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A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway's classic novel of the First World War
The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Hemingway's frank portrayal of the love between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley, caught in the inexorable sweep of war, glows with an intensity unrivaled in modern literature, while his description of the German attack on Caporetto of lines of fired men marching in the rain, hungry, weary, and demoralized is one of the greatest moments in literary history. A story of love and pain, of loyalty and desertion, A Farewell to Arms, written when he was 30 years old, represents a new romanticism for Hemingway.
Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer in the twentieth century, and for his efforts he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. Hemingway wrote in short, declarative sentences and was known for his tough, terse prose. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Ernest Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. As part of the expatriate community in 1920s Paris, the former journalist and World War I ambulance driver began a career that lead to international fame. Hemingway was an aficionado of bullfighting and big-game hunting, and his main protagonists were always men and women of courage and conviction, who suffered unseen scars, both physical and emotional. He covered the Spanish Civil War, portraying it in fiction in his brilliantnovel For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he subsequently covered World War II. His classic novella The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. He died in 1961.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1929
12862 people are currently reading
293388 people want to read
About the author
Ernest Hemingway
2,206 books32.3k followersErnest 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 16,980 reviews
November 18, 2008
I feel like awarding the great Hemingway only two stars has officially consigned me to the seventh circle of literary hell. But I must be honest. By this website's criteria two stars indicates that a book is "okay" - and to me that describes this work perfectly.
Hemingway himself is undeniably gifted. I love his succinct style (though at times it degenerates to downright caveman-speak), his honest diction and his wonderful sense of humor. That being said, he gets away with utterly ignoring most rules of writing - which I admire at times, but let's face it, some of those rules are there for a REASON. This book is overflowing with extreme run-on sentences, constant use of qualifiers (I think "very" might actually be his VERY favorite word), adjectives (even NOUNS!) used four or five times in the same paragraph, and long stretches of dialogue involving more than two speakers with absolutely no indication of who is saying what (if I hadn't been reading a library book, I would have color-coded the darn thing!) And besides style, the story itself just didn't grab me. I didn't give two farts about the self-absorbed, unthinking, unfeeling protagonist or his codependent, psychologically damaged doormat of a girlfriend. This is NOT a love story. In fact, I feel sorry for anyone who thinks it is. Men who hate women are incapable of writing love stories. And for the life of me, I can't derive a theme - or even a general POINT - to this book... unless mayhap it is "stupid, senseless tragedy happens sometimes to people you don't care about." I did feel like crying several times while reading, though... but only because of the mention of alcohol on almost every page of text... I could literally HEAR Hemingway drinking himself to death. It broke my heart.
CRAP WE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH BECAUSE HE'S HEMINGWAY:
"We walked to the door and I saw her go in and down the hall. I liked to watch her move. She went on down the hall. I went on home. It was a hot night and there was a good deal going on up in the mountains. I watched the flashes on San Gabriele. I stopped in front of the Villa Rossa. The shutters were up but it was still going on inside. Somebody was singing. I went on home." (FOR THE LOVE WILL SOMEBODY HELP THIS GUY GET HOME????)
"I came up onto a road. Ahead I saw some troops coming down the road. I limped along the side of the road and they passed me and paid no attention to me. They were a machine-gun detachment going up toward the river. I went on down the road." (FOR THE LOVE WILL SOMEBODY HELP THIS GUY GO ON DOWN THE ROAD???)
And now that I've slammed him so hard, here is a glimpse at the genius that allows him to get away with it all.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
"They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is."
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one... Who said it?... He was probably a coward. He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them."
"Life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose."
"I was blown up while we were eating cheese."
AND MY FAVORITE SCENE: (His friend Rinaldi begins the dialogue)
"Loan me fifty lire."
I dried my hands and took out my pocket-book from the inside of my tunic hanging on the wall. Rinaldi took the note, folded it without rising from the bed and slid it in his breeches pocket. He smiled, "I must make on Miss Barkley the impression of a man of sufficient wealth. You are my great and good friend and financial protector."
"Go to hell," I said.
Hemingway himself is undeniably gifted. I love his succinct style (though at times it degenerates to downright caveman-speak), his honest diction and his wonderful sense of humor. That being said, he gets away with utterly ignoring most rules of writing - which I admire at times, but let's face it, some of those rules are there for a REASON. This book is overflowing with extreme run-on sentences, constant use of qualifiers (I think "very" might actually be his VERY favorite word), adjectives (even NOUNS!) used four or five times in the same paragraph, and long stretches of dialogue involving more than two speakers with absolutely no indication of who is saying what (if I hadn't been reading a library book, I would have color-coded the darn thing!) And besides style, the story itself just didn't grab me. I didn't give two farts about the self-absorbed, unthinking, unfeeling protagonist or his codependent, psychologically damaged doormat of a girlfriend. This is NOT a love story. In fact, I feel sorry for anyone who thinks it is. Men who hate women are incapable of writing love stories. And for the life of me, I can't derive a theme - or even a general POINT - to this book... unless mayhap it is "stupid, senseless tragedy happens sometimes to people you don't care about." I did feel like crying several times while reading, though... but only because of the mention of alcohol on almost every page of text... I could literally HEAR Hemingway drinking himself to death. It broke my heart.
CRAP WE LET HIM GET AWAY WITH BECAUSE HE'S HEMINGWAY:
"We walked to the door and I saw her go in and down the hall. I liked to watch her move. She went on down the hall. I went on home. It was a hot night and there was a good deal going on up in the mountains. I watched the flashes on San Gabriele. I stopped in front of the Villa Rossa. The shutters were up but it was still going on inside. Somebody was singing. I went on home." (FOR THE LOVE WILL SOMEBODY HELP THIS GUY GET HOME????)
"I came up onto a road. Ahead I saw some troops coming down the road. I limped along the side of the road and they passed me and paid no attention to me. They were a machine-gun detachment going up toward the river. I went on down the road." (FOR THE LOVE WILL SOMEBODY HELP THIS GUY GO ON DOWN THE ROAD???)
And now that I've slammed him so hard, here is a glimpse at the genius that allows him to get away with it all.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
"They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is."
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one... Who said it?... He was probably a coward. He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them."
"Life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose."
"I was blown up while we were eating cheese."
AND MY FAVORITE SCENE: (His friend Rinaldi begins the dialogue)
"Loan me fifty lire."
I dried my hands and took out my pocket-book from the inside of my tunic hanging on the wall. Rinaldi took the note, folded it without rising from the bed and slid it in his breeches pocket. He smiled, "I must make on Miss Barkley the impression of a man of sufficient wealth. You are my great and good friend and financial protector."
"Go to hell," I said.
September 11, 2008
The old joke proves itself upon reading.
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A (Hemingway): To die. In the rain.
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A (Hemingway): To die. In the rain.
February 21, 2024
welcome to...A FEBRUARY TO ARMS.
you know it, you love it. a bad month and title pun, an intimidating book, and me, at the beginning-ish of february. it's another installment of project long classics, in which every(ish) month i read a long(ish) classic in small(ish) chunks to make them less scary.
because i'm picky about what i read. unless you put it on a list titled "books you must read in a lifetime." then i'm falling for it every time.
CHAPTER 1
this entire chapter was about 2 pages long and made up of a) setting description and b) one quick crack about the military not caring about lives lost.
i am so locked in.
CHAPTER 2
i traveled through europe for a bit in the fall with my sisters, and it's like i invented the concept of europe. i have become the stereotype of Annoying Girl Who Visits Somewhere And Makes It My Whole Personality.
all of this to say i'm having fun just reading dialogue listing places in italy.
CHAPTER 3
the dialogue in this! snappy! we've got a bunch of yappers on our hands!
CHAPTER 4
the thing about the authors i love, like hemingway and fitzgerald and steinbeck and salinger, is that everyone says it's a red flag to love them because they're super Male and Sexist.
so what is wrong with me for thinking they write the most interesting women.
CHAPTER 5
a hemingway romance moves pretty fast. if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
CHAPTER 6
okay never mind about what i said. this girl is crazy.
CHAPTER 7
i was reading an ebook copy of this but enjoying it enough that when i found the same edition in a bookstore, i bought it. to which my boyfriend said, "is that the book bradley cooper throws out the window in silver linings playbook?"
correct.
CHAPTER 8
this chapter ends in hemingway's version of a cliffhanger, which is when he does one of his long paragraphs of scenery and then abruptly stops.
CHAPTER 9
hemingway has this way of making things that should be clichéd and trite feel totally new. having anti-war dialogue in which the protagonist is pro and then is shelled and the horrors come to him...i knew it was coming but i felt jarred and convinced by it anyway.
CHAPTER 10
dialogue city. i love it.
CHAPTER 11
this is one of those moments where you're like, "oh, i love this character so much and i can't wait for him to have his happy life at home...oh he is going to die isn't he."
CHAPTER 12
we come to the end of book one, injured, on a train, and at war.
it reminds me of my college days.
CHAPTER 13
if i had to deal with a grave war wound to my legs without the marvels of modern medicine, i'd sure like to do so in italy.
CHAPTER 14
"when i saw her i was in love with her. everything turned over inside of me."
they did instalove better in the old days.
CHAPTER 15
more doctors should be italian men who give you a little kiss on the forehead for being brave.
CHAPTER 16
closed door sex scenes have nothing on hemingway's. he doesn't even say, like, "time passed." there's just a vague implication pages later.
CHAPTER 17
i have to say, being wounded in a mostly empty hospital in the 1940s isn't sounding like the stuff of nightmares i expected it to be.
CHAPTER 18
all this "we don't need to be married by the state to be married in our hearts" stuff is nice and romantic until you remember it was the olden days and the punishment for unmarried women was like, being hung up by the toes or tested for witch marks.
CHAPTER 19
everyone is way too happy for the not even halfway mark. untold horrors await.
CHAPTER 20
catherine barkley being like "there's way too many people here...can't we just get drunk by ourselves and bet on stuff." she's just like me for real.
CHAPTER 21
three months pregnant and still getting offered cognac in a hospital room. it was a simpler time.
CHAPTER 22
whoever heard of a vacation getting canceled because you're having too good of a time? (read: our protagonist lost his convalescent leave because he dabbled in alcoholism)
CHAPTER 23
sam in the comments said "the scene in the hotel room is easily the most important and most impressive," so i was a bit starstruck to stumble across it.
it is damn good.
CHAPTER 24
and thus we end book two. melancholy as hell.
CHAPTER 25
we are told that war has been very bad while we were away, but mostly so far it's been spaghetti dinners and sex jokes. foreboding.
CHAPTER 26
i cannot stress enough how much i dread the certain death of the priest. they don't make characters this sympathetic to give them happily ever afters, i'll tell you that.
CHAPTER 27
today it occurs to me just how much better this book is than for whom the bell tolls. tell that to their respective goodreads average ratings, i guess.
CHAPTER 28
happy valentine's day! we're spending it in the front seat of a car on the way to war, where two girls just hopped in and now we're desperately trying to convey that we aren't going to do anything untoward through a language barrier via asking if they're virgins.
the most romantic celebration.
CHAPTER 29
well, we just shot at a couple of random sergeants who were hanging out with us for a while and i do believe were on our side, so. i am losing the thread a bit here.
CHAPTER 30
if there is one thing i feel qualified to say that hemingway loves writing about, it's bridges that may or may not be on the cusp of exploding.
now i feel bad for being cavalier about the bridge, considering our first truly evil act of war was witnessed at the other end of it.
CHAPTER 31
a train stowaway moment! man, the action came out of nowhere in this one.
CHAPTER 32
and so we end book three, cold, wet, hungry, miserable, and lonely. typical boston winter.
CHAPTER 33
there is a part in this chapter where the main character eats three sandwiches and drinks martinis and i know in my heart that i'm not a martini drinker but damn it sounds good.
CHAPTER 34
i can't stress enough that if my friend were pregnant and unmarried during world war i i would also scream at the guy who knocked her up and cry at a dinner.
oh wait is THIS the hotel scene...too many hotels. this one is good too.
CHAPTER 35
i bet i would be more into fishing too if it was on a lake in italy and they had a bartender who rowed out to you.
CHAPTER 36
we are well and truly on the run. and i want a sandwich again.
CHAPTER 37
in this chapter is where i decide forever that catherine barkley is an angel from heaven. she spends all night in some shoddy canoe in the cold rain, sometimes rowing, and the whole time she's thinking about rolls and jam and butter and when she gets to breakfast they don't have any of it. i can't stress enough how i would ruin everyone's day if i were her.
and thus we end book 5.
CHAPTER 38
there is truly nothing funnier in this whole book than catherine barkley saying she'll drink another beer because the doctor says it'll keep the baby nice and small. THAT is literature. THAT is history.
but catherine saying that she wished she'd known all of our protagonist's exes so she could make fun of them to him is also pretty good.
CHAPTER 39
everything is so romantic and happy here in switzerland. we have just enough time left for it to all fall apart.
CHAPTER 40
it is a marvel that there is a surviving generation of babies born in the world war i era. this level of drinking is flabbergasting me.
CHAPTER 41
I SEE WHY BRADLEY COOPER THREW THIS GODDAMN BOOK OUT THE F*CKING WINDOW.
OVERALL
this book has remarkably little to do with war, which is kind of a surprise considering 100% of its synopsis and marketing revolves around it being The Great American WWI Novel, but it does have some very memorable characters.
even if it does upset me a bit to think that the boys from All Quiet on the Western Front probably would've loved to spend the wartime drinking wine in italy. the best war novels convey the utter soullessness of it, and while this shows the brutal moments of life, it sure doesn't do that.
rating: 3.5
you know it, you love it. a bad month and title pun, an intimidating book, and me, at the beginning-ish of february. it's another installment of project long classics, in which every(ish) month i read a long(ish) classic in small(ish) chunks to make them less scary.
because i'm picky about what i read. unless you put it on a list titled "books you must read in a lifetime." then i'm falling for it every time.
CHAPTER 1
this entire chapter was about 2 pages long and made up of a) setting description and b) one quick crack about the military not caring about lives lost.
i am so locked in.
CHAPTER 2
i traveled through europe for a bit in the fall with my sisters, and it's like i invented the concept of europe. i have become the stereotype of Annoying Girl Who Visits Somewhere And Makes It My Whole Personality.
all of this to say i'm having fun just reading dialogue listing places in italy.
CHAPTER 3
the dialogue in this! snappy! we've got a bunch of yappers on our hands!
