One of my favorite books. It may seem slow at first but it once you get to the end it's well worth it. I cant explain the feeling this book gives me. :D ( )

How in the world did Hemingway become a famous author? His style is crap! ( )

Brutal[Crítica a Xelu.net]D'alguns llibres em costa molt fer-ne una crítica perquè m'intimiden. Són clàssics o llibres que per una raó o una altra han passat a formar part de la història de la literatura, ja sigui per mèrit propi o per la trajectoria de l'autor. Em passa amb el llibre d'avui, A Farewell to Arms d'Ernest Hemingway. Aquest autor per a mi és poc menys que una llegenda, no perquè hagués llegit cap altra llibre seu abans de llegir-ne aquest, que no és el cas, sino per la manera, el respecte i la veneració amb que n'he sentit a parlar sempre, titllant-lo pràcticament de pare de la literatura moderna. El cas és que vaig sentir un podcast al que proposaven llegir aquest llibre per a comentar-lo més endavant, com si fos un club de lectura, i aquell mateix dia em vaig plantar a l'Fnac i el vaig comprar, i després el vaig llegir, i ara estic aqui i no se ben bé que dir perquè el llibre em supera i qualsevol cosa que digui no li farà justícia, i després algú em farà cas, el llegirà, i si no li agrada tant com a mi em sabrà greu perquè el llibre es mereix ser llegit per tothom, més d'una vegada, i comentat, i treballat, i aprofundit i després tornat a llegir. Tant m'ha agradat. I és que de vegades aquests clàssics s'han d'agafar amb cura, de vegades el seu valor és històric i vistos amb ulls d'avui és difícil valorar-los amb justícia, i està clar també que A Farewell to Arms no és un llibre tan vell, la primera edició és del 1929, però sigui com sigui és perfectament modern i vigent i fàcil de llegir sense deixar de ser subtil, poètic, enigmàtic i viu. El llibre viu i respira i palpita i al final és com una punyalada que et deixa sense alè i que a mi em va fer plorar. Així doncs si això que escric no és gens una crítica objectiva i racional és perquè aquest llibre ha destruït la meva objectivitat. Se suposa que una crítica ha ser un esforç d'anàlisi dels recursos, imaginari, argument, teixit, punt de vista, etc que donen forma a un llibre, per tal d'intentar determinar-ne el seu valor en tant que obra literària, obra d'art, retrat de la psique humana, però aquest llibre excel·leix tant en tots aquests aspectes que parlar-ne em vé gran. Així que ho sento, no en faig cap crítica i em limito a recomanar-vos que no deixeu de llegir aquesta meravella. ( )

Those who have not seen the elephant and lack the courage to go looking for it have no right to criticize Ernest Hemingway, who set out as a young man to find the elephant and get a good long look at the Beast, and then describe it for the rest of us. As a young man he did not yet realize that few people are as brave and as honest as he.

He went. He saw. He wrote. He told us all about it -- and scarcely anyone believes him. Those who don't tell the few who do that Papa was a fool and a bad man. So it is in life as it was in "The Old Man and the Sea." Now that the big fish is dead, the little ones come to gnaw on his corpse.

Nobody with anything to lose has a friend in this world. The person who has nothing may find one. Papa knew.

Of Hemingway's major novels, 'A Farewell to Arms' is the one I like least. That's not to say AFTA is a bad book, because it is in fact a very good book. It's just the one I like least. Fact of the matter is I find the end of it too heartbreaking, even as I rush to say that any other ending would have made less sense.

'A Farewell to Arms' is chick-lit written by a man's man. What a concept! You wouldn't think it would work, but it does. Highly recommended. ( )

Hemingway imbues his characters with exceptional courage and grace. They, Henry and Catherine (two main characters), are so very lonely and the reader is happy to see them find each other and a bit of themselves in the process of falling in love. Together they seem more capable of dealing with the world around them. They are no longer drifting and in many ways are fighting together and for each other.

