A Farewell to Arms: Ernest Hemingway (Arrow classic)

The basis of the novel `A Farewell to Arms' is author Ernest Hemingway's own experience as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during Wold War I when he was badly wounded and fell in love with a nurse. This semi-autobiography approach makes for reality as `A Farewell to Arms' becomes both a love story and a bleak commentary on the horror and futility of war. It will appeal to readers like myself who have visited the settings of the story in the disputed areas of Gorizia, northern Italy and the Swiss border country, and who are saddened by the folly of fighting in such wonderful mountain environments. The story is recounted in the first person by main protagonist American Frederic Henry, a tenente or lieutenant in the Italian medical corps, and it is divided into 5 books that allow a build up to his character. The tenente communicates easily and freely with others and as a hard drinker is full of both `joie de vivre' and apprehension to his circumstances. `A Farewell to Arms' tells a gripping story as the tenente endures much pain and misery and hardship in addition to appraising his own moral attitudes and passions. The books cover initial meeting with nurse Catherine Barkley and his being wounded, then growth of their relationship, followed by return to the front, defeat and retreat, escape from his own allies, and a finale in neutral Switzerland. Ernest Hemingway's writing style may now be regarded as somewhat old-fashioned, yet at the time of first publication in 1929 it was a break from earlier romantic prose. Though writing is gritty and forceful it is strange to have expletives replaced with dashes and yet to have non-PC words employed. Hemingway relies heavily on dialogue and uses basic simple language that adds credibility to characters and situations. His terse and sparse phrasing is especially powerful in revealing the chaos of war with mental as well as physical conflicts. Often there are what appear to be understatements, but never does the novel slacken pace or lose direction. `A Farewell to Arms' is a classic of its style which has deservedly withstood the test of time - it is powerful prose.

In a world riven by conflict, a fact that truly threatens to define humanity, Hemingway’s masterpiece remains as poignant and wrenching as ever. Utterly beautiful in its literary poeticism, utterly heartbreaking in its moral, it is understandable why this was lauded as the greatest American novel of the 20th century. Hemingway's style of writing is as unique as JD Salinger's or Joyce's. It is very sparse, purposeful and reserved. In the introduction his grandson writes that Hemingway wrote "on the principle of the iceberg. For the part that shows there are seven-eighths more underwater." The story follows Frederic Henry, an American lieutenant serving as an ambulance driver on the Italian front in WWI. He is wounded while eating cheese in a trench, gets a medal for bravery, and falls in love with a typically beautiful, devoted and idealistic English nurse while he is recovering. In their resultant journey, both physically and emotionally, Hemingway masterfully portrays the sheer futility of war and the ultimate truth of existence, that life marches inexorably on even after the most shattering of tragedies. It is an enlightened novel, a true exploration of the human condition. In the end there is always death. Henry's daring journey across the Italian countryside is my favourite part (as well as when he rows all night through the storm down the lake to try and cross the Swiss border before dawn - the image of him using his umbrella as a sail is so comic and desperate and perfect). But one of the most powerful moments takes place when Henry gazes into the fire. Hundreds of ants on a log are trying to escape the flames. He contemplates being a “messiah” and lifting them from their deaths, but after a moment, he simply empties his water glass on them so he can fill it with whisky. The water only makes the ants burn and sizzle faster. This book also has possibly the most shocking and abrupt ending to a novel I have ever read. Hemingway’s style of writing is indeed unique: very sparse, purposeful, reserved and intensely powerful. In the very opening paragraphs his technique emerges. If Emily Bronte’s writing was a blossom tree in full bloom, Hemingway’s would be a sparse acacia on a barren plain. He creates a rich and exquisite scene by continually returning to several powerful sensory images that root us firmly in the moment: the dusty leaves, the marching troops, all distilled beneath a clear, hot sky. There is almost a whispering undercurrent of assonance to the words through the repetition of ‘leaves’ and ‘river’ and ‘trees’ and ‘dust’ and ‘troops'. It is hypnotic. And this introduces us to the setting throughout the novel, the war-ravaged orchards and towns of Italy in summer. But the rain, oh the rain. It was perhaps a few chapters into the novel that I realised how Hemingway was using the rain to directly convey the events. Whenever the rain started, something bad happened. This got so extreme that as soon as the sky clouded over dread descended upon me. But we must interpret Frederic Henry’s narrative while bearing in mind that there are in fact two Henry’s, the man living out the events and the man recounting them an unknown number of years later (as it is first person past tense). So we see the world through a lens of bitterness and pain, lending a slightly detached and cold air to his words. Ultimately this is an anti-war novel. I have had a year or so now to recover from the end and to try to work out why this most heartbreaking and bitter of novels is such a national treasure. I have decided it is not the intensely powerful literary poeticism that makes the novel so raw and painful and hypnotic and perfect, but how it enlighteningly explores the human condition and exposes the brutal reality of war and the sheer inevitability of death. In the end there is always death, merely death and oblivion. From the moment Henry gets that pointless wound while eating cheese in a trench to the moment Catherine begins hemorrhaging I was captivated and tortured in equal measure. Alongside the meaningless slaughter of millions life goes on and by definition so does tragedy, of even the most natural kind. It will leave you feeling hollow, but it is one of those necessary reads. Fatalism and futility, that’s what I got from this novel. But is there any hope in this abyss? Perhaps it is indeed that life simply marches inexorably on, and ultimately by allowing it to break us we become stronger at the broken places. "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 was interested to read the one-star reviews. I figured they missed the point. Against the backdrop of literature at the time this book was read, the writing was fresh and new, modern and unusual. The theme (not the premise) was similar to 'Have and Have Not' in that if you expect a happy ending then you will be just disappointed. And good for Hemingway! Life isn't a series of happy endings, a place where they meet up at the end of the story and live forever-after happily. Life is gritty and what you get out of it is what you put into it. I most value Hemingway's writing because he doesn't pull his punches, he lets you have the realism on the chin (like any good boxer). The short, clippy prose is like gold. OK, I admit it, the dialogue at times is unrealistic and the women he brings into his stories are a bit stereotyped and bland, but you have to see it all in the context of the time in which he wrote. It was a time when Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astair were working and saying all thier bland, romantic things on the silver screen. It was a time when people expected less of women than we do now. What Hemingway has, is an eye for detail and a magical talent for dialogue between people whether they are of different nationalities or race. I can understand why he got the Nobel prize too. He was a master of portraying emotion without ever having to use -ly adverbs or stick the MC's feelings in your face. You feel through the writing without it being obvious. I wish I could do that in my humble scribblings! 'The Cyclist' by Fred Nath.