CHAPTER 4
the thing about the authors i love, like hemingway and fitzgerald and steinbeck and salinger, is that everyone says it's a red flag to love them because they're super Male and Sexist.
so what is wrong with me for thinking they write the most interesting women.
CHAPTER 5
a hemingway romance moves pretty fast. if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
CHAPTER 6
okay never mind about what i said. this girl is crazy.
CHAPTER 7
i was reading an ebook copy of this but enjoying it enough that when i found the same edition in a bookstore, i bought it. to which my boyfriend said, "is that the book bradley cooper throws out the window in silver linings playbook?"
correct.
CHAPTER 8
this chapter ends in hemingway's version of a cliffhanger, which is when he does one of his long paragraphs of scenery and then abruptly stops.
CHAPTER 9
hemingway has this way of making things that should be clichéd and trite feel totally new. having anti-war dialogue in which the protagonist is pro and then is shelled and the horrors come to him...i knew it was coming but i felt jarred and convinced by it anyway.
CHAPTER 10
dialogue city. i love it.
CHAPTER 11
this is one of those moments where you're like, "oh, i love this character so much and i can't wait for him to have his happy life at home...oh he is going to die isn't he."
CHAPTER 12
we come to the end of book one, injured, on a train, and at war.
it reminds me of my college days.
CHAPTER 13
if i had to deal with a grave war wound to my legs without the marvels of modern medicine, i'd sure like to do so in italy.
CHAPTER 14
"when i saw her i was in love with her. everything turned over inside of me."
they did instalove better in the old days.
CHAPTER 15
more doctors should be italian men who give you a little kiss on the forehead for being brave.
CHAPTER 16
closed door sex scenes have nothing on hemingway's. he doesn't even say, like, "time passed." there's just a vague implication pages later.
CHAPTER 17
i have to say, being wounded in a mostly empty hospital in the 1940s isn't sounding like the stuff of nightmares i expected it to be.
CHAPTER 18
all this "we don't need to be married by the state to be married in our hearts" stuff is nice and romantic until you remember it was the olden days and the punishment for unmarried women was like, being hung up by the toes or tested for witch marks.
CHAPTER 19
everyone is way too happy for the not even halfway mark. untold horrors await.
CHAPTER 20
catherine barkley being like "there's way too many people here...can't we just get drunk by ourselves and bet on stuff." she's just like me for real.
CHAPTER 21
three months pregnant and still getting offered cognac in a hospital room. it was a simpler time.
CHAPTER 22
whoever heard of a vacation getting canceled because you're having too good of a time? (read: our protagonist lost his convalescent leave because he dabbled in alcoholism)
CHAPTER 23
sam in the comments said "the scene in the hotel room is easily the most important and most impressive," so i was a bit starstruck to stumble across it.
it is damn good.
CHAPTER 24
and thus we end book two. melancholy as hell.
CHAPTER 25
we are told that war has been very bad while we were away, but mostly so far it's been spaghetti dinners and sex jokes. foreboding.
CHAPTER 26
i cannot stress enough how much i dread the certain death of the priest. they don't make characters this sympathetic to give them happily ever afters, i'll tell you that.
CHAPTER 27
today it occurs to me just how much better this book is than for whom the bell tolls. tell that to their respective goodreads average ratings, i guess.
CHAPTER 28
happy valentine's day! we're spending it in the front seat of a car on the way to war, where two girls just hopped in and now we're desperately trying to convey that we aren't going to do anything untoward through a language barrier via asking if they're virgins.
the most romantic celebration.
CHAPTER 29
well, we just shot at a couple of random sergeants who were hanging out with us for a while and i do believe were on our side, so. i am losing the thread a bit here.
CHAPTER 30
if there is one thing i feel qualified to say that hemingway loves writing about, it's bridges that may or may not be on the cusp of exploding.
now i feel bad for being cavalier about the bridge, considering our first truly evil act of war was witnessed at the other end of it.
CHAPTER 31
a train stowaway moment! man, the action came out of nowhere in this one.
CHAPTER 32
and so we end book three, cold, wet, hungry, miserable, and lonely. typical boston winter.
CHAPTER 33
there is a part in this chapter where the main character eats three sandwiches and drinks martinis and i know in my heart that i'm not a martini drinker but damn it sounds good.
CHAPTER 34
i can't stress enough that if my friend were pregnant and unmarried during world war i i would also scream at the guy who knocked her up and cry at a dinner.
oh wait is THIS the hotel scene...too many hotels. this one is good too.
CHAPTER 35
i bet i would be more into fishing too if it was on a lake in italy and they had a bartender who rowed out to you.
CHAPTER 36
we are well and truly on the run. and i want a sandwich again.
CHAPTER 37
in this chapter is where i decide forever that catherine barkley is an angel from heaven. she spends all night in some shoddy canoe in the cold rain, sometimes rowing, and the whole time she's thinking about rolls and jam and butter and when she gets to breakfast they don't have any of it. i can't stress enough how i would ruin everyone's day if i were her.
and thus we end book 5.
CHAPTER 38
there is truly nothing funnier in this whole book than catherine barkley saying she'll drink another beer because the doctor says it'll keep the baby nice and small. THAT is literature. THAT is history.
but catherine saying that she wished she'd known all of our protagonist's exes so she could make fun of them to him is also pretty good.
CHAPTER 39
everything is so romantic and happy here in switzerland. we have just enough time left for it to all fall apart.
CHAPTER 40
it is a marvel that there is a surviving generation of babies born in the world war i era. this level of drinking is flabbergasting me.
CHAPTER 41
I SEE WHY BRADLEY COOPER THREW THIS GODDAMN BOOK OUT THE F*CKING WINDOW.
OVERALL
this book has remarkably little to do with war, which is kind of a surprise considering 100% of its synopsis and marketing revolves around it being The Great American WWI Novel, but it does have some very memorable characters.
even if it does upset me a bit to think that the boys from All Quiet on the Western Front probably would've loved to spend the wartime drinking wine in italy. the best war novels convey the utter soullessness of it, and while this shows the brutal moments of life, it sure doesn't do that.
rating: 3.5
July 19, 2025
There is something hopeless in love in the time of war… But love there is…
A Farewell to Arms was the first novel I read in English… I never was out of a dictionary… Reading was quite a labour… And the book made a very strong impression on me… I can’t recall the novel without an attack of nostalgia ever since.
…till the war do us part.
A Farewell to Arms was the first novel I read in English… I never was out of a dictionary… Reading was quite a labour… And the book made a very strong impression on me… I can’t recall the novel without an attack of nostalgia ever since.
And you’ll always love me won’t you? Yes. And the rain won’t make any difference? No.
…till the war do us part.
May 23, 2008
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Book #17: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway (1929)
The story in a nutshell:
Published in the late 1920s, right when Modernism was first starting to become a commercially successful form of the arts, A Farewell to Arms is Ernest Hemingway's wry and cynical look at World War I, the event that most defined not only his generation but also the beginning of the Modernist movement. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the book tells the story of Frederic Henry, known to most as "Tenente" (Italian slang for "Lieutenant"), a young and gung-ho American who couldn't get accepted by the American military during the war, so volunteered to be an ambulance driver for the Italian army instead. One of the first of Hemingway's tales to define the stoic "man's man" he would eventually become known for, the novel basically follows Tenente through a series of thrilling escapades, made even more interesting because of the main character not seeing them as thrilling at all -- nearly having his leg torn off while at the front, saving a man's life, escaping execution by diving off a bridge, a rowboat ride to Switzerland in the middle of the night while fleeing a group of pursuers, and a whole lot more.
Like I said, though, Hemingway's point here is not to glamorize war, but rather to highlight the mundane aspects of it all; the endless red tape, the weasely things people do to get out of actual work, the BS conversations that are always taking place among soldiers, all of them arguing over how the war is going but none of them actually possessing any factual information. At the same time, though, A Farewell to Arms is about the monstrous developments of World War I in particular, the very first large war to be fought during the Industrial Age, and therefore capable of inflicting so much more carnage than anyone thought possible. (For example, the brand-new European railway system is heavily featured throughout the book, and especially the fact that in a half-day's ride, you could go literally from the battlefront to a five-star luxury hotel, something that had never been possible before WWI.) Oh, and if all this wasn't enough, Hemingway throws in a love story too, a complicated one featuring a complicated woman, one that has been a source of heated interpretation since the book first came out 79 years ago.
The argument for it being a classic:
There seems to be two main arguments for this being a classic, one based on the author and one on the book itself. Because the fact is that Hemingway is considered by many to be one of the most important novelists in the history of that format, a fabled "High Priest of Modernism" who taught all of us to think in a punchier, shorter way, and with this mostly being for the better for the arts in general. Because let's not forget, a mere twenty or thirty years before this book was first published, it was actually the flowery and overwritten Victorian style of literature that dominated the publishing industry; and as we've all learned throughout the course of this "CCLaP 100" essay series, although Victorian literature certainly has its charms and inherent strengths, it's also a whole lot of talking to say not much at all, a situation that was starting to drive artists crazy by the time the 20th century got into swing. Hemingway, fans claim, was the first Modernist to really bring all the details together in a profoundly great way -- the first to combine the exciting rat-a-tat style of pulp-fiction writers with the weighty subjects of the academic community, producing work that owes as much to Raymond Chandler as it does to Virginia Woolf but is ultimately much better than simply reading those two authors back-to-back. And by making its subject World War I, fans say, Hemingway here turns in yet another great document of those times that the early Modernists were known for -- from The Great Gatsby to All Quiet Among the Western Front, it's hard for us to even think of the artists from the "Jazz Age" or "Lost Generation" or whatever you want to call it, without thinking of this globe-changing event that was so in the middle of it. There's a good reason, after all, that many consider A Farewell to Arms one of the greatest war novels of all time.
The argument against:
Of course, there are others who can't even hear the words "Ernest Hemingway" without automatically shuddering, again for a variety of reasons that even most of his fans admit hold at least some weight -- because he is overrated by the academic community, because his personal style is a hackneyed, easily parodied one, because his "man's man" shtick got real old real fast, because it's now inspired three generations of a--holes (and counting) to want to be bull-fleeing, cigar-smoking woman-haters too. At its heart, its critics say, A Farewell to Arms is an interesting-enough little ditty, mostly because Hemingway himself had some interesting little experiences during the war that he basically cribbed wholesale for the book; but then this story is covered with layer after layer of bad prose, macho posturing, and aimless meanderings that get you about as far away from a traditional three-act novel as you can possibly get. With Hemingway and his critics, it's never a case of "it's a good enough book but shouldn't be labeled a classic;" those who dislike him really dislike him, and wish to see his work removed from academic reading lists altogether. "classic" label or not.
My verdict:
So let me embarrassingly admit that this is actually the very first book by Hemingway I've ever read, and that I was hesitant going into it because of just the overwhelming amount of bad stuff that's been said about him over the decades; to be truthful, I was half-expecting a parody of Hemingway at this point, all little words and nonsensical sentences and dudes treating girls kinda like crap most of the time. And yes, the book does for sure contain a certain amount of all this; but I was surprised, to tell you the truth, by how how tight, illuminating, fascinating and just plain funny A Farewell to Arms turned out to actually be. Wait, funny, you say? Sure; I dare you not to laugh, for example, during the scene when a huge argument breaks out between two Swiss border guards over which of their two hometowns boasts better winter sports. ("Ah, you see? He does not even know what a luge is!") This is what makes it such an intriguing novel about war, after all, because Hemingway expertly shows just how many surreal moments there are during times of war as well, that "war" doesn't just mean the two lines of soldiers facing each other at the front but also an entire region, an entire industry, an entire population. Hemingway's World War I is not just seen from the smeared windshield of a battlefront ambulance, but from bored soldiers getting drunk in a quiet bunker, from weary villagers hoping there will be at least something left of their homes after the war is over, from armchair pundits recovering in crumbling veteran hospitals, arguing over which complicated international treaty sunk them all and which is going to save them. It's an expansive, multi-facted, sometimes highly unique look at a wartime environment, one that at least here in his early career (he published this when he was 30) belies all the complaints that have ever been made about his hackneyed personal style.
And as far as that love story in the middle of it all, and the repeated complaints about Hemingway's characters all being misogynists...well, maybe it was just me, but I found his Catherine Barkley to be the very model of a modern independent woman (or at least modern and independent in 1920s terms), a fiercely intelligent and cynical creature who expects the same from her lovers, even while realizing that such a man is destined to either die in the environment they're currently in, or survive just to become a bitter, angry a--hole later in life. The way I see it, Catherine is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation; she needs love and intimacy in her life as much as anyone else, and especially in her role as a risk-taking, thick-skinned nurse just a few miles from the battle's front, but also understands that Tenente is destined to befall one of the two fates just mentioned, thus explaining the curious push/pull emotions she has towards him and the way she treats him throughout the novel. It's a surprisingly sophisticated relationship at work, the same thing that can be said of the novel in general; I don't know about the rest of Hemingway's work (yet, anyway), but at least A Farewell to Arms turned out to be a surprisingly cracking read, not only a definite classic but just an all-around amazing book in general. It comes highly recommended today.
Is it a classic? Yes
The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label
Book #17: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway (1929)
The story in a nutshell:
Published in the late 1920s, right when Modernism was first starting to become a commercially successful form of the arts, A Farewell to Arms is Ernest Hemingway's wry and cynical look at World War I, the event that most defined not only his generation but also the beginning of the Modernist movement. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the book tells the story of Frederic Henry, known to most as "Tenente" (Italian slang for "Lieutenant"), a young and gung-ho American who couldn't get accepted by the American military during the war, so volunteered to be an ambulance driver for the Italian army instead. One of the first of Hemingway's tales to define the stoic "man's man" he would eventually become known for, the novel basically follows Tenente through a series of thrilling escapades, made even more interesting because of the main character not seeing them as thrilling at all -- nearly having his leg torn off while at the front, saving a man's life, escaping execution by diving off a bridge, a rowboat ride to Switzerland in the middle of the night while fleeing a group of pursuers, and a whole lot more.
Like I said, though, Hemingway's point here is not to glamorize war, but rather to highlight the mundane aspects of it all; the endless red tape, the weasely things people do to get out of actual work, the BS conversations that are always taking place among soldiers, all of them arguing over how the war is going but none of them actually possessing any factual information. At the same time, though, A Farewell to Arms is about the monstrous developments of World War I in particular, the very first large war to be fought during the Industrial Age, and therefore capable of inflicting so much more carnage than anyone thought possible. (For example, the brand-new European railway system is heavily featured throughout the book, and especially the fact that in a half-day's ride, you could go literally from the battlefront to a five-star luxury hotel, something that had never been possible before WWI.) Oh, and if all this wasn't enough, Hemingway throws in a love story too, a complicated one featuring a complicated woman, one that has been a source of heated interpretation since the book first came out 79 years ago.