Told through Henry's point of view, one gets to experience the tension at the front, the adrenaline rush that comes with running from the enemy, and the camaraderie of the men who are fighting for something they do not understand. All they know is that they would like for the war to be over so they can go home; a common refrain in war. Romance, while it may seem like an odd word to use when speaking of war, is pervasive throughout the story; in the descriptions of the men, the sadness and loneliness that pervade the lives of the individuals at the front, and people waiting at home for them to return.

While I have not read a great deal of Hemingway, there is something very different about this book that makes it stand out from the rest and that is the romantic nature of the piece. He shows in great detail the love between these two, constrained and confusing as it is for everyone. It is very natural and drawn in its most elemental state, almost raw. He seems to want to readers to be involved with these two characters on a very intimate level and he accomplishes that goal. ( )

Excellent novel, but an overwhelmingly very sad ending. Hemingway's style sets quite a fast pace to the action, although this style also conveys tedious waiting around very well too. ( )

One of Hemingway's most noted stories is the foundation for an exciting internet meme known as "six word stories." A complete collection of books was published, called "Six Word Memoirs," in the vein of this challenge met by Hemingway. Likewise are Six Word Sci-Fi stories to be found on the internet.

This story went as such: "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."

For those of you familiar with Hemingway's life, you may see this as being quite autobiographical. Likewise, you may also find A Farewell to Arms to be equally autobiographical.

Set during World War I (called The Great War), American Frederic Henry is caught up in the war on the Italian Front. He drives an ambulance, delivering wounded solders to the proper medical facilities. In his duty, he meets an English nurse named Catherine Barkley. The two fall in love.

The story chronicles their relationship, and how the raging war outside tries to tear them apart (though without the war, they would have never met). As things start to fall apart, the lovers in the war-torn world try to find a safe place. A neutral place.

Not all is happy, but at the same time, not all is sad. The novel, leaving a bittersweet taste in the mouth of the reader, is well worth the time and devotion spend traveling through its passages alongside Frederic and Catherine.

Recommended for any fan of Hemingway, but too for readers interested in fiction focusing on World War I. ( )

I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I couldn't work up any interest in the main characters, what they could each see in the other was beyond my comprehension. ( )

I finished reading A Farewell to Arms on the bus this morning. The rest of the bus ride was depressing. It was raining. I suppose if there is one thing wrong with Hemmingway’s books, it is that you know how they all will end. A Farewell to Arms is no exception to this rule. While the book isn’t as depressing as For Whom the Bell Tolls, which I think is the saddest book ever written, it’s still pretty damn sad. I think as human beings we have a natural revulsion to the sorts of endings Hemmingway writes. Deep down I knew how A Farewell to Arms would end, once the story got going, but the ending your mind conjures up is so depressing you just can’t accept it as the probable outcome. So you read hoping for something else, a more typical conclusion to the story, and when you come to the end its like being punched in the stomach. -- http://funkaoshi.com/blog/a-farewell-... ( )

I always feel strange writing reviews for classics because, really, what the hell do I know? My high school was big on literary diversity so I never got to read the 'dead white guys'. I'm embarrassed to say that this is the first time I've read Hemingway. I can definitely see why he is such an important, influential author. His style is truly unique. His ability to write short, sharp, concise, yet powerful sentences is truly impressive. The minimalism seemed more pronounced in the beginning of A Farewell to Arms - it's possible that the style was so foreign to me that it was overwhelming at first, but it became less pronounced as I became more accustomed to it.

Surprisingly, there was a lot of humor in the book although some of it may have been unintentional. My general impression is that this book centers suffering as the normal state of life. Love, drink, food, games, are distractions but one will always go back to suffering.

