Michael’s Reviews > A Farewell to Arms: The Hemingway Library Edition > Status Update

"He said we were all cooked in another year. He said were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war." Very little media cant throughly dismantle the supposed glories of war. Hemingway, in this novel, does so with ease.

"Still nobody was whipping any one on the Western front. Perhaps wars weren't won any more. Maybe they went on forever."

"I was blow up while we were eating cheese." The absurdity of war.

"I went out the door and suddenly I felt lonely and empty. I had treated seeing Catherine very lightly, I had gotten somewhat drunk and had nearly forgotten to come but when I could not see her there I was feeling lonely and hollow." Odd to me that folks think of this novel as boring. At times it does suffer from Hemingway's extensive descriptions but it can be emotionally potent and profound nonetheless.

"At the start of the winter. came the permanent rain with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army." Incredible two page opening. I'm not usually fond of description that goes on long but Hemingway brought life into his landscape.