A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway
1929
Pages: I can’t remember, and I don’t have my copy here, but it’s a thin book
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Message to the FTC: Same as yesterday. Hah! I’m making you work for the info today!
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I’m not a fan of old movies. I’ve always found the acting to be a bit stilted and everyone seems just a bit too formal.
And this book reminds me of old movies. While I enjoyed the non-dialogue parts of the book, when his characters start to speak Hemingway starts to lose me. Here’s my overly exaggerated impersonation of Hemingway’s dialogue, in which I mangle two actual conversations from the book into one:
Waiter: Would you care for soup?
Man: Darling, would you like some soup?
Woman: Oh yes my love, soup sounds divine, thank you so much for asking. Would you care for soup?
Man: I think I shall pass on the soup this evening.
Woman: But darling, if you order soup, than we shall be just the same, and isn’t it lovely when we are the same? I adore it when we are the same. Why don’t you order the soup?
Man: If it will make you happy, my dearest one, than I shall order the soup. Because I want us to be just the same in all things, forever more.
Softdrink: Gag.
Anyhoosie. If I ignore the dialogue, there are things I actually do like about Hemingway’s writing. I like the simplicity of it, and (unless people are talking), the repetition of words and phrases. It reminds me a bit of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.
In A Farewell to Arms, the setting is Italy, during WWI. Our hero, Frederic Henry, is an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army. Fred becomes involved with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley. The novel follows Fred’s experiences as he falls in love with Catherine, the Austrain army advances, the Italian army retreats, he basically desserts, finds Catherine, and they run away to Switzerland where they are gloriously happy and HUGE SPOILER ALERT ahead…
…Catherine dies in childbirth. It’s all quite grim and depressing. Like war.
Last year I read (and loved) A Moveable Feast, in which Hemingway recounts some of his time abroad. What is interesting is how some of the experiences from A Moveable Feast reappear as scenes in A Farewell to Arms, particularly the growing the hair to be the same and the winter in Switzerland. It’s also pretty well known that he was an ambulance driver in WWI. Hemingway was obviously drawing from real life experiences, and gives the novel deeper meaning to be able to see where he drew his inspiration from (it doesn’t make me like the dialogue any better, though).
So. While I’m glad I read it, I’m not sure that I’ll be diving into another Hemingway anytime soon. I need a break from all those darlings.
I just never know how I’m going to feel about Hemingway: I loved The Sun Also Rises; I hated the Old Man and the Sea the first time I read it and enjoyed it the second; I was completely indifferent to Men Without Women to the point that I can’t remember any of the stories; and I can’t remember if I’ve read any others. It’s a toss up every time I read him.
.-= Trisha´s last blog ..Book Blogger Hop =-.
I really like Hemingway, though I haven’t read this one. The dialog doesn’t bother me because I don’t expect it to sound realistic, if that makes sense. I expect it to be only the impressions of dialog, if that makes sense.
A really good one – one that has very little dialog and is much, much shorter than this one – is The Old Man and the Sea, which I’ve thought about rereading (for the 4th time) soon.
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I’m not going to be reading this any time soon, but A Moveable Feast is still near the top of the pile… was hoping to get to it LAST month…
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I hate this one and love, love, love The Sun Also Rises, probably because it covers Paris and Spain and the running of the bulls in Pamplona and it’s hard not to love that. It’s also got a great doomed romance in it. His short stories are also worth reading – some beautiful writing there. I loathe A Farewell to Arms and they made us read it twice in high school. For Whom the Bell Tolls is also sort of wonderful if a tad romanceish.
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I am not a Hemingway fan so I love to see what other’s think of him. I find him a fascinating person but his books, aak. I know, I know it’s a pretty bad thing to say but I just can’t get into ‘em and I’ve read a few now. I really enjoyed your review though, it made me smile, as always!
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“…where they are gloriously happy and…” Damn. Had to stop. I haven’t read this one, yet, but it’s on my shelf. I have a love/hate relationship with Hemingway, but I lean more heavily toward love so I’ll read this one, eventually. My favorite Hemingway joke:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To die. Alone. In the rain.
BTW, your FTC notes never fail to crack me up. Sometimes I just don’t bother saying where I got a book because I’m forgetful, but I’m mostly reading my own books so I have a feeling they don’t mind. They’re probably awfully busy chasing down . . . wait, what do FTC people do, exactly? Chase down . . . uh . . . ARC book-hoarders? Surely not.
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I love your approximation of the Hemingway dialogue. I read The Sun Also Rises in high school but did not care for it at the time. I’m planning on reading A Farewell to Arms this year. I’ll see how that goes . . .
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I haven’t read this, but it’s on my shelf. At least now I’m forewarned about the dialogue.
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Your conversation made me laugh! If I ever read the book, I’ll probably think of you and laugh.
Funny soup scene *chuckle*
I haven’t read any Hemingway so far. One of these days…
I can’t stand Hemingway, and it’s all because of the dialogue for me. Blech. Plus I think he was a jerk in real life, and he clearly disliked women, so I think that’s playing into my opinion of him.
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So you’re saying that the Man/Woman dialogue is quite a bit different than say… Isabella and Heathcliff??
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I’ve never read this one and have always felt a bit guilty about that.
I love this book but have to admit that old Papa’s got Catherine babbling like a fool. I read Riders of the Purple Sage last week (1912) and Zane Grey has Jane Withersteen suffering from logodiarrhea as well. Some of these manly authors have a tin ear when it comes to women’s dialogue.
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I only read part of your post as I plan to read this one in 2010. It is time for my dose of Hemingway once again (about once a year).
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I watched just watched this movie a couple of weeks ago (both the 1957 version and then parts of the 1932 version thinking that might be better) . I would not give even 1 star to either version. Wondered if the book was any better. Guess not.
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I haven’t read Hemingway in a hundred years, but I was a fan. I read this and have no specific memory of it — but that says not much about the book and a whole lot about me.
It’s been ages since I last read Hemingway. I love his writing style. It’s a nice break from the more wordy and descriptive writing I also love. My favorite of Hemingway’s was The Sun Also Rises. I liked this one was well, but not as much. I’m afraid it’s been too long for me to recall how I felt about the dialogue, but I imagine it must not have bothered me too much or else I think I would remember. Maybe.
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