That we are still reading, let alone buying, a 1920s book is clearly testament that we are dealing with a classic. A Farewell to Arms must have been pretty metallic when it first appeared on the bookshelves - it is rich in moral challenges which would have the staid gentry readership gasp. Hemingway does not shirk from murder, war-time prostitution, common law marriage, childbirth death, with the brutal collapse of warrior romanticism an unwavering undertone. The problem for a modern reader is that you need a specialist's interest in that era to bolster the reading experience. The text might once have been provoking, but the moral spectrum of this day makes its most explosive paragraphs come across as tepid. Sepia is inexorably creeping in from the edges to tinge both story and style. The perceptive reader will no doubt still see scattered evidence of Hemingway's undoubted genius, but the hard edges have been so dulled that I would hesitate to recommend it for a newbie Hemingway explorer - it is, or rather has slowly become, connoisseur material rather than a general good read. Hemingway used to duke it out with Scott Fitzgerald in print - a rather onesided bout, given that Fitzgerald never (to my knowledge) returned Hemingway's printed barbs. For a long time it must have appeared that Hemingway with his large and lauded corpus turned out the knockout winner. But compare A Farewell to Arms with the Great Gatsby now and a new picture emerges. The Great Gatsby is a brilliant novel with a complete and timeless story rolled out over remarkably few pages. Fitzgerald had a quality that does not seem to corrode. Hemingway? Rusting fast I fear.

The protagonist joins the Italian army voluntarily at the beginning of the First World War and at first the reader is at a loss to pinpoint just why he has. During the second half of the book it becomes more and more clear that this is the position he himself is falling into. While his conversations with the Italian soldiers, who for various reasons are losing their enthusiasm for the war, are amusing and heartfelt, they do feel less important when viewed in the context of the whole novel. As readers we experience the frustration of the idleness against a facade of military discipline as the soldiers wait to fight and resort to alcohol and prostitution to kill time. Henry's love affair with Catherine at first seems very convenient and the result of circumstance more than anything. The injury for which he is hospitalised seems trivial and unheroic, yet he doesn't go out of his way to protest against his being awarded medals for bravery. Their idle talk appears infantile and heightened artificially by the looming presence of the war. These two aspects begin to resolve and make sense artistically however, when we reach the final third of the novel. Henry becomes separated from his regiment ironically because Italian troops, who have mistaken them for Germans begin shooting at them. Thus begins the real action sequence of the plot in his attempt to escape. Henry is caught and faces being shot as a deserter, but he manages to flee from that and reunite with Catherine, whom he learns is now pregnant, and they plan to run away to Switzerland (neutral territory) together. What follows in the last one hundred pages in my view makes up for the arrogance, misguidedness and flippancy demonstrated in the earlier parts. It is one of the most tender love stories I have ever read and its conclusion is devastatingly poignant. Persist and you will not regret opening this book!