As far as gender roles, I know Hemingway catches a lot of flack for being a dirty sexist, but I didn't see anything extremely offensive in this book. The main male character seemed like an exaggeration of 'maleness', that is, stereotypically male.( I feel like Hemingway writes male characters this way, his so-called 'Code Hero', because he himself is not stereotypically manly. This may be a baseless assumption but perhaps his characters were a type of wish fulfillment rather than an expression of himself.) The main female character didn't strike me as stereotypically female. The only feminist criticism that occurs to me is that the main female character seemed very concerned with pleasing the main male character even to her own detriment. But at the same time she seemed aware, more so than the male character, that their love was a fleeting game. She was happy to play house as a distraction (maybe that's the reason that she always put off getting married even though he suggested it early and often?) She did seem really two dimensional, but so did most of the characters, even the main male character. ( )

A depressing read. Jumpy style of writing - the book does have an unsettling feeling about ti throughout. For me, the way a book ends is 50% of its impact. How do plot lines get resolved? What is the aftertaste, hours after the book is finished? Reading this book I just KNEW there was bad stuff coming at the end, and sure enough it did. But it was very unsatisfying, with a number of unresolved plot issues and a feeling of having been robbed by the ending. ( )

Very good descriptions of the war, landscapes and nature combined with some odd dialogue. The writing style felt very detached and unemotional, but maybe that's on purpose - life does make you feel useless and inconsequential at times, and that's without even considering a war. One other thing I noticed was the ungodly amounts of drinking described throughout. ( )

"A Farewell to Arms" is a classic piece of literature from one of the most well known authors, Ernest Hemingway. Set in Italy during World War I, Frederic Henry - an American volunteer ambulance driver for the Italian army - falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley and their love affair grows.

Hemingway is famed for his short, terse prose that somehow evokes emotions through declarative sentence after declarative sentence and "Farewell" is one of the most shining examples of his style. Initially the dialogue may leave some readers wanting, as each line of dialogue is only a sentence or two at the most. The character of Catherine Barkley is interesting in that she seems to have no feelings or goal in life other than to make Frederic Henry happy - and she will do anything to make him happy.

Those are really the only qualms against the story, as it is an excellent, emotional story of love and war that will captivate and grip most readers and leave them breathless at the end. ( )

Hemingway is complicated. A love story is never just a love story; there is always a much deeper, and usually darker, thread running through his stories. A Farewell to Arms follows that pattern, setting the story of Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkly in the chaos of the First World War. Henry, an volunteer, American medic with the Italian Army, meets and begins an affair with Barkly, an English nurse. The two steal moments together between bombings and battles and retreats and wounds, but eventually lose track of each other when Henry is sent to the front and Barkly's hospital is forced to relocate. Henry makes his way back to Barkly and the two check out of the war altogether, hiding away in hopes of forgetting the world around them.

This is a dark love story, one ultimately without hope. On one level, Hemingway is commenting on the foolish and hopeless exercise of war, constantly exhibiting characters who are obssessed with the futitlity of the war and whose malaise is often read as cowardice or lack of honor. Even in the face of a world dissembling around himHemingway's hero, fights on, distinguishing himself for bravery and overcoming those around him with a masculine bravado and penchant for action. Hemingway's delicately balances a distaste for war in general with the vaules of duty and commitment.

At its deepest level, however, Hemingway's story is based on a bleak of humanist perpspective, void of any thought of an afterlife or values based outside of human existence. The love between Henry and Barkly is largely a senuous one and doesn't seem to run to the spiritual level. (Spoiler alert-though this is a clasic, there may be some like me who haven't yet read the book)And Hemingway seems to comment on the futility of such a spiritual love given the book closes with the death of both Barkly and the child the two have conceived. Hemingway seems to be saying that all you can hope for is to find some pleasure in this life as you live it but that fate will be the final arbiter of the days of your existence.

Since Hemingway is so focused on finding the pleasure in life, as always, his description of the world around him is superb. He can describe food and taste better than any other writer I've read. And his landscapes are so easy to picture and feel and smell.

So, Hemingway is a favorite and I highly recommend this one, if for no other reason than to enjoy his prose. But, a caution that Hemingway can be a bit dark.

Four Bones!!!! ( )

I read this for the first time this year and wondered why I never read it in high school or college. Underneath it all this was a love story set in wartime but it doesn't read like one and it certainly isn't a girly book. There are very memorable scenes that are still vibrant in my mind. Although, the nurse and second half of the love story really got on my nerves more than once. I'm not sure if she resembled women of the time but its hard for me to believe that she was. What a pill and pretty fake seeming. But don't let one annoying character prevent you from reading this classic, it does have its redeeming qualities and is a piece of master story telling. ( )

This is my second shot at Hemingway, having recently read The Sun Also Rises. Interestingly enough, I found the two reading experiences almost identical. As was the case with "Sun", I was initially underwhelmed, but around midway through the book, felt myself drawn into the story and by the end, was reluctant to put the book down.