The argument for it being a classic:
There seems to be two main arguments for this being a classic, one based on the author and one on the book itself. Because the fact is that Hemingway is considered by many to be one of the most important novelists in the history of that format, a fabled "High Priest of Modernism" who taught all of us to think in a punchier, shorter way, and with this mostly being for the better for the arts in general. Because let's not forget, a mere twenty or thirty years before this book was first published, it was actually the flowery and overwritten Victorian style of literature that dominated the publishing industry; and as we've all learned throughout the course of this "CCLaP 100" essay series, although Victorian literature certainly has its charms and inherent strengths, it's also a whole lot of talking to say not much at all, a situation that was starting to drive artists crazy by the time the 20th century got into swing. Hemingway, fans claim, was the first Modernist to really bring all the details together in a profoundly great way -- the first to combine the exciting rat-a-tat style of pulp-fiction writers with the weighty subjects of the academic community, producing work that owes as much to Raymond Chandler as it does to Virginia Woolf but is ultimately much better than simply reading those two authors back-to-back. And by making its subject World War I, fans say, Hemingway here turns in yet another great document of those times that the early Modernists were known for -- from The Great Gatsby to All Quiet Among the Western Front, it's hard for us to even think of the artists from the "Jazz Age" or "Lost Generation" or whatever you want to call it, without thinking of this globe-changing event that was so in the middle of it. There's a good reason, after all, that many consider A Farewell to Arms one of the greatest war novels of all time.
The argument against:
Of course, there are others who can't even hear the words "Ernest Hemingway" without automatically shuddering, again for a variety of reasons that even most of his fans admit hold at least some weight -- because he is overrated by the academic community, because his personal style is a hackneyed, easily parodied one, because his "man's man" shtick got real old real fast, because it's now inspired three generations of a--holes (and counting) to want to be bull-fleeing, cigar-smoking woman-haters too. At its heart, its critics say, A Farewell to Arms is an interesting-enough little ditty, mostly because Hemingway himself had some interesting little experiences during the war that he basically cribbed wholesale for the book; but then this story is covered with layer after layer of bad prose, macho posturing, and aimless meanderings that get you about as far away from a traditional three-act novel as you can possibly get. With Hemingway and his critics, it's never a case of "it's a good enough book but shouldn't be labeled a classic;" those who dislike him really dislike him, and wish to see his work removed from academic reading lists altogether. "classic" label or not.
My verdict:
So let me embarrassingly admit that this is actually the very first book by Hemingway I've ever read, and that I was hesitant going into it because of just the overwhelming amount of bad stuff that's been said about him over the decades; to be truthful, I was half-expecting a parody of Hemingway at this point, all little words and nonsensical sentences and dudes treating girls kinda like crap most of the time. And yes, the book does for sure contain a certain amount of all this; but I was surprised, to tell you the truth, by how how tight, illuminating, fascinating and just plain funny A Farewell to Arms turned out to actually be. Wait, funny, you say? Sure; I dare you not to laugh, for example, during the scene when a huge argument breaks out between two Swiss border guards over which of their two hometowns boasts better winter sports. ("Ah, you see? He does not even know what a luge is!") This is what makes it such an intriguing novel about war, after all, because Hemingway expertly shows just how many surreal moments there are during times of war as well, that "war" doesn't just mean the two lines of soldiers facing each other at the front but also an entire region, an entire industry, an entire population. Hemingway's World War I is not just seen from the smeared windshield of a battlefront ambulance, but from bored soldiers getting drunk in a quiet bunker, from weary villagers hoping there will be at least something left of their homes after the war is over, from armchair pundits recovering in crumbling veteran hospitals, arguing over which complicated international treaty sunk them all and which is going to save them. It's an expansive, multi-facted, sometimes highly unique look at a wartime environment, one that at least here in his early career (he published this when he was 30) belies all the complaints that have ever been made about his hackneyed personal style.
And as far as that love story in the middle of it all, and the repeated complaints about Hemingway's characters all being misogynists...well, maybe it was just me, but I found his Catherine Barkley to be the very model of a modern independent woman (or at least modern and independent in 1920s terms), a fiercely intelligent and cynical creature who expects the same from her lovers, even while realizing that such a man is destined to either die in the environment they're currently in, or survive just to become a bitter, angry a--hole later in life. The way I see it, Catherine is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation; she needs love and intimacy in her life as much as anyone else, and especially in her role as a risk-taking, thick-skinned nurse just a few miles from the battle's front, but also understands that Tenente is destined to befall one of the two fates just mentioned, thus explaining the curious push/pull emotions she has towards him and the way she treats him throughout the novel. It's a surprisingly sophisticated relationship at work, the same thing that can be said of the novel in general; I don't know about the rest of Hemingway's work (yet, anyway), but at least A Farewell to Arms turned out to be a surprisingly cracking read, not only a definite classic but just an all-around amazing book in general. It comes highly recommended today.
Is it a classic? Yes
June 30, 2021
I just finished it, and I'm disappointed. And not only disappointed; I'm also bothered by it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at Hemingway's one-dimensional, sexist portrayal of Catherine Barkley, having read much of his other work, but somehow I still am. Put simply, Catherine is a ridiculous figure, and it's no fault of her own. Hemingway gives her no opportunity to sound like anything more than a half-crazy, desperate, fawning caricature with no real desires or opinions of her own. How many times must I read lines like, "I'll say just what you wish and I'll do what you wish and then you will never want any other girls, will you?" issue from her lips? Does Hemingway believe women think and talk like this, or does he mean to make his female characters sound like would-be wife-pets?
(I just read a review below that describes Henry and Catherine's dialogue as 'incantations,' the point being that the two, especially Catherine, are trying to will themselves to be happy despite an over-whelming sense of despair. It's an interesting point,and definitely makes reading the scenes with the two of them more palatable. But as much as I'd like to think that that was what Hemingway was going for, I don't know...)
As for the rest of the book, I suppose an argument could be made for its "ground-breaking" sexual frankness or for the necessarily graphic depictions of the front, and I'll buy that. There are, after all, a number of great moments. Still, it's hard to accept the canonization this book as THE central WWI novel and ignore the fact that one of its main characters is very poorly written, perhaps intentionally so.
(I just read a review below that describes Henry and Catherine's dialogue as 'incantations,' the point being that the two, especially Catherine, are trying to will themselves to be happy despite an over-whelming sense of despair. It's an interesting point,and definitely makes reading the scenes with the two of them more palatable. But as much as I'd like to think that that was what Hemingway was going for, I don't know...)
As for the rest of the book, I suppose an argument could be made for its "ground-breaking" sexual frankness or for the necessarily graphic depictions of the front, and I'll buy that. There are, after all, a number of great moments. Still, it's hard to accept the canonization this book as THE central WWI novel and ignore the fact that one of its main characters is very poorly written, perhaps intentionally so.
August 19, 2024
What do F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Edwards have in common?
They were both right about this book!
Jack Edward rated this as “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy” and said it was quite dull.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was even more savage. These are direct quotes from Fitzgerald to Hemingway:
“The characters too numerous […] Please cut! There’s absolutely no psycholical [Fitzgerald’s bad spelling] justification in introducing those singers—its not even bizarre. […] This is definately [again Fitzgerald’s spelling] dull. […] Later I was astonished to find it was only about 750 wds which only goes to show the pace you set yourself up to the point. It’s dull […] “That’s the way it was” is no answer […] I still believe its dull + slow.”
A big problem with this work is that it is somewhat autobiographical in nature. During World War I, Hemingway attempted to enlist in the US Army; however, he was disqualified because of his poor eyesight. Undeterred, Hemingway volunteered with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. After approximately one month of active service, Hemingway was wounded after delivering chocolate and cigarettes to the front line. While recovering in the hospital, Hemingway fell in love with a Red Cross nurse.
In A Farewell to Arms, we have Frederic Henry who is an American ambulance driver who falls in love with a nurse (or more precisely a VAD), Catherine Barkley.
But Hemingway did a poor job of writing Henry and Catherine. Henry is a bore, and he acts more like a 40-year-old than a still maturing, stumbling teenager. Even when Henry is in grave danger, literally running for his life, the tone isn’t frantic or exhilarating. This book has the wrong Henry—it needed Lord Henry Wotton from The Picture of Dorian Gray, a wild card, giving up great quotes, funny tinged with a bit of truth and intellect, and completely unpredictable!
Catherine is a cliché, extremely flat, and has only a rudimentary, underdeveloped backstory. Even in the end, she doesn’t seem like an actual person, doesn’t ask the obvious questions. The story with the real nurse is much more interesting—within three months of Hemingway’s return to the United States, the nurse Hemingway intended to marry sent him a letter that she was engaged to an Italian officer!
A Farewell to Arms is a sad, wasted use of potential because the storytelling is horrendous—it could have been great if the characters were more interesting. Great reading material for bed!
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – I was fortunate enough to snag 19 FEL (First Edition Library) books that I bought at an estate sale for $500. These are reproductions of first editions.
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
They were both right about this book!
Jack Edward rated this as “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy” and said it was quite dull.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was even more savage. These are direct quotes from Fitzgerald to Hemingway:
“The characters too numerous […] Please cut! There’s absolutely no psycholical [Fitzgerald’s bad spelling] justification in introducing those singers—its not even bizarre. […] This is definately [again Fitzgerald’s spelling] dull. […] Later I was astonished to find it was only about 750 wds which only goes to show the pace you set yourself up to the point. It’s dull […] “That’s the way it was” is no answer […] I still believe its dull + slow.”
A big problem with this work is that it is somewhat autobiographical in nature. During World War I, Hemingway attempted to enlist in the US Army; however, he was disqualified because of his poor eyesight. Undeterred, Hemingway volunteered with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. After approximately one month of active service, Hemingway was wounded after delivering chocolate and cigarettes to the front line. While recovering in the hospital, Hemingway fell in love with a Red Cross nurse.
In A Farewell to Arms, we have Frederic Henry who is an American ambulance driver who falls in love with a nurse (or more precisely a VAD), Catherine Barkley.
But Hemingway did a poor job of writing Henry and Catherine. Henry is a bore, and he acts more like a 40-year-old than a still maturing, stumbling teenager. Even when Henry is in grave danger, literally running for his life, the tone isn’t frantic or exhilarating. This book has the wrong Henry—it needed Lord Henry Wotton from The Picture of Dorian Gray, a wild card, giving up great quotes, funny tinged with a bit of truth and intellect, and completely unpredictable!
Catherine is a cliché, extremely flat, and has only a rudimentary, underdeveloped backstory. Even in the end, she doesn’t seem like an actual person, doesn’t ask the obvious questions. The story with the real nurse is much more interesting—within three months of Hemingway’s return to the United States, the nurse Hemingway intended to marry sent him a letter that she was engaged to an Italian officer!
A Farewell to Arms is a sad, wasted use of potential because the storytelling is horrendous—it could have been great if the characters were more interesting. Great reading material for bed!
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – I was fortunate enough to snag 19 FEL (First Edition Library) books that I bought at an estate sale for $500. These are reproductions of first editions.
Audiobook – Free through Libby
2025 Reading Schedule
Jan A Town Like Alice
Feb Birdsong
Mar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
Apr War and Peace
May The Woman in White
Jun Atonement
Jul The Shadow of the Wind
Aug Jude the Obscure
Sep Ulysses
Oct Vanity Fair
Nov A Fine Balance
Dec Germinal
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Insta My Bookstore at Pango
July 25, 2009
I'm not a Hemingway guy. I yearn for internal dialogue, various and ladened spiritual questioning, and deep psychology in my characters. I prefer writing that is smooth and philosophical. Hemingway gives me little of this.
But the settings of this book were beautiful, and the dialogue between characters, poignant. By the end, I found that Hemingway had craftily fucked with me to the point of my complete immersion into the novel.
It made me cry.
But the settings of this book were beautiful, and the dialogue between characters, poignant. By the end, I found that Hemingway had craftily fucked with me to the point of my complete immersion into the novel.
It made me cry.
January 25, 2023
I have so many thoughts but no idea how to put them into words…*weeps rainy tears*
June 27, 2025
It is a strong story, beautiful and sad at the same time. It is a war novel, a book about men who question, drink, visit the front brothel, fight, die, or are wounded, and try to understand where it leads them. It is a love story that lasts an hour, a night, and a life, filling the void of man's solitude with the horror of war, which grows in the face of the absurdity of great words such as "duty and honour."
A rich vocabulary, a particular rhythm of short sentences, and numerous repetitions give the Italian tone to this novel, yet it remains very American. The author uses words effectively for descriptions, especially in fights, and modifies his style to suit the nationality and character of the characters. It is a well-researched, compelling story, an actual novel where a man finds himself naked, facing his fears and joys, a modern book in tone, a great novel!
The first pages disturbed me a little. I understood the meaning without understanding the style. However, I persevered well; it was well-written, and the story moved me significantly.
A rich vocabulary, a particular rhythm of short sentences, and numerous repetitions give the Italian tone to this novel, yet it remains very American. The author uses words effectively for descriptions, especially in fights, and modifies his style to suit the nationality and character of the characters. It is a well-researched, compelling story, an actual novel where a man finds himself naked, facing his fears and joys, a modern book in tone, a great novel!
The first pages disturbed me a little. I understood the meaning without understanding the style. However, I persevered well; it was well-written, and the story moved me significantly.
October 16, 2014
War is Boring
Hemingway’s narrator writes not as a soldier but as a journalist-soldier, channeling Hemingway himself, recording with precision and apparent objectivity the things that happen around him and to him - practical and prosaic and always pragmatic about everything. People die and bombs explode in the same paragraph as the one where breakfast was considered with equal interest, and he takes it all in his stride.
As best as I can tell, the action of A Farewell to Arms takes place from 1916 and before the end of the war. Place references and political references come and go without troubling the narrator too much - he is not to be bothered with such details. His context is not simply this war, but all wars and the notions of honor, heroism and patriotism - all of which he looks at with pristine incomprehension.
War always generates backlash, even from the Mahabharata and the Iliad to the many anti-war epics over the ages - the honor and glory that war is supposed to provide is questioned in its aftermath. The bloodlust and the fever-pitch cries of honor precedes war and then they calm down into searching questions about what those terms mean or into scathing parodies.
