Bookshot #56: A Farewell To Arms

What an utterly depressing book. Leave it to Hemingway, that buzz kill to totally spike my mood and not with anything fun either. I wasn't sure why I was picking up Hemingway again when I started A Farewell To Arms. Every so often I get the itch, the desire to plunge back in and try and answer once and for all for myself just what Hemingway was about and why people find him such a compelling writer.

After reading this book, I still don't get it. I mean, I suppose I do and I don't at the same time. His minimalism is nice. There's no wasted exposition and I suppose for the WWI period, his dialogue works- but it seems a little stilted to me sometimes, though mercifully, this book is a fairly quick and easy read.

But, A Farewell To Arms: The story of a young, dashing American, Lieutenant Henry who is serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army in the last year or so of World War I. He falls in love with a young, beautiful British Nurse, Catherine Barkley and when he is injured and sent to Milan to recuperate their romance deepens and eventually Catherine becomes pregnant. Sent back to the war, Lt. Henry is caught up in the bloody retreat southwards out of the Italian Alps and as the army starts shooting their officers for this abject failure, eventually has to go on the run to avoid them.

Reuniting with Catherine, they flee to Switzerland where they await the birth of their child. Who eventually has to be born via cesarian section and who is sadly stillborn and Catherine succumbs to a series of hemmoraghes and dies.

And that's pretty much the book. Cheerful isn't it? (If you've seen the preview for the movie 'Silver Linings Playbook' there's that scene where Bradley Cooper finishes this very book, gets pissed off and chucks it out the window before storming into his parents' bedroom to rant at them about it at like 4 in the morning. That pretty much sums up this book in a way.) A Farewell To Arms is just sad And it leaves a bad taste in your mouth- I mean after all that, after pages and pages of sweet nothings and extravagent expressions of love to one and other they get to Switzerland, the baby dies and then he just hangs out and then goes back to his hotel.

What a crappy ending.

(Like a lot of Hemingway's stuff this draws on some of his own experiences- namely as an ambulance driver in Italy in World War I.) Next time I get the itch for some more Hemingway, I think I'm going to go all in and try and conquer For Whom The Bell Tolls or The Old Man and The Sea after that, I can't really think of any Hemingway I'm particularly itching to read- but you never know. Good Old Hemingway always seems to keep me coming back for more.

Overall: There's an underlying sense of 'meh' about this whole book. Didn't knock my socks off at all. The writing was good I'll give it that and the ending, the ending was pure Hemingway. Depressing and well, crappy. ** out of ****. Hemingway Old Buddy: I think you can do better...