A Farewell To Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
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Book Reviews of A Farewell To Arms
Book Review: A Farewell to Arms
Summary: 4 Stars
A Farewell to Arms, written by Nobel-Prize winning author Ernest Hemingway, is an enticing drama focusing on the tragedies of love and war in the 1900's. Amid the war front scenes, hospital visits, and seductive bedroom talk, Hemingway does an excellent job portraying love and life throughout World War II.
Hemingway ties his life into this story, as he continues to transform his war stories into the life of Tenete Frederic Henry. During the first World War, Hemingway played an active role as an ambulance driver just like Henry, the main character in A Farewell to Arms. While Henry was visiting the war front, he was hit by trench mortar and transported to a hospital in Milan. Once in Milan, Hemingway underwent many surgeries on his foot and leg and it was months before he was able to walk with the aid of crutches. He was then diagnosed with jaundice, which prolonged his stay at the hospital. Each of these events happens to Henry, and in the end, both the author and his character returned to the war front and continued as ambulance drivers. The plot Hemingway created continues to grow as Catherine Barkley becomes a very prominent character in the book.
Henry and Catherine met in Gorizia, Italy. They seemed to detest each other during their first few encounters, and this is shown when Catherine hits Henry. Henry narrates "I leaned forward in the dark to kiss her and there was a sharp stinging flash. She had slapped my face hard" (26). Catherine continues to say "I didn't mean to hurt you. I did hurt you, didn't I?" (26). This shows that she does care, but wanted to make sure her actions spoke to Henry. Throughout the entire story, Catherine continuously asks Henry's opinion of things. She feels as if she must always be the best she can be to him, and by saying things such as "You see, I'll make you a fine wife" (280). His opinion of her mattered greatly, but he continued to love her more and more as each day passed. He said, "But 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" (249). The couple became pregnant with a child that neither of them seemed to want. They were not legitimately married yet, so both of them felt ashamed and had planned on waiting until the birth to commence their ceremony. In the end, this was the most fatal mistake these characters made.
Mistakes make characters real, allowing the reader to make a personal connection with them. Hemingway created very amiable characters that are very easy to relate to. The love in this story is very fairytale-like. It is also something that many people dream of attaining some day. The war taking place only adds to the power of Catherine and Henry's love. The overall feeling at the end of the story is remorse and sadness, but because of the vibrant love Catherine and Henry shared, the reader is also left with a sense of happiness.
Hemingway's technique of throwing in details where they are un-needed may seem unnecessary at first, but when the book is finished, it is those details that help with the overall understanding of the story. Also, his informal style and easy-going vocabulary allow the book to be accessed by many different age groups and genders. Hemingway does and admirable job tying war and love together. A Farewell to Arms is a tear-jerking, heartbreaking romance that gets into the heart of it's readers. Not only does it go into detail about the War front, but it tells one of the greatest love stories of all times.
Book Review: Classic Hemmingway - more than the sum of its parts
Summary: 5 Stars
Hemingway's third novel (following The Torrents of Spring, 1924 and The Sun Also Rises, 1927), A Farewell to Arms is an engaging yet bleak account of the Italian front during World War I. The story begins with Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army, questioning his involvement in a war that he does not believe in nor fully understands. First faced with the ravages of war and later in a battle to be with his true love, Henry struggles to maintain his identity and purpose while grappling with the conflict that surrounds him. Early on, he is injured on the front and subsequently falls in love with a British nurse, Catherine Barkley, while convalescing at a hospital in Milan. Henry returns to the front only to join the retreat following the historical Italian loss at the Battle of Caporetto. Henry soon finds himself at odds with Italian loyalist extremists and is forced to flee into the Italian countryside. Later, he struggles to reunite with Catherine while avoiding the extremists, each eager to lay blame for the Italian loss on officers, deserters, and foreigners - all of which describe Henry. Although a great example of the timeless war novel for which Hemmingway became famous, A Farewell to Arms is more a story about the trials of love and Hemmingway's own pessimistic view that happiness is fleeting and loss and death will always win out in the end.
Hemmingway's style is unmistakable - a sparse, almost mechanical brevity that he apparently learned while a reporter during his early career. This brevity is deceptively simple in that his often short, somewhat choppy sentences evolve into complex paragraphs and chapters that truly become greater than the sum of their parts. A gripping example of this in A Farewell to Arms is when Henry, following a narrow escape from armed captors, finds himself safe but worn, hungry and alone:
"I was not made to think. I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink and sleep with Catherine. To-night maybe. No that was impossible. But to-morrow night, and a good meal and sheets and never going away again except together. Probably have to go damn quickly. She would go. I knew she would go. When would we go? That was something to think about. It was getting dark. I lay and thought where we would go. There were many places." p. 223.
