A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
read: circa 2006
Modern Library #74, Guardian 1000 Novels

When I took an English class in college, I was supposed to read a lot of books.  I only read four, already reviewed here, but years later I went back and read a few more.  This is one.

I didn't like A Farewell to Arms as much as The Sun Also Rises, which is kind of praising by faint damnation.  Still, the central emotional core of the story - the relationship between Frederic Henry and nurse Catherine Barkley - doesn't quite ring true.  In the three Hemingway books I've read, I don't think any of the romantic relationships are entirely convincing, and story suffers to the extent to which it relies on identifying with that feeling of love.  (If I were to levy a specific criticism it would be that the characters seem to hop into sex without any development of a relationship and barely any conversation beforehand.  Certainly some relationships start that way.  I suspect that if Hemingway had not been confined by the taboos against more vivid descriptions of copulation he might have added detail that would have made the romances more convincing.  But I don't think it's a coincidence that the relationship between Jake and Brett in The Sun Also Rises, where consummation is physically impossible, is arguably his most fully-realized.)

Also, I don't think pregnant women should drink that much.

But the last paragraph of the book is outstanding.