the milk of thy tiredness," and "Where the un-nameable is this vileness I am to guard" are causing people to think that the audiobook has been censored in some way. It hasn't. Although, I'm not entirely clear on why Hemingway decided edit his English curse words in this way (strangely, the ones in Spanish are left intact), they are part of his original text; I checked my paper-bound version to be sure.
So, I hope you don't let reviews warning of censorship (or my technical review here) scare you away from a truly wonderful, thought provoking novel. You should read one of the reviews discussing the horror of war, love in the face of death, excitement of battle, camaraderie of soldiers, and think about buying (or not) the audiobook in those terms.

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228 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

The Mountains of Spain

I have long been a Hemingway fan but have not been through all his writings. If you have any doubt that Hemingway was a literary giant you need only listen to this title. Between listens I would find myself thinking about the characters. The thread of their lives, and their very souls, were exposed brilliantly. I finished the listen days ago and still find myself thinking about it. I feel like I was there, with them, in the mountains, dedicated to the cause. In a sense, I'm still there, heart pressed to the pine needles on the forest floor along side Robert Jordan. In this book, at least, Hemingway was that good. Give it a try; I think you'll like this one.

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105 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Wish they hadn't dubed out the swear words

The book is great and Hemingway's descriptions of the landscape and people make you feel as if you are there, but the dubbing over of the curse words was rediculous. It takes away from the force of what some of the characters are trying to express. Really not needed. Just note that it has explicit language. This is how censorship begins.

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96 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great audiobook but appalled it's been 'sanitised'

Where does For Whom the Bell Tolls rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the better books

What did you like best about this story?

Great writing, fascinating characters and a wonderful story

What about Campbell Scott’s performance did you like?

Very much likes Scott's narration. Understated with exactly the right tone for the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The story made me contemplative, rather than laugh or cry.

Any additional comments?

It seems an abomination that the language has been sanitised. I assume that was done to meet a certain rating, but it seems like a poor decision to say the least. It's 2012, and we're still butchering books?If you can get past that, a thoroughly recommended listen and one I will surely listen to again.

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79 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Should have read this years ago

Wow .. what an astoundingly good book. I had no idea the writing would be so accessible, and at the same time so profound. It is truly a rare thing! I’m left cursing myself for not having read Hemingway years ago. Spend a few minutes refreshing the basics of the Spanish Civil War before jumping in .. then enjoy the ride. Look forward especially to the lengthy description of the smell of death ….it’s a master class in descriptive prose.

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54 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wow, what a story

I have read a number of reviews of this book and found them OK. This was one of the first books of this type that I have listened to. It turns out to my surprise, to be my favorite. I have listened may times now and I have a fairly long commute to and from work. I like the description of the people, era, story. I'm not a literary person to dissect the text. It's just a great story, Just let it unfold, it's worth the time... The narrator is great, he's not mundane or mono-tone, he does a great job on the characters.

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53 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Obsenity thee

What a good book with a great narrator. Why edit the curse words? It is a huge distraction and is not true to an "undabridged version"!

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44 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb!

"For Whom the Bell Tolls," is arguably, one of the best novels of American 20th Century literature. Personally, I like Hemingways "Old Man and the Sea," perhaps a little bit better, but "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is certainly a richer, broader and more in-depth story. Hemingway, of course, is up there with the great luminaries of American literature. Today, there is simply no American writer alive who comes close to him or his contemporaries. The auditory rendition of this novel is quite good and clear. A very minor point, but not enough to really detract, is that at a few points the timing on the spoken narration is slightly out of synch as the characters change. But, it's really quite minor. As for listening to this novel, it is just a superb experience. It is so nice to hear the English language used the way Hemingway does, he is like a Zen master of the English language. In-depth, detailed characters are developed but with such expertise that the character never seems to be over-shadowed by the role. Hemingway is also a rare writer who knows how to speak to men, he understands what drives them and no matter how complicated the character, the inevitable faults and humanity still shine thru. So, if you want to take a break from Podcasts, Global Warming, Spy Novels and Political Thrillers, here is your perfect chance. You will not regret it.

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35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A great story read by a great voice.

Mr. Scott's narration of this classic is about the best I have heard.

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28 people found this helpful