Hemmingway doesn't have his characters say what they feel. He makes the reader feel it the way the characters feel it. We as readers experience how exhaustion and fatigue strain Henry's body and mind and we can feel his longing to be away from that moment by envisioning a near-future with the one he loves. This style has been said to characterize American writers since Hemmingway, but none that I have encountered seem to master the art in the way he did. A Farewell to Arms, being Hemmingway's sophomore attempt, is not the striking success of The Sun Also Rises, nor the epic war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Never the less, this story is a gripping, and ultimately a heart breaking but readable tale, in the style that would come to define a great author.
On a more personal note, it is well known that Hemmingway struggled with depression, identity issues and alcoholism throughout his life. These themes are vividly evident in his writings. Hemmingway's works have been criticized for romanticizing war, an underlying theme of misogyny, and a sentimentality out of touch with a changing world. I find these characteristics more a charmingly human quality rather than a fault. To see these problems and to see their roots in a troubled writer, opens a window into the human struggle and opens a mirror to our own personal struggles with life. For these and other reasons, Ernest Hemmingway is perhaps one of my favorite authors and one I reflect on in my own endeavors - not as someone to emulate, but as someone to learn from and appreciate.
Book Review: a good read
Summary: 4 Stars
A Farewell to Arms is a tragic story by Ernest Hemingway, a first person view of an American fighting for the Italian Army against the German empire in the climax of WWI. Frederic Henry is an Ambulance Driver, a job Hemingway experienced first hand during his time in WWI, giving the reader an epic and historically accurate story of love and war. He meets and immediately falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a beautiful English woman. In a tragic turn of events, Henry falls victim to serious leg injuries as a result of a mortar rocket accident. He is soon moved to the same hospital that Catherine is working as a nurse at, and their relationship blossoms.
Hemingway's ability to write compelling and emotional novels using only the most basic prose is something alone to seek after in his writing. His descriptions are short and quick, and the way the words read themselves off the page draw up a lot of emotion. The simplicity and authenticity in his writing are what make this story so completely immersive and depressing: the way you can feel the character of Henry himself decaying as his mental state of sanity runs along the edge of loosing it, and you can really relate to the way he feels at the end of the story. He is wound so tight and his life has been affected so greatly by the war that you can't help but feel his struggle.
A Farewell to Arms excels not only in Hemingway's ability to describe emotions, but in his historically accurate description of what WWI did to Europe, and what it did to the individuals directly affected by it's reign of destruction. Hemingway gave us a completely immersed first-person view on the complete details of the war, right down to the emptiness and surreal tragedy of death. The fact of it is, there was not anyone in Europe that was left unaffected by the war, and whether or not we ran from it we would fall victim. Hemingway gave us an insight to the way wars worked, and the way they will spread like a virus; leaving everything it touches to decay and slowly fade away.
"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"
To Hemingway, the war was just a tool for the world, and how it breaks you into who you need to be. Those that were kind or exceptionally brave and unbreakable, those who could not give up their soul, were killed. In A Farewell to Arms, Henry tries to resist being broken, and witnesses those around him dying and all the evil of the world. Not even he himself can avoid breaking at one point or another, and as Hemmingway so clearly put it, we will always come to an end at some point or another. In fact, Ernest Hemingway shot himself in the face with a shotgun one afternoon, even though he has repeatedly spoken of suicide in his writing as wrong.
Overall, Hemingway's ability to reflect on the individual part of a larger evil brings the book to our level. Other writers talk about distant conceptions or write about the idea of war as a whole, which Hemingway does reflect on as well. However, he expands on this, and centers in on the personal effects of such a horrific war. The numbness Henry eventually reaches is tragic, and the way he is eventually broken to just give in and not care is additionally depressing. The way Hemingway ends the book would have had less of an impact had Henry cried or grieved, but the way Henry can't even fathom the amount of grief he is left to deal with, and the way Henry represses his emotions and simply keeps on living is what gives the reader such a powerful impact.
