Farvel til våbnene

by Ernest Hemingway

"Farvel til våbnene" er delvis skrevet over Hemingways egne oplevelser som ambulancefører på den italienske front. Den amerikanske løjtnant Frederic Henry møder den engelske sygeplejerske, Cathrine Barkley, og da Henry bliver såret kommer de ved et tilfælde til at være på det samme hospital i Milano. Her oplever de en fantastisk tid sammen, hvor de kan nyde livet og hinanden (i hemmelighed). Det bliver den diametrale modsætning af forholdene i krigen. Henry skal dog tilbage til fronten, men da de må trække sig tilbage opstår der nærmest anarki i den italienske hær og officererne er i fare for at blive henrettet. Det er takken for at have tjent et andet land, og Henry må flygte med miss Barkley til Schweiz.



Der er helt klart et ønske om at sige farvel til krig, våben, død og ødelæggelse. I bogen er der en gennemgående afmagt overfor hvorfor man kæmper. Man ved ikke hvor længe det skal vare og hele situationen er ekstremt utilfredsstillende for de involverede.

Det er en mesterligt skrevet roman om krigens forfærdelige verden, hvor man ikke ved hvem der er ven eller fjende. Men samtidig er det en livsglad fortælling om hvordan man alligevel klarer sig.





"Vor tids fineste kærlighedsroman"

- Tom Kristensen



"Farvel til våbnene er stadig den bedste, den allerbedste krigsbog i sin art og sin Kærlighedshistorie og roman. Den har blandt andet den fordel, at man tror på den kærlighed, han fortæller om, og derfor tager Hemingways roman os om hjertet."

- Berlingske Aftenavis



Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) f. i Oak Park i Chicago, Illinois. Hemingway var, og er, en af Amerikas betydeligste forfattere, der som journalist havde lært sig en enkelt stil, der blev karakteristisk for hans skønlitterære værker. I 1954 modtog Hemingway nobelprisen i litteratur.

Kindle Edition

Published October 7, 2013

About the author

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.

Reviews

[Jakob Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genlæst efter +25 år

[Nikolai Tange · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virkelig en god læseoplevelse, men en utilfredsstillende slutning, som jeg lige skal fordøje og forstå.