Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is one of those books I probably should have read in high school, but somehow didn't. I finally rectified this recently, and I'm relatively glad I did.
Like all of Hemingway's work, the prose is unadorned and straightforward, lacking florid description, and occasionally leaving off where another writer would feel the need to elaborate. This can lead to a feeling of lack of depth.
The story is concerned with a young American Lieutenant (Tenente) driving an ambulance on the Italian front during the First World War, his relationship with his military contemporaries, and his experiences being wounded and falling in love with a British nurse.
The depiction of Tenente's paramour, Catherine Barkley, is either Hemingway's image of an ideal woman (wise, but unable to contain her passion), or a male dream (continually asserting what a 'good girl' she is, existing only to please her man). Or perhaps both. Her conversations with Henry are insipid, although that's the fault of both characters. Whether this is Hemingway's style, his lack of feel for women, or my poor ear for early twentieth century conversation remains to be seen.
The novel features judicious use of profanity, that has been excised (by the publisher) from my edition. I'm unsure how to feel about this -- the language is not quite archaic, but it would be jarring to see "shit", "fuck", and "cocksucker" (the three excised words) interspersed with clearly out-of-date dialogue.
Overall, an extended meditation on death in war, how deaths in battle become statistics, but that doesn't make the deaths of those we love any easier. A worthwhile novel, and one I'm glad I finally got around to reading.
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