I am not entirely sure whether Farewell to Arms is a sober questioning of these virtues or a shambolic parody of them. It is never quite clear whether Hemingway is making fun of war or just expressing profound ennui. Especially when he combines Love with War, and both seem to get the same treatment, it becomes even harder to deduce whether Hemingway is ridiculing war and its virtues or life and its delusions in general and including love also into it. After all, the famous ending doesn’t leave us with much to pick up the pieces after.
The narrator tells the often ugly truth about war, without even trying to be anti-war in any way. By depicting daily life, he achieves it without an effort. It is the prosaicness of action, the utter lack of drama that becomes the most significant force in the narration - even his injury is incurred not in valorous combat but while he is eating spaghetti.
All this combines to show up war as a hideous game, but one entirely not worth the bother. There are so many subtle ways in which he trivializes war, always retaining the impression that it is not a conscious effort, as if he was not even telling us anything about the war, letting it remain in the background as a boring humm.
“The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else's college.”
We are not even allowed particularly intelligent characters to liven up the drudgery of our reading, the novel is full of the Ordinary, the exceptional striking in its absence - and the readers are left disoriented, repeatedly trying to remind themselves that they are in the midst of the greatest and most destructive war humanity had yet known.
In the end, war is exposed as not only meaningless but boring. Usually war writers exploit the Pathos of war, Hemingway walks right inside, shows us around and escorts us out after having shown us the utter blandness of the ‘heroic’ exercise.
Even the “Love Story” is constructed out of the boring bits and of repeated bland conversations that seem almost never-ending and droll. Here Hemingway is probably playing us again: instead of the usual technique of showing the pleasant bucolic scenery of distant daily-life and contrasting that against gory war scenes and thus asking the reader to thirst for the war to end, Hemingway places both the personal and the public sphere next to each other, exposes both and yet somehow derides war through this. I am not yet sure how he does that, but my feelings wherever I encountered this tells me that he does it well.
Hemingway’s notorious fault is the monotony of repetition, and he has always been considered a better short story writer than novelist - the short form plays into his prowess for portraying ironies in short staccato beats. In A Farewell to Arms, he brings both his strengths and weakness as a storyteller and makes them both work for him masterfully. He converts the act of boring the reader into an art form and into an exercise in supreme irony. Very effective. Almost as effective as comedy, if you ask me.
While it is hard to interpret A Farewell to Arms as hopeful, to me it was so, though in a subtle way. It leaves us the hope that if only more soldiers could be like the Tenente and just walk away from all the boredom, even though only boredom awaits in normal life, things could be better.
To me the most striking impression of all, in a work filled with unforgettable impressions, was the sheer acceptance exhibited by the narrator: The hustle of the war, his own life, and the entire world even seems to move past the stoic Tenente who is left a mere spectator, but who never seems to question the events that unfold.
This captures the spirit of the war and also of the times.
April 9, 2020
Damn. That ending. Even whilst still dusting off the cover (it's been lying around for ages) I already knew it's finale. It's simply been impossible to ignore. Even cropping up in three or four films I have seen over the years. Knowing it is one thing, but actually reading it is quite another. So, the big question is - did this in anyway tarnish the novel for me? In a word, No. As once I truly got stuck into Hemingway's compulsive narrative all was forgotten. His presentation of war was just as remarkable as his sincerity of presenting us with love. Both leading characters were simply two of the 20th century's most memorable - the all American hero Henry, a volunteer in the Italian Ambulance Service, and the sweet natured English nurse Catherine Barkley who adds a subtle feminine charm throughout the novel.
All the descriptions of life on the WW1 front and in the hospitals, the talk of the officers, privates, and doctors, are crisp, clear and so natural, making for a convincing narrative the whole way through, even though Henry perhaps felt a little too mature and experienced for a young man. Catherine I saw as the more credible character, she was most skilfully modelled as the eternal feminine in nursing dress. Difficult to work out at first, but oh God how I fell in love with her. It comes as no surprise to me it was a book I found easy to read like other Hemingway books, made even easier after the head scratching and exasperation at the hands of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury prior to this.
Hemingway dramatically intensifies the narrative after the halfway point, and the story deepens on an emotional level as Henry patched up from a war wound returns to the Isonzo front. The year has been a serious one for the Italian army, and a breakthrough for the Germans at Caporetto spells disaster. The Caporetto retreat, which forms the background for an entire portion of the book, and furnishes the action, is simply a masterly piece of descriptive narration. After escaping death by diving into a river, and later arrest by concealing himself in a gun truck till it reaches Milan, the novel really does showcase two people very much in love. It reminded me of the deep love shown in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. I can't think of too many other novels I have read were I have felt a love so great and pure. Some of the scenes held such an atmospheric truth, whether in love or war, that it's easy to see why it's probably Hemingway's most read novel, even though it might not be his best.
The story of Henry and Catherine could have been overly polished with sentimentality (one of my pet hates), and probably would have been had Hemingway been around in the Victorian era. Thankfully, there is only as much as a slight echo. This no doubt deserves to be branded as a classic, and it didn't let me down. A Farewell to Arms was simply a most moving and beautiful thing. The reason for not dishing out the five stars is that I still preferred The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast. But that's just me.
All the descriptions of life on the WW1 front and in the hospitals, the talk of the officers, privates, and doctors, are crisp, clear and so natural, making for a convincing narrative the whole way through, even though Henry perhaps felt a little too mature and experienced for a young man. Catherine I saw as the more credible character, she was most skilfully modelled as the eternal feminine in nursing dress. Difficult to work out at first, but oh God how I fell in love with her. It comes as no surprise to me it was a book I found easy to read like other Hemingway books, made even easier after the head scratching and exasperation at the hands of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury prior to this.
Hemingway dramatically intensifies the narrative after the halfway point, and the story deepens on an emotional level as Henry patched up from a war wound returns to the Isonzo front. The year has been a serious one for the Italian army, and a breakthrough for the Germans at Caporetto spells disaster. The Caporetto retreat, which forms the background for an entire portion of the book, and furnishes the action, is simply a masterly piece of descriptive narration. After escaping death by diving into a river, and later arrest by concealing himself in a gun truck till it reaches Milan, the novel really does showcase two people very much in love. It reminded me of the deep love shown in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. I can't think of too many other novels I have read were I have felt a love so great and pure. Some of the scenes held such an atmospheric truth, whether in love or war, that it's easy to see why it's probably Hemingway's most read novel, even though it might not be his best.
The story of Henry and Catherine could have been overly polished with sentimentality (one of my pet hates), and probably would have been had Hemingway been around in the Victorian era. Thankfully, there is only as much as a slight echo. This no doubt deserves to be branded as a classic, and it didn't let me down. A Farewell to Arms was simply a most moving and beautiful thing. The reason for not dishing out the five stars is that I still preferred The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast. But that's just me.
March 16, 2017
In the fall of that year we rented a house in the mountains that looked down across the river to the village below. The water of the river was turquoise and the village had a pretty campanile and beyond it rose more mountains and beyond them still more. The man who owned our cottage lived next door and made his own dry cured sausage and we would go round and eat it by the fire and talk about how fine the sausage tasted. On the hills all around there were deer, and in the evenings we would sit on the balcony of our cottage and wrap ourselves in blankets for the cold, and if we looked one way we would see the deer and if we looked the other way we would see the village down at the bottom of the valley.
The village was called Kobarid but it also had names in other languages. The Germans called it Karfreit and the Italians called it Caporetto and I said to Hannah that it was never a good sign when so many other languages had names for one little village. Sure enough we found a museum in the village dedicated to a big battle that had taken place there during the First World War. The people at the museum pointed at the mountain slopes and I don't remember exactly what they told us but I remember feeling sick and upset and thinking that I ought to know more about what had happened there and why.
The Italian army had gotten through a lot of ambulances during that war and one of the men who drove the ambulances at Kobarid was an American called Ernest Hemingway. Later he wrote a book about it and this is that book. The war parts are very good but gradually they recede into the background and a tragic love story comes to the foreground, and the tragic love story is difficult to enjoy because the woman is so old-fashionedly self-effacing and devoted to the hero that she seems either unrealistic or infuriating to modern readers.
The prose is direct and world-weary and often it sounds fine and ironic and cynical like this:
But often it just seems gratuitously pessimistic and this is especially true for the way the book ends. When I went to Kobarid we were very happy. I remember the place very well because we were on the porch of our cottage there when I asked Hannah to marry me. She said yes and our memories of that mountain and that village are very happy ones. This book does not end in the same way and although it is strong and powerful I really wish someone had told me that I should not be reading this ending while my wife is nine months' pregnant.
(Dec 2013)
The village was called Kobarid but it also had names in other languages. The Germans called it Karfreit and the Italians called it Caporetto and I said to Hannah that it was never a good sign when so many other languages had names for one little village. Sure enough we found a museum in the village dedicated to a big battle that had taken place there during the First World War. The people at the museum pointed at the mountain slopes and I don't remember exactly what they told us but I remember feeling sick and upset and thinking that I ought to know more about what had happened there and why.
The Italian army had gotten through a lot of ambulances during that war and one of the men who drove the ambulances at Kobarid was an American called Ernest Hemingway. Later he wrote a book about it and this is that book. The war parts are very good but gradually they recede into the background and a tragic love story comes to the foreground, and the tragic love story is difficult to enjoy because the woman is so old-fashionedly self-effacing and devoted to the hero that she seems either unrealistic or infuriating to modern readers.
The prose is direct and world-weary and often it sounds fine and ironic and cynical like this:
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
But often it just seems gratuitously pessimistic and this is especially true for the way the book ends. When I went to Kobarid we were very happy. I remember the place very well because we were on the porch of our cottage there when I asked Hannah to marry me. She said yes and our memories of that mountain and that village are very happy ones. This book does not end in the same way and although it is strong and powerful I really wish someone had told me that I should not be reading this ending while my wife is nine months' pregnant.
(Dec 2013)
April 15, 2017
Well, that was disappointing.
For several months I've been focused on reading more classic literature, mostly as a way to dig deep and enrich my life during these trying political times. Until now, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. This Hemingway novel was my first dud.
I wanted to like this book. I've been reading more on World War I this past year and thought A Farewell to Arms would fit both my WWI interest and my goal of appreciating classics. But ol' Hem (as I learned to call him in A Moveable Feast, a book of his I did like) didn't make it easy for me when he wrote the character of Catherine Barkley. Catherine plays the love interest in this novel, and she is so insipid, silly and annoying that I started dreading this book.
The story follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during the war. He meets Catherine, who is a British nurse, and they fall in love. Catherine eventually becomes pregnant, and they manage to escape to Switzerland. The ending of this book is depressing, as are most war novels.
But the sad ending isn't why I disliked this book so much. Hemingway is famous for his "terse prose," but I think in this book it does him a disservice. The characters are two-dimensional, the war scenes lacked grit, and the whole novel just felt flat to me. Hem does have a few famous lines that came from Farewell (some noted below), which is what kept this book from a 1 rating for me.
I listened to this on audio, performed by the talented John Slattery (of "Mad Men" fame) but not even he could make me excited to read this Hemingway book. It reminded me of when I listened to Colin Firth read Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, and Firth's marvelousness couldn't salvage that novel, either. Both are good actors doing their best with mediocre texts.
If I were going to recommend a World War I novel to someone, I would tell them to read All Quiet on the Western Front, and to skip Farewell. I'll circle back around to some other Hem novels in the future, but for now I'm going to enjoy a break from his terseness.*
*Note: My first instinct when writing this review was to imitate Hem's signature style, lots of "fine and true and good and courage" and whatnot, but frankly, Warwick wrote his review so well that I abandoned the idea and encourage you to check out his grand version.
Good Quotes
"All thinking men are atheists."
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
"I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."
Final Thought
One addendum is that I had a print copy of A Farewell to Arms that included Hemingway's introduction to the 1948 edition, and I liked those 3 1/2 pages better than I liked the entire novel. If you do give this book a chance, try to find a copy with that author intro.
For several months I've been focused on reading more classic literature, mostly as a way to dig deep and enrich my life during these trying political times. Until now, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. This Hemingway novel was my first dud.
I wanted to like this book. I've been reading more on World War I this past year and thought A Farewell to Arms would fit both my WWI interest and my goal of appreciating classics. But ol' Hem (as I learned to call him in A Moveable Feast, a book of his I did like) didn't make it easy for me when he wrote the character of Catherine Barkley. Catherine plays the love interest in this novel, and she is so insipid, silly and annoying that I started dreading this book.
The story follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during the war. He meets Catherine, who is a British nurse, and they fall in love. Catherine eventually becomes pregnant, and they manage to escape to Switzerland. The ending of this book is depressing, as are most war novels.
But the sad ending isn't why I disliked this book so much. Hemingway is famous for his "terse prose," but I think in this book it does him a disservice. The characters are two-dimensional, the war scenes lacked grit, and the whole novel just felt flat to me. Hem does have a few famous lines that came from Farewell (some noted below), which is what kept this book from a 1 rating for me.
I listened to this on audio, performed by the talented John Slattery (of "Mad Men" fame) but not even he could make me excited to read this Hemingway book. It reminded me of when I listened to Colin Firth read Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, and Firth's marvelousness couldn't salvage that novel, either. Both are good actors doing their best with mediocre texts.
If I were going to recommend a World War I novel to someone, I would tell them to read All Quiet on the Western Front, and to skip Farewell. I'll circle back around to some other Hem novels in the future, but for now I'm going to enjoy a break from his terseness.*
*Note: My first instinct when writing this review was to imitate Hem's signature style, lots of "fine and true and good and courage" and whatnot, but frankly, Warwick wrote his review so well that I abandoned the idea and encourage you to check out his grand version.
Good Quotes
"All thinking men are atheists."
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
"I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."
Final Thought
One addendum is that I had a print copy of A Farewell to Arms that included Hemingway's introduction to the 1948 edition, and I liked those 3 1/2 pages better than I liked the entire novel. If you do give this book a chance, try to find a copy with that author intro.
"The fact that the book was a tragic one did not make me unhappy since I believed that life was a tragedy and knew it could have only one end. But finding you were able to make something up; to create truly enough so that it made you happy to read it; and to do this every day you worked was something that gave me a greater pleasure than any I had ever known. Beside it nothing else mattered."