Hemingway certainly has his own signature style. Clipped, terse, single sentence dialogue that at times borders on the absurd. Perhaps it is the act of becoming comfortable and familiar with the style that results in his works starting slow and building to a strong finish, because at its root, this is simply a magnificent story, built upon a singular historical event. It was Hemingway's own experience as a stretcher bearer on the Austro-Italian front that provided the motivation and basis for the story.

I've seen some label this an anti-war novel, but I simply don't see it. It is anti-war to the extent that it doesn't glorify the act of war, but it is not political. The front line soldiers certainly are not pro-war, but honestly, except in the case of the odd megalomaniacs and psychopaths, given the choice most would opt for peace. At its root, this is a love story set amid extremely difficult and trying circumstances. Finally, as with much of Hemingway, don't expect a happy ending. ( )

I have to say that I wasn't overly fond of this one; while the descriptions of places and military aspects were nice, the whole romance part just didn't sit right with me, largely due to the woman being some kind of android with no desire other than to look pretty and make the man happy. Creeped me out somewhat. ( )

I borrowed this from an English boy that broke my heart. I see the irony and significance in it, but the story behind the demise of our relationship is too long to tell. It's still relevant with me. It gives this book special meaning.

This is one of my favorite Hemingway novels. I've read it every year since 2005, and I never fail to choke up at the end. I can easily compare it to FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, but I feel it is an easier read with a meatier plot. The heroine in this book is certainly admireable. She is strong and is still able to wear her heart on her sleeve. The hero is a bit dubious at times, but he's still very likeable to me as well. I highly recommend this book.

To the English boy who broke my heart: thanks for the bittersweet memories. I'll adore you forever.

Oh.

And you're not getting your book back. ( )

I really enjoyed the book. It moves through different emotions and seasons seamlessly even though there are dramatic shits in action. I found myself very involved with the characters which seemed distant. ( )

Hemingway's semi-autobiographical account of the experiences of an American volunteer ambulance driver in World War One Italy isn't the easiest book I've read this year, or the most cheerful.

Frederic Henry, the narrator, is wounded during an Austrian attack and sent to recuperate in Milan, where he becomes romantically linked to Catherine Barkley, a Scottish nurse whose fiance died on the Western Front some time previously. After returning to the front just in time to be caught up in a disastrous retreat, Frederic is threatened with being shot for 'treason' and ultimately escapes to neutral Switzerland with the now pregnant Catherine.

I confess to having greatly preferred the same author's For Whom The Bell Tolls, but in fairness this may well simply be because I knew some more about the Spanish Civil War than I do the Italian front, or just because I read the two books under fairly different conditions. For whatever reason, A Farewell To Arms just seemed to lack some of the emotional impact of the other work. Indeed, I found in difficult to relate to many of the characters at all; partly because of the style of the narrative itself and partly because these characters just didn't seem very convincing to me. This was especially true of Catherine Barkley; I never found the relationship between her and Henry at all convincing - and as this was a key part of the novel, this was a big problem.

A few of the other minor characters - notably the narrator's friend Rinaldi and the young priest he speaks to in the officers' mess - seemed more plausible, and I was slightly disappointed by the way they simply fell away from the narrative after Henry left the army. That said, there was a definite air of realism about the scenes at the front (I was reminded of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia in fact, but that may simply reflect the fact I've not read many war novels as such) and the ending did seem to capture some of the emotional power that seemed to be absent from much of the rest of the book.

There's obviously a problem when it comes to reviewing 'classic' works of fiction in that, simply, it's impossible to approach a novel written many decades before you were born in the manner the author wished or to say anything even close to original about a book that has already had so much written about it. As such, many people may justifiably feel I've been a little harsh here, but the truth is that I was rather underwhelmed; if this had been the first Hemingway novel I'd read I can't say I'd have been particularly tempted to read another.

