Carl’s Reviews > A Farewell to Arms > Status Update

Chapters like XXVI-XXVII are how EH grabs me. Like war itself—according to my Vietnam vet friend Sam—AFtA drags us through long stretches of quotidian boredom, then a page makes us pay attention differently. XXVI breaks into insight when Lt. Henry and the priest discuss victory and defeat; XXVII dismisses abstractions and endorses the concrete (184-185), then a page of battle before a long bit on sleep and food.

It’s not entirely fair to judge a book before it’s over, but the dialogue — which is often a marvel in The Sun Also Rises is not working for me here. I get that the repetition and banality are part of the design. Still, it’s rather diluted compared to the often funny and revealing TSAR conversations. (See?: “rather.” He’s got me using Hemingway dictionary.)

I appreciate the Hemingway prose style, but it seems more exaggerated and less controlled here than in The Sun Also Rises, which I find exquisite. Both books start gradually; I’ll give this one a chance, too.