January 20, 2023
An American studying architecture in Rome, Frederick Henry, is transformed into a Lt. in the Italian Army, when World War I starts. He volunteers even though America doesn't enter , the Great War, for another 3 years ! Why? He probably can't say, himself , but young men want excitement in their dull lives. He joins the ambulance corps on the northern front , in charge of four drivers , and a few motorcars, picking up the badly wounded soldiers, when feasible, the dead are carried outside the vehicles , no need now. Austrians are the enemy, but the high snowy mountains, freezing weather , make battles difficult, to fight, swollen rivers dangerous to cross , the artillery flashing in the night, screaming mortars above , and coming down no-one knows where, except the unfortunates, but too late for them. Rinaldi a very capable surgeon in the Italian army , getting better every day, putting back together the wounded bodies, saving lives, most of the time . Is Lt. Henry's affable roommate, always joking, and best friend, in a good house, in a mostly undamaged village, near the war, for officers. A man who loves women, to a certain degree ( lust may be the correct word), he has seen his latest enchanting female, but to his deep regret, not a mutual feeling between the two. The gracious doctor tells the lieutenant about the beautiful blonde, tall British nurse, Catherine Barkley, even introduces him. It doesn't take long for a romance, she lost her fiancee in France, last year, 1916, in the trenches, at first she , then he too falls in love , not wanting or expecting it, her best friend and fellow nurse Helen Ferguson , disapproves. Lonely people amid a terrible conflict somehow require something to continue their joyless existence. Shortly after, while waiting in a ditch at the front, for the bombardment to halt, a mortar shell hits, killing one of his men and badly wounding him, in both legs.The ambulance will take the driver for a ride not in front, this time, but in the back, he the young American, feels a warm liquid dropping from the top, the blood oozing out of another soldier, will not stop, Henry can't move, just endure, until there is no more. The vehicle ceases traveling, heavy rains pouring down, the dead man put on the muddy ground, and another victim carried inside. They finally arrive at the unsanitary field hospital, safely navigating the treacherous mountain roads and bombs. Catherine becomes the Lt.'s nurse and much more. Since Milan, is not far away and an American hospital has just opened (this is 1917), a better place for treatment. Catherine gets assigned there, never a difficulty, she says mysteriously. But the recovered Mr.Henry, must go back to the front when he is healed, their happiness is over. A novel based on Hemingway's experiences in the war, he was a 19 -year -old ambulance driver, almost dying of battle wounds, and having an unhappy affair with an older nurse.
December 16, 2015
Once, there was a time when I would have struggled through this one, convinced that since it was a "classic", there must be some redeeming quality to it. I'd have struggled to the bitter end, hating it more and more, and I'd have been disappointed by it even if there was something worthwhile at the end. Because getting there was tedious, boring, painful, and annoying.
This book has a lot of very varied reviews and opinions. Lots of people loved it, lots of people hated it. I can see why. It's a book that some people will definitely like. Masculinity, heavy drinking, etc will naturally appeal to some more than others. The love story aspect will appeal to some that aren't so much into the other stuff, and the war stuff will do for still more, maybe. Usually, the war and the masculinity and stuff would be my thing - but this just didn't do anything for me.
I think that this was due to the writing, and the reading. I didn't like the reader at all. He had a kind of clipped reading style, and since the writing was full of short sentences, it made it hard for me to settle into the reading and listen. A good reader needs a quality that draws a listener in - but this one did just the opposite. I struggled on through about 3 discs and I just could not stand the reader enough to get into the story. And the story wasn't doing much to help. Staccato sentences, back and forth. Lots of pointless dialogue that, I suppose, in the end would have painted a full picture and come together, but I just found myself not caring at all.
And this featured my very least favorite writing trick ever: using dialogue to replace explaining action...
"Here drink this. No all of it. It will do you good!"
"I don't want it. Put it on the table."
"Here - you drink it all up! There's a good boy. You'll see. It'll do you good like I say. No, sit down. Listen to me now."
"Answer the door, I think it's unimportant person number 4 coming to tell us something unimportant. What's he saying?"
"Go sit back down, I'll tell you everything in a minute. Here, drink more of this. Good."
The romance aspects, what little I saw, were just as abrasive and annoying.
"Oh, I love you! Do you love me? Say you love me."
"Yes I love you."
"Oh, you're just saying that! It's the war. You don't mean it."
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't"
"Yes, really."
"Ok, sure. Because I love you, but you don't have to lie to me."
BLAH! Shut up. Who cares?! I just struggled along, in this three-against-one uphill battle... And they won. I raised my white flag and gave up. No mas, por favor.
This book has a lot of very varied reviews and opinions. Lots of people loved it, lots of people hated it. I can see why. It's a book that some people will definitely like. Masculinity, heavy drinking, etc will naturally appeal to some more than others. The love story aspect will appeal to some that aren't so much into the other stuff, and the war stuff will do for still more, maybe. Usually, the war and the masculinity and stuff would be my thing - but this just didn't do anything for me.
I think that this was due to the writing, and the reading. I didn't like the reader at all. He had a kind of clipped reading style, and since the writing was full of short sentences, it made it hard for me to settle into the reading and listen. A good reader needs a quality that draws a listener in - but this one did just the opposite. I struggled on through about 3 discs and I just could not stand the reader enough to get into the story. And the story wasn't doing much to help. Staccato sentences, back and forth. Lots of pointless dialogue that, I suppose, in the end would have painted a full picture and come together, but I just found myself not caring at all.
And this featured my very least favorite writing trick ever: using dialogue to replace explaining action...
"Here drink this. No all of it. It will do you good!"
"I don't want it. Put it on the table."
"Here - you drink it all up! There's a good boy. You'll see. It'll do you good like I say. No, sit down. Listen to me now."
"Answer the door, I think it's unimportant person number 4 coming to tell us something unimportant. What's he saying?"
"Go sit back down, I'll tell you everything in a minute. Here, drink more of this. Good."
The romance aspects, what little I saw, were just as abrasive and annoying.
"Oh, I love you! Do you love me? Say you love me."
"Yes I love you."
"Oh, you're just saying that! It's the war. You don't mean it."
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't"
"Yes, really."
"Ok, sure. Because I love you, but you don't have to lie to me."
BLAH! Shut up. Who cares?! I just struggled along, in this three-against-one uphill battle... And they won. I raised my white flag and gave up. No mas, por favor.
July 20, 2016
این کتاب زاویه دید متفاوتی از جنگ را روایت میکنه
و البته باز قهرمان کتاب مردی است با شخصیتی خاص
افسری آمریکایی در ایتالیا و در بحبوبه جنگ درگیر عشق با پرستاری انگلیسی می شود
صحنه جنگی هم در کتاب کم نیست و همچنین نشان دادن واقعیت جنگ
سربازان و سرگردانی که دنبال فرصتی اند که از جنگ فرار کنند یا مرخصی بگیرند
حتی بخودشون ضربه میزنند تا در بیمارستان بستری بشوند
عشق زیبای فردریک هنری و کاترین بارکلی نقطه اوج داستان بود.این قسمت رو همینگوی عالی در آورده بود و سرشار از احساس بود
ولی از صحنه جنگ و تشریحش اصلا لذت نبردم.بنظرم کمی بیش از حد طولانی شده بود
فک کنم این کتاب برام وداع با همینگوی هم بود
پیرمرد و دریا و این کتابش رو خوندم.دیگه حسی برای خوندن کتاب دیگری از ایشون ندارم
و البته باز قهرمان کتاب مردی است با شخصیتی خاص
افسری آمریکایی در ایتالیا و در بحبوبه جنگ درگیر عشق با پرستاری انگلیسی می شود
صحنه جنگی هم در کتاب کم نیست و همچنین نشان دادن واقعیت جنگ
سربازان و سرگردانی که دنبال فرصتی اند که از جنگ فرار کنند یا مرخصی بگیرند
حتی بخودشون ضربه میزنند تا در بیمارستان بستری بشوند
عشق زیبای فردریک هنری و کاترین بارکلی نقطه اوج داستان بود.این قسمت رو همینگوی عالی در آورده بود و سرشار از احساس بود
ولی از صحنه جنگ و تشریحش اصلا لذت نبردم.بنظرم کمی بیش از حد طولانی شده بود
فک کنم این کتاب برام وداع با همینگوی هم بود
پیرمرد و دریا و این کتابش رو خوندم.دیگه حسی برای خوندن کتاب دیگری از ایشون ندارم
July 17, 2020
اگه دنبال کتابی هستید که نویسنده در 400 صفحه شمارو مسخره کنه و بعد از تمام شدندکتاب بنشینید و حرص بخورید، کتاب خوبی رو انتخاب کردید!
ایده ی داستان شاید فقط به درد فیلمنامه شدن میخوره و ماجرای عشقی داستان و حتی ماجرای جنگی بسیار آبکی و وحوصلهسربره.
پس وقتتان را تلف نکنید، فیلم رو ببینید و سمت این داستان نروید
:|
ایده ی داستان شاید فقط به درد فیلمنامه شدن میخوره و ماجرای عشقی داستان و حتی ماجرای جنگی بسیار آبکی و وحوصلهسربره.
پس وقتتان را تلف نکنید، فیلم رو ببینید و سمت این داستان نروید
:|
October 13, 2023
What a strange and sometimes hollow novel.
It’s my first Hemingway and someone suggested that could have been my mistake.
I see it’s often well received and reviewed by other Goodreads users and I’ve found some reviews well-written and interesting. I can’t include myself as a big fan.
I did some post-read research to see what I could be missing.
Seems to be a fair bit written about the meanings behind Hemingway’s use of rain, snow, plus his use of convincing, realistic, clipped dialogue. I’m not convinced.
I understand his unadorned writing style was somewhat trailblazing, and it’s been suggested this was a reaction to the descriptive-laden style of, among others, Hardy, the Brontës and Jane Austin. Hemingway worked tirelessly to self-edit and delete ‘unnecessary’ words. My feeling is he might have gone too far.
Interestingly, my former German lecturer said it was the first English text she got to read.
I commented that for me the writing, was simplistic and sometimes juvenile.
‘Exactly,’ she replied. ‘That’s why it was such a good choice for my first English novel’.
I’ll leave it at that.
2.5 stars rounded up.
It’s my first Hemingway and someone suggested that could have been my mistake.
I see it’s often well received and reviewed by other Goodreads users and I’ve found some reviews well-written and interesting. I can’t include myself as a big fan.
I did some post-read research to see what I could be missing.
Seems to be a fair bit written about the meanings behind Hemingway’s use of rain, snow, plus his use of convincing, realistic, clipped dialogue. I’m not convinced.
I understand his unadorned writing style was somewhat trailblazing, and it’s been suggested this was a reaction to the descriptive-laden style of, among others, Hardy, the Brontës and Jane Austin. Hemingway worked tirelessly to self-edit and delete ‘unnecessary’ words. My feeling is he might have gone too far.
Interestingly, my former German lecturer said it was the first English text she got to read.
I commented that for me the writing, was simplistic and sometimes juvenile.
‘Exactly,’ she replied. ‘That’s why it was such a good choice for my first English novel’.
I’ll leave it at that.
2.5 stars rounded up.
April 26, 2016
A Farewell to Arms sort of gives you the inkling that Hemingway's death will probably involve a shotgun.
It's just that sad. Front to back, this is one of the more mournful novels I've read. It's about Henry, an ambulance driver in World War I. He is wounded and falls in love with Catherine, a nurse. They exchange odd banter. They fall in love in love during a summer in Milan (but who wouldn't?). He knocks Catherine up, then returns to the front. Unfortunately for him, he is fighting with Italians, and, as the Italians are known to do, he is soon in full retreat. (I don't know why the French get such a bad rap, the Italians haven't won a war since sacking Carthage). Henry is captured by military police and in danger of being executed, but he manages to escape. He reunites with Catherine and, inexplicably, ends up living with her in Switzerland. Things are idyllic for awhile. The lazy, languid life reminiscent of The Sun Also Rises.
Then, of course, life intervenes.
The end is tragic. Heartbreaking. The writing is brilliant, such as in Hemingway's famous line about how the world breaks us all:
There's no cynicism here, just bitterness. It's prototypical Hemingway. The sparseness and terseness interspersed with long, emotion-laden sentences. I place this in the middle of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which ends badly but is full of passion and love, and The Sun Also Rises, which is like an early 20th century The Real World.
It's just that sad. Front to back, this is one of the more mournful novels I've read. It's about Henry, an ambulance driver in World War I. He is wounded and falls in love with Catherine, a nurse. They exchange odd banter. They fall in love in love during a summer in Milan (but who wouldn't?). He knocks Catherine up, then returns to the front. Unfortunately for him, he is fighting with Italians, and, as the Italians are known to do, he is soon in full retreat. (I don't know why the French get such a bad rap, the Italians haven't won a war since sacking Carthage). Henry is captured by military police and in danger of being executed, but he manages to escape. He reunites with Catherine and, inexplicably, ends up living with her in Switzerland. Things are idyllic for awhile. The lazy, languid life reminiscent of The Sun Also Rises.
Then, of course, life intervenes.
The end is tragic. Heartbreaking. The writing is brilliant, such as in Hemingway's famous line about how the world breaks us all:
We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
There's no cynicism here, just bitterness. It's prototypical Hemingway. The sparseness and terseness interspersed with long, emotion-laden sentences. I place this in the middle of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which ends badly but is full of passion and love, and The Sun Also Rises, which is like an early 20th century The Real World.
September 6, 2021
An absolute masterpiece about love and war written by Hemingway at the summit of his powers. We follow Henry, American ambulance driver in WWI at the Italian front between Milan and Venice. He falls in love with Catherine, an English nurse and goes off to the front. While sharing cheese and pasta with his camarades in a trench, he is nearly killed by an Austrian trench bomb. Catherine nurses him back to health, but is pregnant when he is sent back to the front. As the Italians start to retreat after part of the front collapses, Henry gets separated from his driver, nearly gets executed as a deserter, and flees down the frozen river holding on to a branch. He ends up hopping a train to Milan, reuniting with Catherine and fleeing military arrest by crossing into Switzerland with Cat. The story moves so quickly that the pages just fly by.
Hemingway’s terse style and his realistic stoccato dialogues really breath life into the story and draw the reader in. I loved the fishing stories here, the descriptions of his mountain stay in Switzerland, his drunken talks with his friends like Rinaldi and the priest. It is an unforgettable book which exposes the brutality of war and juxtaposes it with the complexities of relationships and becoming a father (or not).
Don't miss my review of the Meyer biography of Hemingway: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 13, 2025
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توجه: ریویوی زیر کمی اسپول دارد، اگرچه پایانِ داستان را لو نمیدهد.
