A Farewell to Arms (Scribner Classics) by Ernest Hemingway Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.94 You Save: $21.06 (70%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of A Farewell to Arms (Scribner Classics)
Book Review: good travelogue, mediocre novel
Summary: 2 Stars
While there are aspects of this novel that I liked, it mainly caused me to remember why I put down "For Whom the Bell Tolls" half unread many years ago in high school--I am not a fan of Papa's writing style. What I did enjoy was re-visiting some sights in Northern Italy and Switzerland as they likely were in the early twentieth century, and in this Hemingway's reporting has the ring of truth. And some of the dialogue is witty; I especially enjoyed the advice of the local Swiss on which city is best for winter sports. The religious theme that threaded the novel was well done and lightly drawn. But the lengthy dialogue between Freddie and Cathy is leaden as a fishing weight. These two are not Beatrice and Benedict, and unfortunately, the success of this novel depends on giving these two lovebirds at least some appeal. They had little to me. Also I lacked the patience to sort out many of the characters who pop in and out of the novel; most are just window dressing for our handsome lovers' great romance. OK, maybe Papa intended this to be the backdrop for an anti-war story, and as one, it is not bad. Moreover, the finale had real and painful poignance. Unfortunately it was preceeded by two chapters dripping with saccharine-laced Swiss chocolate as our two proclaimed their bliss in a chalet for a few months, unfettered by work of any kind, with money to burn. I can recommend this as a window into the views of a TR-style American aristocrat with a matured Boy's Life view of the world in the early twentieth century. But as a piece of literature, I cannot place it highly.Book Review: Terse writing the Hemingway way
Summary: 4 Stars
It's interesting to me how fictional books written with the backdrop of World War 1 differ so greatly with those written with the backdrop of World War 2. The WW2 books almost universally focus on the struggle of good versus evil: the heroics of the Allies, and the despicable nature of the Nazis and those who supported them. A WW2 Ally soldier had no reason to wonder why he was fighting, and what the objective was. Afterwards, the soldier need only look at the Holocaust to know that he did right to kill his enemies on the battlefield, and that the loss of so many fellow soldiers was part of a noble effort. ("Gee, I wonder if it was wrong to shoot that Nazi," would probably never be a line in any novel).
Not so with WW1. In that war, it seems that no one was quite clear why they were fighting or what, exactly, the objectives were. Like any war, it was kill or be killed, but for what purpose exactly? (The same can be said from the point of view of the American soldier in the later part of the Vietnam War).
In "A Farewell to Arms," Hemingway sucessfully captures the futility and madness of the War, and the absolute insanity that people fighting in it were driven to. Since the two main characters are an ambulance driver and a nurse, we see the horrible injuries and deaths suffered by soldiers on the battlefield, and get a good introduction to the wartime practice of medicine in the early 20th Century. Hemingway drove an ambulance during WW1 himself, and clearly knows his stuff.
Don't ask me how, but "Farewell" is the first Hemingway book I've ever read. For some strange reason, I managed to avoid his work through High School (I recall that I perhaps was supposed to read "The Old Man of the Sea," but I either forgot it entirely, or read the Cliff notes). I have to say that I certainly enjoyed "Farewell," and plan to read more Hemingway in the future, but I struggled, at first, to get used to the writing. In the first 100 pages or so, I found the terseness and simplicity of the sentences to be a distraction, and wondered if, perhaps, the author was vastly over-rated. I also found the dialogue stiff and, on occasion, down-right bizarre. For instance, often the characters (especially Fred Henry) would respond to each other with a flat sounding "all right," which I thought didn't flow at all.
But after awhile, the Hemingway style started to make an impression on me and I appreciated it, not only in the war scenes, but also concerning the romance between Fred and Catherine, which, although incredibly corny at times, worked for me. You could see the tragedy at the end a few chapters away (the blissful moments in rural Switzerland simply could not last), but it effected me even so. Frankly, I still prefer authors who use more complex sentence structure, but, as I kept reading this book, I grew more appreciative of what Hemingway was trying to accomplish with his style.
PS: A good companion to "Farewell" is "All Quiet on the Western Front," which is from the point of view of a WW1 German soldier. Apparently,the other side had no clue why they were fighting that particular war either.