This particular book is first edition, third printing, and may be worth some moolah as such. EH's tale of the American youth's love affair with the nurse and the ultimate ennui of after-the-war and after-the-love. His second big literary hit. ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Book #17: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway (1929)

The story in a nutshell:
Published in the late 1920s, right when Modernism was first starting to become a commercially successful form of the arts, A Farewell to Arms is Ernest Hemingway's wry and cynical look at World War I, the event that most defined not only his generation but also the beginning of the Modernist movement. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the book tells the story of Frederic Henry, known to most as "Tenente" (Italian slang for "Lieutenant"), a young and gung-ho American who couldn't get accepted by the American military during the war, so volunteered to be an ambulance driver for the Italian army instead. One of the first of Hemingway's tales to define the stoic "man's man" he would eventually become known for, the novel basically follows Tenente through a series of thrilling escapades, made even more interesting because of the main character not seeing them as thrilling at all -- nearly having his leg torn off while at the front, saving a man's life, escaping execution by diving off a bridge, a rowboat ride to Switzerland in the middle of the night while fleeing a group of pursuers, and a whole lot more.

Like I said, though, Hemingway's point here is not to glamorize war, but rather to highlight the mundane aspects of it all; the endless red tape, the weasely things people do to get out of actual work, the BS conversations that are always taking place among soldiers, all of them arguing over how the war is going but none of them actually possessing any factual information. At the same time, though, A Farewell to Arms is about the monstrous developments of World War I in particular, the very first large war to be fought during the Industrial Age, and therefore capable of inflicting so much more carnage than anyone thought possible. (For example, the brand-new European railway system is heavily featured throughout the book, and especially the fact that in a half-day's ride, you could go literally from the battlefront to a five-star luxury hotel, something that had never been possible before WWI.) Oh, and if all this wasn't enough, Hemingway throws in a love story too, a complicated one featuring a complicated woman, one that has been a source of heated interpretation since the book first came out 79 years ago.

The argument for it being a classic:
There seems to be two main arguments for this being a classic, one based on the author and one on the book itself. Because the fact is that Hemingway is considered by many to be one of the most important novelists in the history of that format, a fabled "High Priest of Modernism" who taught all of us to think in a punchier, shorter way, and with this mostly being for the better for the arts in general. Because let's not forget, a mere twenty or thirty years before this book was first published, it was actually the flowery and overwritten Victorian style of literature that dominated the publishing industry; and as we've all learned throughout the course of this "CCLaP 100" essay series, although Victorian literature certainly has its charms and inherent strengths, it's also a whole lot of talking to say not much at all, a situation that was starting to drive artists crazy by the time the 20th century got into swing. Hemingway, fans claim, was the first Modernist to really bring all the details together in a profoundly great way -- the first to combine the exciting rat-a-tat style of pulp-fiction writers with the weighty subjects of the academic community, producing work that owes as much to Raymond Chandler as it does to Virginia Woolf but is ultimately much better than simply reading those two authors back-to-back. And by making its subject World War I, fans say, Hemingway here turns in yet another great document of those times that the early Modernists were known for -- from The Great Gatsby to All Quiet Among the Western Front, it's hard for us to even think of the artists from the "Jazz Age" or "Lost Generation" or whatever you want to call it, without thinking of this globe-changing event that was so in the middle of it. There's a good reason, after all, that many consider A Farewell to Arms one of the greatest war novels of all time.

The argument against:
Of course, there are others who can't even hear the words "Ernest Hemingway" without automatically shuddering, again for a variety of reasons that even most of his fans admit hold at least some weight -- because he is overrated by the academic community, because his personal style is a hackneyed, easily parodied one, because his "man's man" shtick got real old real fast, because it's now inspired three generations of a--holes (and counting) to want to be bull-fleeing, cigar-smoking woman-haters too. At its heart, its critics say, A Farewell to Arms is an interesting-enough little ditty, mostly because Hemingway himself had some interesting little experiences during the war that he basically cribbed wholesale for the book; but then this story is covered with layer after layer of bad prose, macho posturing, and aimless meanderings that get you about as far away from a traditional three-act novel as you can possibly get. With Hemingway and his critics, it's never a case of "it's a good enough book but shouldn't be labeled a classic;" those who dislike him really dislike him, and wish to see his work removed from academic reading lists altogether. "classic" label or not.