***
کمتر نویسندهای پیدا میشود که به اندازهی همینگوی تجربهی مستقیم از جنگ داشته باشد.
در جنگ جهانی اول به عنوان راننده آمبولانس شرکت کرد (که منجر شد به نوشتن همین کتاب) بعد به عنوان خبرنگار درگیر جنگ داخلی اسپانیا شد (که باعث شد «ناقوسِ مرگِ کیست» را بنویسد)، و به عنوان حُسنِ ختام باز هم به عنوان خبرنگار به سراغ جنگ جهانی دوم رفت (بخشی از کتاب «در امتداد رودخانه به سمت درختها» راجع به خاطراتِ این جنگ است)
انگار همینگوی به دنبال جنگ میرفت و جنگ به دنبال همینگوی.
به هرحال، «وداع با اسلحه» بازتابی از خاطرات و زندگینامهی شخصیِ همینگوی است از جنگجهانی اول، البته با تغییر و دستکاری.
او هم مثل شخصیت اصلیِ این کتاب از آمریکا به ایتالیا رفت تا در برابر ارتش اتریش بایستد، او هم در جنگ از ناحیهی پا مجروح و بستری شد، و حتی او هم در جریان جنگ عاشق یک خانم پرستار شد، عشقی که به دلایل نامعلوم نافرجام ماند، اما باعث شکلگیری شخصیت «کاترین» در این کتاب شد.
اجازه بدهید همین ابتدا سنگهایم را با همینگوی وابکَنم و از نقاط ضعف «وداع با اسلحه» بنویسم و بعد بروم سراغ قربان صدقهها!
نقاط ضعف
• کیفیتِ داستان یکدست نیست، داستان از نظر من شروع و پایانی درخشان دارد (حدود ۷۰ صفحهی اول و ۷۰ صفحهی آخر) ولی در میانه افت میکند، تمام نقاط قوت همینگوی که در ادامه خواهم نوشت، در میانهی داستان کمرنگ میشوند.
• شخصیتپردازی داستان خوب نیست، ما در این کتاب با راوی اول شخص مواجهیم که همان شخصیت اصلی یعنی فردریک هِنری است و میشود گفت شخصیتپردازی قابل قبولی دارد، بقیهی شخصیتها بسیار کمعمقاند و من ترجیح میدادم لااقل برای «کاترین» و «رینالدی» شخصیتپردازیِ بهتری داشتیم.
• کاش داستان عاشقانهی کتاب، عمق و ظرافتِ عاشقانهی بیشتری داشت. (این چه وضع اولین بوسهی عشق است، آقای همینگوی؟ خب، شاید هم انتظار من از نویسندهای که بخش قابل توجهی از عمرش را در جنگ سپری کرده، انتظار بیجایی است!) به نظرم ایدهی این داستانِ عاشقانه، ایدهی بسیار خوبی بوده و میتوانسته خیلی بهتر استفاده شود. شخصیت کاترین به طور کلی خیلی کمعمق و منفعل است، بنابراین تعجبی ندارد که رابطهی داستان هم به قدرِ کافی عمق پیدا نمیکند.
اما برویم به سراغ نکات مثبت داستان:
در ستایش نثر همینگوی
هنگام خواندن آثار همینگوی نباید زیاد به دنبال یک داستان پر کشش یا خیالانگیز یا تکاندهنده و احساسی باشید، آنچه که بیش از همهچیز همینگوی را در میان نویسندگان متمایز میکند، نثر اوست.
بگذارید اعتراف کنم، من از شیفتگان نثر همینگوی، و شیوهی نویسندگیاش هستم.
همانطور که در یادداشتم دربارهی «پیرمرد و دریا» نوشتم (چقدر از آن یادداشت گذشته! به کجا چنین شتابان ای عمر؟) نثر همینگوی سهل و ممتنع است (مطمئن نیستم استفاده از اصطلاح سهل و ممتنع برای نثر همینگوی بهترین توصیف باشد، یا تاکنون کسی آن را در فارسی برای شیوهی نوشتنِ همینگوی استفاده کرده باشد، ولی نزدیکترین توصیفی است که به ذهن من میرسد) نثری عریان و جسور، ولی همزمان ظریف و پیراسته.
نثری با جملات کوتاه و ساده که میکوشد پیام کوبندهاش را با فشردگیِ زیاد به خواننده برساند. همینگوی خودش شیوهی نوشتنش را به کوه یخ تشبیه میکرد. نوک قلهی کوه یخ را میخوانی ولی پیام و ساختار و نمادها پیدا نیستند.
نثری که وقتی آن را میخوانی، با خود میگویی: «چه ساده! نوشتن این که کاری ندارد!» کم نبودهاند نویسندگانی که به تقلید از سبکِ نوشتههای همینگوی پرداختهاند، و کم نبودهاند مقلدانِ شکست خورده از سادگیِ فریبندهی نثر همینگوی.
فقط تعداد کمی از نویسندگان توانستهاند با موفقیت از سادگی، شفافیت و عمقِ نثر همینگوی تقلید کنند (مثل ریموند کارور یا کورمک مکارتی)
نثر همینگوی درختی است که بارها هَرَس شده تا سادگی و پیراستگی را به چشم خواننده بنمایاند، و طلایی است که بارها چکشکاری شده تا شکل جواهری باارزش به خود بگیرد.
برای فهم بهتر، من چند نمونهی از نظر من جالب از نثر همینگوی در این کتاب را اینجا میآورم، با این توضیح که از این نمونهها در کتاب بسیار است (حتی نمونههای جالبتر) و این برداشتِ من از این مثالهاست و ممکن است برداشت شما متفاوت یا زیباتر باشد. (برداشتهای مختلف از نثر همینگوی طبیعی است)
در نمونهی زیر، همینگوی میخواهد کمارزش بودنِ جان انسانها را در شرایط جنگ نمایش دهد، انسانهایی که به راحتی میمیرند و جنگسالاران کمتر به جانِ از دست رفتهی آنها توجه میکنند، این موضوعی است که خودش میتواند موضوع یک داستان کوتاه جداگانه یا یک رمان باشد، حالا همینگوی چطور آن را بیان میکند:
همانطور که میبینید همینگوی برای نشاندادن همین بیاهمیت بودن جان سربازان، خودش هم سوار بر این پیام میشود. انگار مردن هفتهزار تن نظامی بر اثر وبا وسط جنگ یک اتفاق خیلی معمولی است. خواننده وقتی با این عبارتِ کوتاه در میان داستان مواجه میشود، شوکه میشود و اثر عبارت بر خواننده در اثر کوتاهی، خشونت، صراحت و کوبندگی، چند برابر میشود.
در عبارت زیر همینگوی میخواهد نشان دهد که بین شرایط سربازان ساده و شرایط افسران مافوق، عدالتی در کار نیست، این را میشود به شیوههای گوناگون بیان کرد ولی همینگوی با یک جملهی ساده، ضربهاش را کوتاه، اما کاری به خواننده میزند:
دیالوگهای نوشتهشده توسط همینگوی، مانند نثر عادیِ داستان بسیار فکر شده نوشته شدهاند، دیالوگهایی که در متن داستان طبیعی و باورپذیر مینمایند، و همزمان، فکر و نکتهی نهفتهای پشت آنهاست (حتی دیالوگهایی که در حالت مستی گفته شدهاند) همینگوی بر لبهی باریکی راه میرود، از یک طرف باورپذیری و سادگیِ دیالوگی که از زبان یک شخصیت عادی گفته میشود، و از طرف دیگر پیام عمیق پشت آن:
حتی به سخره گرفتن آداب و افتخارات جنگ، برای همینگوی کاری عادی است:
از خوبیهای دیگر کتاب، میتوانم به تضادهایی که همینگوی در داستان ایجاد کرده اشاره کنم. تضادهایی که به زیباییِ بیشترِ داستان کمک کرده، تضاد بین لطافت عشق و خشونت جنگ (که در بسیاری از کتابها و فیلمهای دیگر نیز از این تضاد استفاده شده) و تضاد بین زیباییهای طبیعت و زشتیها و ویرانههای جنگ.
به طور کلی «وداع با اسلحه» تأثیرگذارترین یا تکاندهندهترین اثر ضدجنگ نیست، ولی به واسطهی تجربههای مستقیم همینگوی و کیفیت نثرش، یکی از واقعیترینها و باورپذیرترینهاست.
دربارهی ترجمه
همانطور که در بررسی کتاب «پیرمرد و دریا» نوشتم، زندهیاد دریابندری با مقدمهی مفصلش در آن کتاب، به شناخت درستی از همینگوی و شیوهی نوشتنِ او رسیده بود. از طرفی نثر خود دریابندری در کتابهای تألیفیاش، از لحاظ سادگی و پاکیزگی، بیشباهت به همینگوی نبود. به این ترتیب باید دریابندری را بهترین گزینه برای ترجمهی آثار همینگوی به شمار آوریم.
اما ترجمهی این کتاب بسیار قدیمی شده است (چاپ اول: ۱۳۴۰ و به نظر میرسد تازه این نسخهی بازنویسی شده باشد)
عبارات و کلمات از فارسیِ امروزی فاصله گرفتهاند و حتی اگر کتاب را با متن اصلی مقایسه کنید، متوجهِ اشتباهات ریزی در ترجمه خواهید شد.
فکر میکنم دریابندری اگر زنده بود، شاید دست به بازترجمهی کتاب میزد تا درستتر و به زبان امروز نزدیکتر شود.
با این حال مشکلی که من با ترجمههای جدیدترِ سایر مترجمان از آثار همینگوی دارم، این است که هیچکدام از مترجمینِ جدید به اندازهی دریابندری به درک درستی از نثر همینگوی نرسیدهاند.
به همین دلیل همچنان به نظرم ترجمههای دریابندری از آثار همینگوی از بهترین ترجمهها باشند.
یکی از دوستان خوبم در ریویویش نوشته که ترجمهی این کتاب بسیار ایرانیزه شده که نظر نادرستی هم نیست، ولی دریابندری در «پیرمرد و دریا» چنان به افراط ترجمه را ایرانیزه (یا بهتر است بگویم بوشهریزه و محلیزه!) کرده است که ایرانیزه بودنِ این ترجمه در مقابل آن به چشم نمیآید.
پینوشت ۱: گاهی متوجه نیستیم که دنیا چقدر در یک دو قرن اخیر در بعضی چیزها پیشرفت کرده، صحنهی زایمان را که در این کتاب میخواندم، با خود فکر میکردم که پیشرفتهای علمی چطور همهچیز را، مثل بارداری و زایمان متحول کرده است. پیشرفت در مراقبتهای پیش و پس از زایمان آنقدر زیاد بوده که وضعیت زایمان در این کتاب که کمتر از صد سال پیش نوشته شده، ممکن است برای خوانندهی امروزی بسیار عجیب به نظر برسد.
پینوشت ۲: خواندن کتاب را که آغاز کردم، چند بار ناخودآگاه یاد شوخی سریال family guy با این کتاب و نامش افتادم و پوزخند زدم. (اگر سریال را دیده باشید شاید این قسمت را به یاد آورید) داشتم فکر میکردم این هم از شوخیهایی در سطح زبان است که فقط در زبان اصلی (به واسطهی معنای دوگانه arm) خندهدار است و در اثر ترجمه بامزگیاش از بین میرود، همانطور که اگر خوشمزگیهای فارسی مثلا در نثر عبید یا شعر ایرج را به انگلیسی ترجمه کنیم، بسیاری از آنها بیمزه میشوند.
توجه: ریویوی زیر کمی اسپول دارد، اگرچه پایانِ داستان را لو نمیدهد.
***
کمتر نویسندهای پیدا میشود که به اندازهی همینگوی تجربهی مستقیم از جنگ داشته باشد.
در جنگ جهانی اول به عنوان راننده آمبولانس شرکت کرد (که منجر شد به نوشتن همین کتاب) بعد به عنوان خبرنگار درگیر جنگ داخلی اسپانیا شد (که باعث شد «ناقوسِ مرگِ کیست» را بنویسد)، و به عنوان حُسنِ ختام باز هم به عنوان خبرنگار به سراغ جنگ جهانی دوم رفت (بخشی از کتاب «در امتداد رودخانه به سمت درختها» راجع به خاطراتِ این جنگ است)
انگار همینگوی به دنبال جنگ میرفت و جنگ به دنبال همینگوی.
به هرحال، «وداع با اسلحه» بازتابی از خاطرات و زندگینامهی شخصیِ همینگوی است از جنگجهانی اول، البته با تغییر و دستکاری.
او هم مثل شخصیت اصلیِ این کتاب از آمریکا به ایتالیا رفت تا در برابر ارتش اتریش بایستد، او هم در جنگ از ناحیهی پا مجروح و بستری شد، و حتی او هم در جریان جنگ عاشق یک خانم پرستار شد، عشقی که به دلایل نامعلوم نافرجام ماند، اما باعث شکلگیری شخصیت «کاترین» در این کتاب شد.
اجازه بدهید همین ابتدا سنگهایم را با همینگوی وابکَنم و از نقاط ضعف «وداع با اسلحه» بنویسم و بعد بروم سراغ قربان صدقهها!
نقاط ضعف
• کیفیتِ داستان یکدست نیست، داستان از نظر من شروع و پایانی درخشان دارد (حدود ۷۰ صفحهی اول و ۷۰ صفحهی آخر) ولی در میانه افت میکند، تمام نقاط قوت همینگوی که در ادامه خواهم نوشت، در میانهی داستان کمرنگ میشوند.
• شخصیتپردازی داستان خوب نیست، ما در این کتاب با راوی اول شخص مواجهیم که همان شخصیت اصلی یعنی فردریک هِنری است و میشود گفت شخصیتپردازی قابل قبولی دارد، بقیهی شخصیتها بسیار کمعمقاند و من ترجیح میدادم لااقل برای «کاترین» و «رینالدی» شخصیتپردازیِ بهتری داشتیم.
• کاش داستان عاشقانهی کتاب، عمق و ظرافتِ عاشقانهی بیشتری داشت. (این چه وضع اولین بوسهی عشق است، آقای همینگوی؟ خب، شاید هم انتظار من از نویسندهای که بخش قابل توجهی از عمرش را در جنگ سپری کرده، انتظار بیجایی است!) به نظرم ایدهی این داستانِ عاشقانه، ایدهی بسیار خوبی بوده و میتوانسته خیلی بهتر استفاده شود. شخصیت کاترین به طور کلی خیلی کمعمق و منفعل است، بنابراین تعجبی ندارد که رابطهی داستان هم به قدرِ کافی عمق پیدا نمیکند.