Book Review: On the idealism of youth
Summary: 5 Stars
I had a misfortune to listen to the "A Farewell to Arms" audiobook before I attempted to read the novel itself. Unfortunately, a bad speaker is apt to spoil the otherwise good novel, as this case indicates. That should also teach me to never attempt to listen to the book if I am not aware of the contents. Ever since, I follow the first things first strategy. As far as this particular book by Hemingway goes, I think the title is one of the most charming, ever. Set in the last years of World War I in Italy, "A Farewell to Arms" is a classic novel about the side effects the war imposes on the young, 'beardless warriors', to borrow a phrase from Richard Matheson. Apart from those who find combat their duty they can't shirk from, there are young, idealistic men who are attracted to the idea of the war as a symbol of a point in timespace that will allow them to show the qualities they possess, anywhere from patriotism to bravery out of range. It is a truism that many of those young volunteers have been scarred for life by the war experiences, if they happened to outlive their enemies, that is. While "A Farewell to Arms" does not center on the psychological aspects of combat, it does emphasize the phenomenon of young people's naïveté, and how fast they mature in the circumstances. Needless to say, their idealistic spirit, while being not entirely compatible with the wartime conditions, makes them easy prey for both the enemy, when they let themselves involved in situations they are not able to handle on their own, and to young women who accompanied the army. Rarely is there a more dangerous mix than love and war, as this novel beautifully illustrates. If not for minor quirks specific to Hemingway's style of writing, and A Farewell to Arms is one of the best examples of this style at work - one might regard this novel as a grand wartime love story. Unfortunately, considered as such, it does not really hold a candle to Erich Maria Remarque's wartime novels, and "Arch of Triumph" in particular. When a young, idealistic protagonist finds himself in a hospital, his beloved takes care of him often enough in addition to the miniature army of nurses, and perhaps it's the fault of the audiobook I listened to, I admit, but the dialogues, the verbal lovemaking and twirling they exchange couldn't appear more artificial. Is that how people in love behave? Are they also so cold, frosty, even? I seriously doubt so. There is no passion between these two young people, not that I could detect any. But perhaps it's just me, and I demand a little bit more from love.
These little unimportant quirks notwithstanding, I heartily recommend "A Farewell to Arms" for a few reasons. It's a good way to approach Hemingway's larger works of prose, it's a good way to introduce yourself to the literature of the 1920s, where the memories of the World War I were still fresh, and not overshadowed by the monstrosity of what happened just a decade later. The next major World War changed the world much more than it is usually perceived, another major event of this type in recent history might be only the Anti-French Revolution and the following Napoleonic Pax Franca. Last, but not least, as indicated above, this novel provides a very interesting outlook on the idealism of the youth. All things considered, if you are in your teens, I recommend this book with a firm conviction, and if you are older and have not yet explored Hemingway beyond some short stories, or not even that, "A Farewell to Arms" will be a good point of entry to the Papa's World.
Book Review: A Hello to Alcoholism
Summary: 5 Stars
I will not attempt a serious review of this novel. It is too revered a classic for me to have anything to add to the volumes that have already been written. I will instead concentrate on a few points that came to mind when re-reading this for the first time in over twenty years.A Farewell to Arms is regarded as the definitive American novel of WWI. Frederic Henry is an American ambulance driver serving the Italians. He falls in love with British nurse Catherine Barkley. Henry is wounded. He returns to the front after recovering and takes part in the disastrous Italian retreat. Henry is mistaken for an Austrian office in Italian uniform and barely escapes a summary execution. He deserts and runs away to Switzerland with Catherine where she dies in childbirth.
Taken as a simple adventure/love story the novel is entertaining and highly readable. Some of the dialogue between the lovers is awkward but the action scenes are well written and believable. The narrator's voice is that of a modern man. Apart from such anachronisms as horse-drawn carriages, capes and puttees the story could have been set in the present day. It is this modern feel that distinguishes Hemingway from his contemporaries. To me Faulkner and Fitzgerald are dated and unreadable by comparison.
It is interesting to note that the protagonist spends much of his waking hours consuming alcohol. At one point he becomes jaundiced as the result of alcohol induced liver damage. This is pathological alcoholism rather than recreational overindulgence. Hemingway presents this as a normal and healthy facet of our hero's character. This is quite a departure from what our modern sensibility expects. If written today at least half of the text would deal with touchy-feely aspects of the horrors of alcoholism. Our hero's inner dialogue would be full of the tortures of alcohol addiction. Instead, Hemingway regards this as no big deal.
Some aspects of the story did not ring true. Ambulance drivers are unlikely to be officers. I believe Hemingway made Henry an officer because that would allow him to have a more exciting social life than a mere enlisted man. In real life Hemingway was not an officer and the nurse he fell in love with did not have sex with him in his hospital bed. This aspect of the story may be a heartfelt putting to paper of the authors fantasy life. Similarly, Catherine Barkley's death at the end of the novel may be his way of getting back at his real-life sweetheart's rejection of him. Agnes von Kurowsky spurned his marriage proposal; Hemingway kills off her fictional counterpart in retaliation.
These minor points aside, A Farewell to Arms is deservedly regarded as a classic. It makes the point that war is hell subtly yet convincingly. Hemingway doesn't need to philosophize endlessly about abstract concepts to get the reader to agree. Henry manages to rejoin the Italian forces retreating from the Germans. Without warning he pulled from a mass of filthy dispirited soldiers marching away from the front. He is singled out for summary execution along with some other hapless officers who have been separated from their men. The smug "battle police" remorselessly interrogate and execute these men one after another with the same care and concern a meter maid would give in ticketing an expired parking meter. In just a few pages Henry goes from dedicated fighter for the cause to deserter doing all he can to stay alive. The reader makes this transition with him in a way that illustrates the pointlessness of war better than thousands of pages of text.