Book Review: I would have preferred an earlier farewell to Catherine
Summary: 3 Stars
Rather than have Catherine die in the last chapter of A Farewell to Arms, I wish Hemmingway had spared us all, and ended her life in the first chapter.
A Farewell to Arms is an antiwar novel and a love story but it is the love story that falls short of expectations and drags this classic novel into mediocrity. Fred's romance of Catherine is painfully dull. Neither one of them has anything interesting to say. When they are together they have conversations that are maddeningly tedious and insipid.
The war story is another matter. Hemmingway conveys the chaos, confusion, and horror of war in simple straightforward language. The Italian retreat from the front is especially compelling. The retreat starts out as a relatively orderly exercise but regresses soon into a state of chaos and civil disorder. Fred doesn't provide much emotional insight in his narrative but as the retreat progresses we see him become more and more disillusioned with war and with humanity.
Much is made of Hemmingway's sparse prose. I can't say that I'm a big fan of Hemmingway's terse writing. All in all, there is an emotional element missing from A Farewell to Arms that I attribute to Hemmingway's simple, repetitive prose and stilted dialogue.
A Farewell to Arms may be a classic antiwar novel and Hemmingway is unquestionably one of the most important writers of the 20th Century, but personally I think this novel would have been much stronger without a tedious, superficial love story dragging it down.
Book Review: fine Hemingway novel
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best of the three Hemingway novels I've read, the other two being The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls.
This is a novel of youth, best exhibited by the young nurse. It's also a novel of idealism--the ambulance driver committed to the war even as a non-combatant. But it's also a novel of reasoned youth tempering the more typical impetuous romanticism of war. Perhaps this is symbolized in his being an ambulance driver, dangerous enough, and not a combatant.
The events leading to his disillusion and consequent farewell to arms, occur not as typical youthful epiphanies, ricocheting from one extreme (idealism, romanticism) to another (disillusionment, cynicism), but as an almost inevitable and slowly acting corrosive as the war continues to unfold in front of him, brought into final play during the retreat in the Battle of Caporetto.
The description of the retreat is the highlight of the novel, beginning with its orderly nature to the joining in of refugees and its later almost complete disintegration into panic and unlawfulness. It's brilliant and completely convincing. You can see and feel it unfold right before you.
Everyone points out that Hemingway was a former newspaperman and his use of short, terse sentences.
Sure, but the fictional prose value of most newspaper people is nowhere--just surface description with little else. Not so for Hemingway. Embedded in his short sentences is feeling, emotion, and, in few words, vidid, deep description. It's what gives the substantial meaning and value to his work well beyond the superficial surface of the news report, even while in the heritage of that style.
I mean, how many reporters win the Nobel prize for Literature as did Hemingway. Read this book and you'll have an idea why.
Book Review: Characters, well done, with the war on the side
Summary: 4 Stars
War is an absurd and random presence in the life of Frederick Henry, an American lieutenant of the Italian army. His silver medal, which Fred did not really want, will always remind him that he was wounded by an enemy mortar while chasing fistfuls of pasta with bad wine. An ill-informed hospital barber, who appeared in Fred's life for a few minutes to give him a shave, is ready to slit his throat, having mistaken him for an enemy officer. A friend of Fred's, a few yards away from him, gets killed, by their own troops that are retreating, scared, and shooting at anything that moves. When Fred meets the battle police, without much deliberation they are preparing to execute him, having mistaken him for an officer who abandoned his troops. He narrowly escapes execution and deserts. The only war dividend - the love affair between Fred and Cat - is short-lived: their son is stillborn and Cat dies in childbirth. There is nothing good about this war.
Fred Henry is a signature, recognizable Hemingway character: with a double-masculine name (as is, for example, Robert Jordan in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" or Harry Morgan in "To Have and Have Not"), without much of a past or any discernable future, in a position of some authority, in love, with a loving woman by his side. As is customary for Hemingway's male protagonists, every few pages Fred has a drink.
In a typical Hemingway style, much dialog brings out vivid portraits of the main characters. Perhaps this is why, next to them, this war seems so inhuman.