اما برویم به سراغ نکات مثبت داستان:
در ستایش نثر همینگوی
هنگام خواندن آثار همینگوی نباید زیاد به دنبال یک داستان پر کشش یا خیالانگیز یا تکاندهنده و احساسی باشید، آنچه که بیش از همهچیز همینگوی را در میان نویسندگان متمایز میکند، نثر اوست.
بگذارید اعتراف کنم، من از شیفتگان نثر همینگوی، و شیوهی نویسندگیاش هستم.
همانطور که در یادداشتم دربارهی «پیرمرد و دریا» نوشتم (چقدر از آن یادداشت گذشته! به کجا چنین شتابان ای عمر؟) نثر همینگوی سهل و ممتنع است (مطمئن نیستم استفاده از اصطلاح سهل و ممتنع برای نثر همینگوی بهترین توصیف باشد، یا تاکنون کسی آن را در فارسی برای شیوهی نوشتنِ همینگوی استفاده کرده باشد، ولی نزدیکترین توصیفی است که به ذهن من میرسد) نثری عریان و جسور، ولی همزمان ظریف و پیراسته.
نثری با جملات کوتاه و ساده که میکوشد پیام کوبندهاش را با فشردگیِ زیاد به خواننده برساند. همینگوی خودش شیوهی نوشتنش را به کوه یخ تشبیه میکرد. نوک قلهی کوه یخ را میخوانی ولی پیام و ساختار و نمادها پیدا نیستند.
نثری که وقتی آن را میخوانی، با خود میگویی: «چه ساده! نوشتن این که کاری ندارد!» کم نبودهاند نویسندگانی که به تقلید از سبکِ نوشتههای همینگوی پرداختهاند، و کم نبودهاند مقلدانِ شکست خورده از سادگیِ فریبندهی نثر همینگوی.
فقط تعداد کمی از نویسندگان توانستهاند با موفقیت از سادگی، شفافیت و عمقِ نثر همینگوی تقلید کنند (مثل ریموند کارور یا کورمک مکارتی)
نثر همینگوی درختی است که بارها هَرَس شده تا سادگی و پیراستگی را به چشم خواننده بنمایاند، و طلایی است که بارها چکشکاری شده تا شکل جواهری باارزش به خود بگیرد.
برای فهم بهتر، من چند نمونهی از نظر من جالب از نثر همینگوی در این کتاب را اینجا میآورم، با این توضیح که از این نمونهها در کتاب بسیار است (حتی نمونههای جالبتر) و این برداشتِ من از این مثالهاست و ممکن است برداشت شما متفاوت یا زیباتر باشد. (برداشتهای مختلف از نثر همینگوی طبیعی است)
در نمونهی زیر، همینگوی میخواهد کمارزش بودنِ جان انسانها را در شرایط جنگ نمایش دهد، انسانهایی که به راحتی میمیرند و جنگسالاران کمتر به جانِ از دست رفتهی آنها توجه میکنند، این موضوعی است که خودش میتواند موضوع یک داستان کوتاه جداگانه یا یک رمان باشد، حالا همینگوی چطور آن را بیان میکند:
در آغاز زمستان باران دائمی شروع شد و همراه با باران وبا آمد، ولی جلوش گرفته شد و سرانجام فقط هفتهزار تن نظامی از وبا مردند.
همانطور که میبینید همینگوی برای نشاندادن همین بیاهمیت بودن جان سربازان، خودش هم سوار بر این پیام میشود. انگار مردن هفتهزار تن نظامی بر اثر وبا وسط جنگ یک اتفاق خیلی معمولی است. خواننده وقتی با این عبارتِ کوتاه در میان داستان مواجه میشود، شوکه میشود و اثر عبارت بر خواننده در اثر کوتاهی، خشونت، صراحت و کوبندگی، چند برابر میشود.
در عبارت زیر همینگوی میخواهد نشان دهد که بین شرایط سربازان ساده و شرایط افسران مافوق، عدالتی در کار نیست، این را میشود به شیوههای گوناگون بیان کرد ولی همینگوی با یک جملهی ساده، ضربهاش را کوتاه، اما کاری به خواننده میزند:
در شهر بیمارستان و کافه بود و سر خیابانها توپ کار گذاشته بودند و دو فاحشهخانه هم بود: یکی برای سربازها و یکی برای افسرها.
دیالوگهای نوشتهشده توسط همینگوی، مانند نثر عادیِ داستان بسیار فکر شده نوشته شدهاند، دیالوگهایی که در متن داستان طبیعی و باورپذیر مینمایند، و همزمان، فکر و نکتهی نهفتهای پشت آنهاست (حتی دیالوگهایی که در حالت مستی گفته شدهاند) همینگوی بر لبهی باریکی راه میرود، از یک طرف باورپذیری و سادگیِ دیالوگی که از زبان یک شخصیت عادی گفته میشود، و از طرف دیگر پیام عمیق پشت آن:
پاسینی با لحن جدی گفت: «دیگه از این بدتر نمیشه. هیچ چیزی بدتر از جنگ نیست.»
- شکست بدتره.
پاسینی باز هم جدی گفت: «من باور نمیکنم. مگه شکست چیه؟ آدم میره خونهش.»
حتی به سخره گرفتن آداب و افتخارات جنگ، برای همینگوی کاری عادی است:
- میگن اگه بتونی ثابت کنی که یه کار قهرمانی کردی، میتونن برات مدال نقره بگیرن. حالا دقیقاً برام تعریف کن ببینم چی شد، هیچ کار قهرمانی کردی؟
گفتم: «نه، داشتیم پنیر میخوردیم که به هوا پرت شدم»
از خوبیهای دیگر کتاب، میتوانم به تضادهایی که همینگوی در داستان ایجاد کرده اشاره کنم. تضادهایی که به زیباییِ بیشترِ داستان کمک کرده، تضاد بین لطافت عشق و خشونت جنگ (که در بسیاری از کتابها و فیلمهای دیگر نیز از این تضاد استفاده شده) و تضاد بین زیباییهای طبیعت و زشتیها و ویرانههای جنگ.
به طور کلی «وداع با اسلحه» تأثیرگذارترین یا تکاندهندهترین اثر ضدجنگ نیست، ولی به واسطهی تجربههای مستقیم همینگوی و کیفیت نثرش، یکی از واقعیترینها و باورپذیرترینهاست.
دربارهی ترجمه
همانطور که در بررسی کتاب «پیرمرد و دریا» نوشتم، زندهیاد دریابندری با مقدمهی مفصلش در آن کتاب، به شناخت درستی از همینگوی و شیوهی نوشتنِ او رسیده بود. از طرفی نثر خود دریابندری در کتابهای تألیفیاش، از لحاظ سادگی و پاکیزگی، بیشباهت به همینگوی نبود. به این ترتیب باید دریابندری را بهترین گزینه برای ترجمهی آثار همینگوی به شمار آوریم.
اما ترجمهی این کتاب بسیار قدیمی شده است (چاپ اول: ۱۳۴۰ و به نظر میرسد تازه این نسخهی بازنویسی شده باشد)
عبارات و کلمات از فارسیِ امروزی فاصله گرفتهاند و حتی اگر کتاب را با متن اصلی مقایسه کنید، متوجهِ اشتباهات ریزی در ترجمه خواهید شد.
فکر میکنم دریابندری اگر زنده بود، شاید دست به بازترجمهی کتاب میزد تا درستتر و به زبان امروز نزدیکتر شود.
با این حال مشکلی که من با ترجمههای جدیدترِ سایر مترجمان از آثار همینگوی دارم، این است که هیچکدام از مترجمینِ جدید به اندازهی دریابندری به درک درستی از نثر همینگوی نرسیدهاند.
به همین دلیل همچنان به نظرم ترجمههای دریابندری از آثار همینگوی از بهترین ترجمهها باشند.
یکی از دوستان خوبم در ریویویش نوشته که ترجمهی این کتاب بسیار ایرانیزه شده که نظر نادرستی هم نیست، ولی دریابندری در «پیرمرد و دریا» چنان به افراط ترجمه را ایرانیزه (یا بهتر است بگویم بوشهریزه و محلیزه!) کرده است که ایرانیزه بودنِ این ترجمه در مقابل آن به چشم نمیآید.
پینوشت ۱: گاهی متوجه نیستیم که دنیا چقدر در یک دو قرن اخیر در بعضی چیزها پیشرفت کرده، صحنهی زایمان را که در این کتاب میخواندم، با خود فکر میکردم که پیشرفتهای علمی چطور همهچیز را، مثل بارداری و زایمان متحول کرده است. پیشرفت در مراقبتهای پیش و پس از زایمان آنقدر زیاد بوده که وضعیت زایمان در این کتاب که کمتر از صد سال پیش نوشته شده، ممکن است برای خوانندهی امروزی بسیار عجیب به نظر برسد.
پینوشت ۲: خواندن کتاب را که آغاز کردم، چند بار ناخودآگاه یاد شوخی سریال family guy با این کتاب و نامش افتادم و پوزخند زدم. (اگر سریال را دیده باشید شاید این قسمت را به یاد آورید) داشتم فکر میکردم این هم از شوخیهایی در سطح زبان است که فقط در زبان اصلی (به واسطهی معنای دوگانه arm) خندهدار است و در اثر ترجمه بامزگیاش از بین میرود، همانطور که اگر خوشمزگیهای فارسی مثلا در نثر عبید یا شعر ایرج را به انگلیسی ترجمه کنیم، بسیاری از آنها بیمزه میشوند.
December 24, 2025
*** 2025 reread -
God damn.
I read once that EH said something to the effect that writing was easy, you just sit in front of the typewriter and bleed. I think this is the novel he was talking about.
Hemingway's most emotionally wrenching work.
A damn fine war novel, a complicated romance, and then Papa just turns up the emotional roller coaster and after you look back and see the foreshadowing you want to say, "alright you genius bastard, that was too much."
Sort of reminiscent of Herman Hesse - but without the optimism. Gut punch, and he pulled it offin exceptional literary style.
Magnificent.
God damn.
I read once that EH said something to the effect that writing was easy, you just sit in front of the typewriter and bleed. I think this is the novel he was talking about.
Hemingway's most emotionally wrenching work.
A damn fine war novel, a complicated romance, and then Papa just turns up the emotional roller coaster and after you look back and see the foreshadowing you want to say, "alright you genius bastard, that was too much."
Sort of reminiscent of Herman Hesse - but without the optimism. Gut punch, and he pulled it offin exceptional literary style.
Magnificent.
November 11, 2022
Far away though we are, in both place and time, from the First World War, Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms can give the interested reader a sense of the horrors of that war, and of the despair and disillusionment that the vast blood-letting of the war caused throughout the Western world. Hemingway seamlessly combines an epic story of World War I battle action with a tender and affecting love story. It is, for many admirers of the work of this great American author, their favorite Hemingway novel. I know that it is mine.
Hemingway fans and scholars alike know how closely A Farewell to Arms corresponds with key events from Hemingway’s life. Hemingway wanted to serve in the First World War, even though the United States Army had rejected him for military service on account of his poor eyesight; and therefore, he travelled to Europe and volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Italian Army in 1918. Seriously wounded by mortar fire along the Italian Front, Hemingway convalesced in a hospital near Milan, and became involved in a passionate though ill-fated love affair with a Red Cross nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky.
These bare-bones details were fleshed out by Hemingway to become A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway’s fictional counterpart for this novel is Frederic Henry, who like Hemingway is an American. A commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant, Henry serves on the Italian front, is wounded, recovers in hospital in Italy, and falls in love with a nurse – not someone with a “von” in her name (might confuse the readership – aren’t we supposed to be fighting the Germans?), but rather a demure young Englishwoman named Catherine Barkley.
Part of the novel’s interest inheres in Frederic Henry’s changing attitudes toward war. At first, the wounded Frederic is eager to return to the front, to the camaraderie of men-at-arms and the shared dangers and joys of a soldier's life, as shown in this conversation between Frederic and the house doctor at his hospital:
“You are in such a hurry to get back to the front?”
“Why not?”
“It is very beautiful,” he said. “You are a noble young man.”
As the novel continues, however, Frederic comes to feel that his primary duty is to Catherine, and to the child that eventually results from their love for each other – hence Frederic’s ultimate willingness to declare his “farewell to arms,” to separate from the warrior code that has hitherto sustained him, and to place a simple, peaceful human relationship with wife and child at the center of his life.
Many readers back in 1929 would no doubt have sympathized with Frederic’s decision. Eleven years after the Armistice of Compiègne concluded the “War to End All Wars,” most observers would no doubt have seen the First World War as a vast exercise in futility – a monstrous conflict that killed ten million people, left another 28 million wounded or missing, and resulted in a Europe more vulnerable and less stable than it had been before the guns of August 1914 first roared to life. That attitude toward the carnage of World War I can be seen when Hemingway writes that “abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
That attitude toward war also comes forth in Hemingway’s recounting of the Italian retreat from Caporetto, a dramatic highlight of the novel. Historically, the Battle of Caporetto (24 October – 19 November 1917) was an Italian defeat at the hands of Austro-Hungarian troops supported by German reinforcements. Italy suffered over 300,000 casualties in what has been called the worst loss in Italian military history.
But wait: the story gets even worse. The Italian commander, Marshal Luigi Cadorna, compounded his many strategic and tactical errors before and during the battle by ordering the execution of any officer found retreating from the battle lines, as if the loss of the battle was his officers' fault and not his own.
In Hemingway’s hands, these cold, sad facts of history take on the texture and drama of lived experience, as Frederic Henry and various Italian officers face the prospect of execution for their commander’s blunders:
Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabinieri on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were questioning someone else. This officer too was separated from his troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it. I did not know whether I should wait to be questioned or make a break now.
Small wonder that Frederic and Catherine make their own “farewell to arms,” crossing the border into Switzerland and enjoying an idyllic winter interlude so complete that Catherine is able to say, “You’ve forgotten the army.” Yet just as Hemingway’s real-life relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky did not end happily, so complications attendant upon the birth of Frederic and Catherine’s child pose the danger that their love, while true and intense, may be short-lived.