My verdict:
So let me embarrassingly admit that this is actually the very first book by Hemingway I've ever read, and that I was hesitant going into it because of just the overwhelming amount of bad stuff that's been said about him over the decades; to be truthful, I was half-expecting a parody of Hemingway at this point, all little words and nonsensical sentences and dudes treating girls kinda like crap most of the time. And yes, the book does for sure contain a certain amount of all this; but I was surprised, to tell you the truth, by how how tight, illuminating, fascinating and just plain funny A Farewell to Arms turned out to actually be. Wait, funny, you say? Sure; I dare you not to laugh, for example, during the scene when a huge argument breaks out between two Swiss border guards over which of their two hometowns boasts better winter sports. ("Ah, you see? He does not even know what a luge is!") This is what makes it such an intriguing novel about war, after all, because Hemingway expertly shows just how many surreal moments there are during times of war as well, that "war" doesn't just mean the two lines of soldiers facing each other at the front but also an entire region, an entire industry, an entire population. Hemingway's World War I is not just seen from the smeared windshield of a battlefront ambulance, but from bored soldiers getting drunk in a quiet bunker, from weary villagers hoping there will be at least something left of their homes after the war is over, from armchair pundits recovering in crumbling veteran hospitals, arguing over which complicated international treaty sunk them all and which is going to save them. It's an expansive, multi-facted, sometimes highly unique look at a wartime environment, one that at least here in his early career (he published this when he was 30) belies all the complaints that have ever been made about his hackneyed personal style.

And as far as that love story in the middle of it all, and the repeated complaints about Hemingway's characters all being misogynists...well, maybe it was just me, but I found his Catherine Barkley to be the very model of a modern independent woman (or at least modern and independent in 1920s terms), a fiercely intelligent and cynical creature who expects the same from her lovers, even while realizing that such a man is destined to either die in the environment they're currently in, or survive just to become a bitter, angry a--hole later in life. The way I see it, Catherine is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation; she needs love and intimacy in her life as much as anyone else, and especially in her role as a risk-taking, thick-skinned nurse just a few miles from the battle's front, but also understands that Tenente is destined to befall one of the two fates just mentioned, thus explaining the curious push/pull emotions she has towards him and the way she treats him throughout the novel. It's a surprisingly sophisticated relationship at work, the same thing that can be said of the novel in general; I don't know about the rest of Hemingway's work (yet, anyway), but at least A Farewell to Arms turned out to be a surprisingly cracking read, not only a definite classic but just an all-around amazing book in general. It comes highly recommended today.

Is it a classic? Yes ( )

Read it because it's considered a classic, but did not enjoy it. Hemingway's writing style is fairly disagreeable, at least to me, and at times it felt like the story (what little of it was there) hid behind the staccato of sentences. The conversations between between Henry and Catherine were cloyingly sweet at times and full of apparent misogynism ("I'll be the best girl you'll ever want, darling, I promise"). ( )

A tale of an American in the Italian Army in World War I, and the British nurse he falls in love with.

'm not sure how you get to be my age, reading as many books as I do each year (and an English major to boot!), and have managed not to read a book by Ernest Hemingway. But this is my first. I guess I meant to do it earlier, because I apparently bought this book in the 1970s. It cost $1.65 new, and it appears I paid $1.25 for it at a used book store that still exists here in Fort Collins. The best part about this book was finding a $10 bill pressed between the pages. I wish all my reading returned such handsome dividends.

I suppose I knew Hemingway is famous for his spare writing style, but I had no idea I was in for nearly 350 pages of one declarative sentence after the other. I thought I was going to go crazy in the first 100 pages, then the style (or perhaps the story) began to grow on me and I settled down and enjoyed the last half of the book. I won't be rushing out for another one, but I hope I come across it before another 50 years goes by. ( )