Hemingway writes about the mundane, day to day aspects of life and war so skilfully, that he is not noticeable in the story; but it feels like he knows exactly what he is talking about. A plain story about the conduct of war and life, and a horribly mundane ending…

It's a classic wartime novel, and it's easy to find reviews of it. I am going to write about the actual book, by which I mean the thing you hold in your hands, with the picture of the nurse and the patient on the front cover. It is much smaller than I expected when I ordered it (my fault for not looking properly at the product details.) The type is quite small. At first I thought, oh no, I'm not going to be able to see the words clearly. But the type is really clear and black. Although the pages are thin, the type doesn't show through them at all. So it's really clear and easy to read, and also really small and light. The only drawback is that I sometimes felt I was making no progress! I was 100 pages through the book and with just a few millimeters of read pages to show for it. Great though. No complaints at all.

Many years ago, I put down the story after reading about 30 pages or so. But this time round, I force myself to read it again and what a pleasant chance of attitude towards it. What does war mean to a young man? To the protagonist Mr Henry, who serves as an ambulance driver in the Italian territory. It is unsound and unreasonable. He first gets wounded in the knee, gets himself treated and risks his life by going back to the front. When the army is in retreat, he almost gets himself shoot by high-rank officers, who do not reason nor do they care how many soldiers they have to shoot to kill. Mr Henry decides to run away from such madness by jumping into a nearby stream and gets drifted away from the retreating army. With a floating log, he survives bad luck and comes back to visit his girl, Catherine. With the help of a barman, the young couple run away and seek refuge in Switzerland. The story concludes with the death of Catherine who dies of hemorrhage in hospital. The story is written in the first person, with a linear storyline. Unlike For Whom the Bell Tolls, this is not punctuated with artistic effect which calls attention to the text itself; rather it has a smoothness that appeals to readers both contemporary and nowadays. Though the delivery of my book is late for 5 works days, I am able to finish reading it in 2018, the 100th anniversary of the victorious ending of World War One, during which the fictionalized story took place and in which the author drew his experience. Deeply touching!

Ce livre est génial, un livre culte d'Hemingway pour se plonger dans l'absurdité de la Grande Guerre sur le front italien. Le livre est beau, et l'édition a inclus à la fin les nombreuses et différentes fins imaginées par Hemingway. Si vous aimez Hemingway et que vous aimez le lire en anglais, vous ne serez pas déçu!

Bought it because its part of my semester syllabus, haven't read it yet so no comment in there. But print is neat and clear, cover and pages material also good. And love the cover design.

Everyman's Library Classics edition It arrived with the paper cover stained, which I could clean almost completely with some alcohol. I cannot rate it less than the best because the edition is flawless, I absolutely love both covers, the most decorated paper one and the dark textile hard cover, with nothing but the title on the side. The introduction is vast and includes a timeline of the social and literary context from Hemingway's life, and I found no errors nor misprints yet, 40 pages to the end.

It's many years since I first read this, over 60. I had forgotten all but the nighttime flight up the lake into Switzerland. Perhaps Hemingway was of that mind but I never have fathomed why anyone in the First War would have voluntarily joined the Italian Army to supervise ambulance drivers. Or why anyone would have gone to Spain to fight in war not their own. But that was Hemingway - his story was that the evils of war was everyone's business. In this story there is essential courage and dedication until the realities of war (any war is a vicious interlude in our lives) bring out the realities and barbarism that comes over individual men when every moment could be life or death. And I do not find it difficult that either Henry or Catherine in the midst of a passionate discovery of each other would eventually flee to the safety of Switzerland. I found Rinaldo unnecessary to the story and somehow offensive; on the other hand, I found the Count delightful with his two bottles of champagne a day at 94, hoping to reach 100. For me, there were many sections that were long and drawn out far beyond what was requited in the story - but that is Hemingway and he is the one with the Nobel and the Pulitzer. But lurking under and alongside this story there is cruelty and sadness that Hemingway cannot seem to evade, and while he tries to make it a noble sacrifice at first, it later descends into tragedy. So far in my re-reading of Hemingway he has been excellent at turning a beautiful and passionate love into a hopeless tragedy. And at this distance, hopeless and pointless, although a five star hopeless and pointless. .

One of Hemingway's finest books.