I returned to A Farewell to Arms in the context of a trip, some years ago, to Havana, Cuba, where my wife and I saw various sites associated with Hemingway and his life, including the Floridita bar where he drank daiquiris and the Ambos Mundos hotel where he lived and wrote during the 1930’s. And perhaps this novel occupies my thoughts today because it is Veterans’ Day, a federal holiday in honor of American veterans, and a day that had its historical antecedents in the armistice that ended the First World War on November 11, 1918. For me, no other American novel of World War I captures the horror of that war, or the cruelty with which war separates people from one another, so well as A Farewell to Arms.
Hemingway fans and scholars alike know how closely A Farewell to Arms corresponds with key events from Hemingway’s life. Hemingway wanted to serve in the First World War, even though the United States Army had rejected him for military service on account of his poor eyesight; and therefore, he travelled to Europe and volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Italian Army in 1918. Seriously wounded by mortar fire along the Italian Front, Hemingway convalesced in a hospital near Milan, and became involved in a passionate though ill-fated love affair with a Red Cross nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky.
These bare-bones details were fleshed out by Hemingway to become A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway’s fictional counterpart for this novel is Frederic Henry, who like Hemingway is an American. A commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant, Henry serves on the Italian front, is wounded, recovers in hospital in Italy, and falls in love with a nurse – not someone with a “von” in her name (might confuse the readership – aren’t we supposed to be fighting the Germans?), but rather a demure young Englishwoman named Catherine Barkley.
Part of the novel’s interest inheres in Frederic Henry’s changing attitudes toward war. At first, the wounded Frederic is eager to return to the front, to the camaraderie of men-at-arms and the shared dangers and joys of a soldier's life, as shown in this conversation between Frederic and the house doctor at his hospital:
“You are in such a hurry to get back to the front?”
“Why not?”
“It is very beautiful,” he said. “You are a noble young man.”
As the novel continues, however, Frederic comes to feel that his primary duty is to Catherine, and to the child that eventually results from their love for each other – hence Frederic’s ultimate willingness to declare his “farewell to arms,” to separate from the warrior code that has hitherto sustained him, and to place a simple, peaceful human relationship with wife and child at the center of his life.
Many readers back in 1929 would no doubt have sympathized with Frederic’s decision. Eleven years after the Armistice of Compiègne concluded the “War to End All Wars,” most observers would no doubt have seen the First World War as a vast exercise in futility – a monstrous conflict that killed ten million people, left another 28 million wounded or missing, and resulted in a Europe more vulnerable and less stable than it had been before the guns of August 1914 first roared to life. That attitude toward the carnage of World War I can be seen when Hemingway writes that “abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
That attitude toward war also comes forth in Hemingway’s recounting of the Italian retreat from Caporetto, a dramatic highlight of the novel. Historically, the Battle of Caporetto (24 October – 19 November 1917) was an Italian defeat at the hands of Austro-Hungarian troops supported by German reinforcements. Italy suffered over 300,000 casualties in what has been called the worst loss in Italian military history.
But wait: the story gets even worse. The Italian commander, Marshal Luigi Cadorna, compounded his many strategic and tactical errors before and during the battle by ordering the execution of any officer found retreating from the battle lines, as if the loss of the battle was his officers' fault and not his own.
In Hemingway’s hands, these cold, sad facts of history take on the texture and drama of lived experience, as Frederic Henry and various Italian officers face the prospect of execution for their commander’s blunders:
Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabinieri on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were questioning someone else. This officer too was separated from his troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it. I did not know whether I should wait to be questioned or make a break now.
Small wonder that Frederic and Catherine make their own “farewell to arms,” crossing the border into Switzerland and enjoying an idyllic winter interlude so complete that Catherine is able to say, “You’ve forgotten the army.” Yet just as Hemingway’s real-life relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky did not end happily, so complications attendant upon the birth of Frederic and Catherine’s child pose the danger that their love, while true and intense, may be short-lived.
I returned to A Farewell to Arms in the context of a trip, some years ago, to Havana, Cuba, where my wife and I saw various sites associated with Hemingway and his life, including the Floridita bar where he drank daiquiris and the Ambos Mundos hotel where he lived and wrote during the 1930’s. And perhaps this novel occupies my thoughts today because it is Veterans’ Day, a federal holiday in honor of American veterans, and a day that had its historical antecedents in the armistice that ended the First World War on November 11, 1918. For me, no other American novel of World War I captures the horror of that war, or the cruelty with which war separates people from one another, so well as A Farewell to Arms.
February 3, 2016
Ernest Hemingway takes a lame story, and then he tells it in a boring way.
July 15, 2021
وداع با اسلحه نوشته ارنست همینگوی ، نویسنده مشهور آمریکایی ، اثری ایست عاشقانه و البته ضد جنگ . اما ضد جنگ بودن آن به اندازه ای کم رنگ و بی فروغ است که ممکن است خواننده آنرا هدف و یا موضوع اصلی کتاب نداند .
داستان کتاب در شمال ایتالیا می گذرد ، جایی که ارتش ایتالیا تنها در برابر امپراتوری اتریش – مجارستان و آلمان می جنگد . قهرمان کتاب فردریک هنری ، افسری آمریکایی ایست که احتمالا داوطلبانه به ارتش ایتالیا پیوسته است ، او در دل جنگ عاشق یک پرستار انگلیسی می شود.
توصیفات همینگوی غالبا مربوط به شمال ایتالیا و یا جنوب سوییس می شود ، مناطقی که اگر چه در حالت جنگی ایست اما طبیعت زیبا و نفسگیر ایتالیا زیبایی ها و دلربایی های خود را هنوز حفظ کرده است ، نویسنده نگاهی توریستی به ایتالیای جنگ زده دارد ، در هر نقطه ای جنگلی ایست و رودخانه ای جاری ، آسمان آبی ایست و اگر هم ابری باشد بارانی زیبا و رمانتیک می بارد و خبری از گازهای سمی رایج در جنگ اول یا زمین شخم خورده بر اثر بمباران نیست .
قهرمانان کتاب وداع با اسلحه هم مانند توریستهایی آمریکایی و انگلیسی می مانند که با جیبی سرشار از لیره ( واحد پول ایتالیا ) گویا تفریح یا ماه عسل خود را در ایتالیا سپری می کنند . اوقات آنها در هتل های لوکس و رستوران های گران قیمت بیشتر می گذرد ، شرابهای اعلا و ناب ایتالیایی می نوشند و البته آقای هنری بالاخره سری هم به جبهه می زند .
همینگوی البته با استادی تمام عقب نشینی ایتالیایی ها را در نبرد کاپورتو به تصویر کشیده ، نه تنها سربازان یا غیر نظامی ها یا حیوانات اهلی ، بلکه یک کشور و یک سرزمین با تمام متعلقاتش خود را دارد عقب می کشد . در دل این هرج و مرج عظیم است که هنری در می یابد دیگر جنگ برای او کافیست ، دیگر نمی خواهد بجنگد .
کتاب وداع با اسلحه در قیاس با کتابهای دیگر ضد جنگ مانند به امید دیدار در آن دنیا نوشته پی یر لومتر و یا کتاب شاخص و جریان ساز نورمن میلر برهنه ها و مرده ها که حقایق نفرت آور جنگ را بی پرده و رُک فاش می کنند بدون شک جایگاه پایین تری دارد ، گویا نویسنده به هر دلیلی عشق را به جنگ ترجیح داده است ، نتیجه آنکه اهریمن جنگ تقریبا در کتاب حضوری ندارد .
پایان کتاب را هم تقریبا می توان پیش بینی کرد ، اما شاید نتوان بلایی که به سر قهرمانان کتاب می آید را به شکل مستقیم به جنگ نسبت داد ، گویی جنگ تنها حضوری کوتاه داشته و به آرایش صحنه داستان کمک کرده است . برخی از کاراکترها در میانه داستان رها شده اند و اصولا دلیل وجودشان در داستان مشخص نیست .
کتاب وداع با اسلحه کاری با فلسفه زندگی و جنگ ندارد ، همینگوی تنها داستان آدمهایی را گفته که در دل جنگ می خواهند زنده بمانند و عشق بورزند .
داستان کتاب در شمال ایتالیا می گذرد ، جایی که ارتش ایتالیا تنها در برابر امپراتوری اتریش – مجارستان و آلمان می جنگد . قهرمان کتاب فردریک هنری ، افسری آمریکایی ایست که احتمالا داوطلبانه به ارتش ایتالیا پیوسته است ، او در دل جنگ عاشق یک پرستار انگلیسی می شود.
توصیفات همینگوی غالبا مربوط به شمال ایتالیا و یا جنوب سوییس می شود ، مناطقی که اگر چه در حالت جنگی ایست اما طبیعت زیبا و نفسگیر ایتالیا زیبایی ها و دلربایی های خود را هنوز حفظ کرده است ، نویسنده نگاهی توریستی به ایتالیای جنگ زده دارد ، در هر نقطه ای جنگلی ایست و رودخانه ای جاری ، آسمان آبی ایست و اگر هم ابری باشد بارانی زیبا و رمانتیک می بارد و خبری از گازهای سمی رایج در جنگ اول یا زمین شخم خورده بر اثر بمباران نیست .
قهرمانان کتاب وداع با اسلحه هم مانند توریستهایی آمریکایی و انگلیسی می مانند که با جیبی سرشار از لیره ( واحد پول ایتالیا ) گویا تفریح یا ماه عسل خود را در ایتالیا سپری می کنند . اوقات آنها در هتل های لوکس و رستوران های گران قیمت بیشتر می گذرد ، شرابهای اعلا و ناب ایتالیایی می نوشند و البته آقای هنری بالاخره سری هم به جبهه می زند .
همینگوی البته با استادی تمام عقب نشینی ایتالیایی ها را در نبرد کاپورتو به تصویر کشیده ، نه تنها سربازان یا غیر نظامی ها یا حیوانات اهلی ، بلکه یک کشور و یک سرزمین با تمام متعلقاتش خود را دارد عقب می کشد . در دل این هرج و مرج عظیم است که هنری در می یابد دیگر جنگ برای او کافیست ، دیگر نمی خواهد بجنگد .
کتاب وداع با اسلحه در قیاس با کتابهای دیگر ضد جنگ مانند به امید دیدار در آن دنیا نوشته پی یر لومتر و یا کتاب شاخص و جریان ساز نورمن میلر برهنه ها و مرده ها که حقایق نفرت آور جنگ را بی پرده و رُک فاش می کنند بدون شک جایگاه پایین تری دارد ، گویا نویسنده به هر دلیلی عشق را به جنگ ترجیح داده است ، نتیجه آنکه اهریمن جنگ تقریبا در کتاب حضوری ندارد .
پایان کتاب را هم تقریبا می توان پیش بینی کرد ، اما شاید نتوان بلایی که به سر قهرمانان کتاب می آید را به شکل مستقیم به جنگ نسبت داد ، گویی جنگ تنها حضوری کوتاه داشته و به آرایش صحنه داستان کمک کرده است . برخی از کاراکترها در میانه داستان رها شده اند و اصولا دلیل وجودشان در داستان مشخص نیست .
کتاب وداع با اسلحه کاری با فلسفه زندگی و جنگ ندارد ، همینگوی تنها داستان آدمهایی را گفته که در دل جنگ می خواهند زنده بمانند و عشق بورزند .
June 26, 2019
This one is pretty classic in nature. The novel set mainly in Wharton Itlay of 1917-18, the story focuses on Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver for the Italian army. He met a young English nurse, Catherine Barkley, at a military hospital and they begin a relationship which gradually becomes passionate.
The story of the romance is set alongside a powerful portrayal of the horrors of war and its threat of the total destruction of civilization.
The story of the romance is set alongside a powerful portrayal of the horrors of war and its threat of the total destruction of civilization.
October 8, 2019
بخشي از كتاب
اينطوري است. مي ميري. نمي داني موضوع از چه قرار است. هرگز فرصتش را نداشته اي كه بداني. تو را مي اندازند وسط بازي و قوانين را به تو مي گويند و با اولين خطايي كه از تو بگيرند تو را مي كشند. يا تو را بي جهت مي كشند. اما در نهايت تو را مي كشند. از اين بابت خاطرت جمع باشد. كمي صبر كن تو را هم ��ي كشند
اينطوري است. مي ميري. نمي داني موضوع از چه قرار است. هرگز فرصتش را نداشته اي كه بداني. تو را مي اندازند وسط بازي و قوانين را به تو مي گويند و با اولين خطايي كه از تو بگيرند تو را مي كشند. يا تو را بي جهت مي كشند. اما در نهايت تو را مي كشند. از اين بابت خاطرت جمع باشد. كمي صبر كن تو را هم ��ي كشند
April 3, 2019
For me think was a mediocre historical fiction / romance story set to the back drop of World War. I failed to connect with any of the characters as I listened to this one on audio and it became pretty annoying with the over use of certain words and I didn't engage with any of the dialogue which seemed trivial and never ending.
A story of a young American Frederic Henry who volunteers for service with the Italian Army in World War I and falls in love with his English Nurse.
I am not a fan of "romance Stories" or tales of all consuming love and that is pretty much how I felt about this one, and it wasn't what I was looking for in War novel. It was an ok read for me but certainly not one for my favourites shelf. I just couldn't engage with the characters and I found Catherine's character so annoying and strange. The overuse of certain words and ridiculously long sentences grated on my nerves. The narrator was quite good but because there was such a repetition of certain words I felt he kept over emphasising them.
This wasn't at all what I was expecting from an Ernest Hemingway novel and I picked this one up expecting something quite different and this book just didn't deliver and perhaps I should have paid better attention to the blub of this one as it had too much love story and not enough war action for me.
My favourite fiction novels on World War one are
Birdsongand
A Long Long Way
A story of a young American Frederic Henry who volunteers for service with the Italian Army in World War I and falls in love with his English Nurse.
I am not a fan of "romance Stories" or tales of all consuming love and that is pretty much how I felt about this one, and it wasn't what I was looking for in War novel. It was an ok read for me but certainly not one for my favourites shelf. I just couldn't engage with the characters and I found Catherine's character so annoying and strange. The overuse of certain words and ridiculously long sentences grated on my nerves. The narrator was quite good but because there was such a repetition of certain words I felt he kept over emphasising them.
This wasn't at all what I was expecting from an Ernest Hemingway novel and I picked this one up expecting something quite different and this book just didn't deliver and perhaps I should have paid better attention to the blub of this one as it had too much love story and not enough war action for me.
My favourite fiction novels on World War one are
Birdsongand
A Long Long WayDisplaying 1 - 30 of 16,980 reviews