For Whom the Bell Tolls

I was in northern Michigan with friends and someone mentioned that Ernest Hemingway used to drink at a bar in Petoskey. That random comment stuck with me—it was the first time an author’s name felt like more than just text on a book cover. This happened before we carried the internet in our pocket and long before I had read anything written by Ernest Hemingway. Never mind that I knew nothing about the man, I had a strong notion that he was someone I should look up to.

The first Ernest Hemingway story I read was in an English Literature class in college. Our assignment was to read and analyze a short story by Ernest Hemingway. The name of the short story escapes me, but I vividly remember feeling that the story alluded to emotions beyond the words on the page. This was the first time I remember reading a story and taking the time to reflect on the potential of a deeper meaning. It was as if I had unlocked the door to a secret vault. Beneath the surface, it felt like Hemingway had left an encoded message only the reader could decipher, with the key tucked away in their own life experiences. Every reader would take away something different because the meaning was not fixed—it shifted based on their own path through the world.

As an accounting student, this was a welcome and interesting diversion from learning that debits go on the left and credits on the right. Even back then, I had a stronger connection to the liberal arts students than my classmates in the business school—or at least, I wanted to. Other students in class, who were far bolder than I was, shared their thoughts on the story. It quickly became clear that the professor expected analysis that included a reference to classical literature. During those years my bookshelf was a large blue plastic tub containing a chaotic mixture of clothes, old Marine Corps manuals, a few popular fiction novels, and random junk that I had acquired over time. In short, I was in over my head—in many ways. The emotions I felt from reading the story were real, but I lacked the depth and knowledge to express those emotions in the context of other classical literature. Maybe I was way off, and that wasn’t the point of the class at all, but either way, it made Ernest Hemingway’s writing feel far beyond my grasp and unapproachable.

For years, I deliberately—and probably subconsciously—avoided what I considered classical literature, wrongly assuming I would not be able to truly appreciate it. Even worse, I expected the stories to be boring. But that line of thinking has a serious flaw; it dismisses the power of stories. Each reader processes a story through their own unique life experiences, shaping what the story means to them. That is the magic of storytelling. The impact of a novel is not measured by the literary knowledge we bring to it, but by the ways in which it alters the way we see the world. And for that, all we need to bring is our own life experiences.

Over time, Ernest Hemingway kept coming up in unexpected ways—a reference on the TV show Archer, Jim Harrison commenting on Hemingway’s stories set in northern Michigan, Ernest Hemingway’s interview in The Paris Review, those are a few notable occurrences that I recall.

I experienced an Ernest Hemingway novel for the first time on a road trip from San Diego to Tulsa. It’s a 21 hour drive and I needed something to pass the time, so I started looking for audiobooks. I don’t listen to audiobooks often, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts, and hearing a pleasant voice through the speakers makes a huge difference. So instead of relying on bestseller lists or a specific author, I looked for a narrator whose voice I liked. I discovered that John Slattery narrated several books and one of them was Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I like John Slattery’s character in Mad Men and he has a comforting voice, so why not have him read me a book by Ernest Hemingway? And I figured if John Slattery was willing to take the time to narrate an Ernest Hemingway novel it had to be at least decent — and I was right.

A year or so later, I read a book of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories. And after that I bought a box set of his novels that sat on my bookshelf for quite some time before I decided to read one of them. If I’m being honest, I chose For Whom the Bell Tolls because of Metallica. If the book was good enough for them to write a song about, I figured the least I could do was give it a chance.

I was surprised to discover that For Whom the Bell Tolls is, more than anything, a spy novel — and a good one. Any hesitation I had disappeared after the first chapter. The protagonist, Robert Jordan, is an American fighting in the Spanish Civil War during the late 1930s. The story starts with Robert Jordan observing the guardhouse on a bridge he has been tasked with destroying. An elderly Spanish rebel guides Robert Jordan back to a mountain hideout where he meets Pablo, the group’s leader.

In these first few chapters, and throughout the novel, it is clear that this is not just a spy novel—each character has a great deal of depth. I truly enjoy reading Ken Follet, Robert Ludlum, and Vince Flynn, but the sincerity and variety of characters is what sets For Whom the Bell Tolls apart from novels by those authors. While keeping the story lively with action, Ernest Hemingway deftly pulls the reader into the story by delving into the humanity behind the cast of characters. And each character has a unique history that brought them to be part of a rebel group fighting in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains in 1937.

Even a dubious character like Pablo, the alcoholic rebel leader, has a backstory that inevitably draws empathy as you learn more about him. Pablo was not always an alcoholic, so what was it that drove him to his current state of apathy? These are the types of questions that Ernest Hemingway explores, and he does so with an unfiltered human perspective. He creates characters that we encounter in real life and includes the gritty details that most of us want to ignore. In my opinion, this is what makes For Whom the Bell Tolls such a powerful novel.

It took me a long time to let go of the myth that only cultured and well-read people could fully appreciate Ernest Hemingway’s writing. For Whom the Bell Tolls contains an undeniable wealth and depth of human emotion—love, redemption, sacrifice—that goes far beyond the words written on the page. As readers we engage with those emotions and characters through the lens of our own experiences, making the story feel uniquely personal. That is what makes a truly great novel, and For Whom the Bell Tolls is undeniably one of them.