The simple but profound writing in A Farewell to Arms is what makes Hemingway such a master. The main character, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, is an American serving as an ambulance driver for the Italian Red Cross in World War I. Hemingway demonstrates both the horrors of war and the ordinariness of life during the war. There is also a love story running parallel to the war story.

Although Hemingway wants each reader to take something different, and he doesn’t expound upon emotions and messages, the story has many themes. In addition to love, there’s a study of loyalty, patriotism, and desertion. The characters exemplify courage and fear, and pain. Loneliness, heavy drinking, and escapism, both literally and figuratively, are elements in the narrative.

The reader learns more about a man when the main character gives up on war and says farewell to arms. Hope, confusion, and agony play into the end of the story, and realizing that we must die is paramount to understanding the novel. ( )

This e-book edition of the Hemmingway novel should be avoided. All words contain double Ls, are printed with only one L. Although the book is readable this way, this is an annoying distraction.

The novel itself proved disappointing with no character that was particularly interesting and with dialog between Catherine and Henry often being cloying. Furthermore, the descriptions of WW I on the Italian-Slovenian front were not impressive. ( )

An incredibly disappointing and drab introduction to Hemingway.

The story follows Frederic Henry, an American in the Italian army during World War I, and his love affair with nurse, Catherine Barkley.
It starts off very slow, but suddenly turns quite gory when Henry arrives at the front. It was actually quite gripping and in terms of description it was thrilling. After this segment, the book takes it down a notch to the same level as before and focuses on building the world, its characters and establishing some kind of connection between the reader and the two lovebirds. However, it never quite succeeds at that.

I feel absolutely nothing for our main character. In the beginning of his relationship with Barkley, he straight up lies about loving her, and gets called out by her. For that reason, I always had a hint of disdain for Henry. Let's call it man's intuition in recognizing a foul character behind the veil that you wouldn't want near any female in your life, whether it's your sister, daughter or simply a friend. But along the way both of them declare their unyielding love to each other for some reason as no event really brings it forth. It sort of feel like those old 1930s flicks where all of a sudden, for no real reason at all, the two main characters can't help love each other. It feels forced and contrived. No matter how hard the book tried to put over this romance, I always sat back with a raised eyebrow.

About 98% of the dialogue in this book is so atrociously stale, and it rarely comes across as vaguely believable conversations between actual people. And that certainly goes for the so-called romance...
"Oh, I love you! Do you love me? Say you love me."
"Yes I love you."
"Oh, you're just saying that! It's the war. You don't mean it."
"Yes, I do."
"No, you don't"
"Yes, really."
"Ok, sure. Because I love you, but you don't have to lie to me."
Oh, my heartstrings can't take it any more! You'll be subjected to tedious dialogue like that multiple times throughout this book, and sometimes outright contradictions on the very same page. The way Henry and Barkley very often refer to each other as "my friend" is also very off-putting and does nothing but hinder its attempt to solidify the romance between them.

I probably feel the most for Catherine Barkley, even though a lot of her dialogue is unbearable. She's most likely still broken by the loss of her fiancée prior to this story and just want to be loved, but she then ends up with a schmuck - our main character. She tries to make the best of a bad situation, and want constant reassurance that everything is okay, although that is one thing that leads to a lot of a terrible dialogue because it's rarely varied and presented interestingly with some progress. It ends up like a broken record, and it gets old quickly. Barkley claims early on that she never drinks because she is an old-fashioned girl, but that certainly goes out later in the book, especially when she's pregnant, on doctor's orders. Quite poignant since all Henry does is drink, and drink, and drink. Whilst in a hospital, a nurse even says he should strop drinking to get jaundice just to get out of the war. That certainly does not keep him at bay, even when he's out of the war.

At certain points, the plot moves forward just for the sake of it without explaining why and how, such as during the retreat where the army starts executing lieutenants and Henry deserts the army to avoid such a fate. Or when Henry and Barkley are reunited in a hotel and the bartender suddenly obtains the information that Henry will be arrested in the morning. How did the army know where to find them? Why do they let the word slip out instead of just arresting him in the middle of the night when he won't see it coming? Who gave up Henry? Why is he so important to round up? Why are they executing people to begin with? Don't know. Don't think about it.

There are bright spots in the book, however, but they tend to be confined to smaller characters, where my favourites were Rinaldi and the Priest. Rinaldi is a cheeky Italian who feels a brotherly connection to Henry. Some of their back and forth banter is genuinely funny. The priest sprinkles a few words of wisdom here and there, which certainly was a positive inclusion. A smaller character, Aymo, was also a fun little addition, and I did feel a bit sad when he did not make it during the retreat.
I am not well-versed in WWI literature, and it serves only as a light backdrop in this book, so if you're after books on that subject, just stroll right along. As for love stories, do the same - stroll right along.

It's just such a shame, as I was really looking forward to reading this book, and desperately wanted to like it, as the name Hemingway radiates a kind of reverence in spite of whatever criticism has been laid upon him. Apparently, Hemingway wrote more than 30 different endings for this book, which is quite something since the one he decided to run with is so freaking terrible and has no payoff as it relies on you to buy into the contrived romance of the two main characters, and that you have a shroud of empathy for Henry. I didn't, and therefore the ending fell absolutely flat on its face, even though it obviously tries to touch the reader's feeling. My reaction was just, "REALLY? THAT is how it ends? What a waste of time..."

One of the few reasons I have for going forward with Hemingway is because one of his books inspired a great Metallica song - "For Whom the Bell Tolls". "A Farewell to Arms" certainly didn't give me any. Quite the opposite. ( )

Hemingway's semi-autobiographical depictions of his adventures hide, with terse descriptive writing, a seriously dysfunctional emotional life. The war in Italy frames Frederic Henry's affair with English nurse Catherine Barkley, a relationship that exists more out of lust and circumstance than for any deep emotional connection. Hemingway evokes sympathy for the doomed lovers despite their shallowness.

In the context of the modernist movement, Hemingway clearly expresses his generations disillusionment with the old world order of warfare as a path to honor. Frederic Henry starts out as an idealist, trying to convince his Italian compatriates that war should be fought until resolution, despite the seeming mindlessness of the violence. It isn't until his own life is threatened by the clear stupidity of the carabinieri that he realizes he must desert and try to make a life with Catherine. With the tragic ending of the book, Hemingway seems to be saying that happiness is fleeting in our modern world - that escape from the world and its machinery of death is impossible.

What is ironic in this novel?
- Frederic is in the Italian army as an American. At one point another soldier assumes Frederic is Italian-American, and is in the war for patriotic reasons. Why is Frederic in the war? Ostensibly he was in Italy studying architecture, and then joined the army as an ambulance driver when hostilities broke out. But there is a clear blurring of national distinctions, along with a dismissal of patriotism, glory, or honor as motivating factors in war. AFTA is very cynical about the nationalist tendencies of warmongers, as exemplified by the retreat scene when Fred's life is more threatened by the Italians than the Germans.
- There is also a strong vein of atheism in this novel - from the bullying of the priest to Frederic's unanswered prayers at the end, faith in God is notably absent in this Catholic setting. While the modernists saw traditional religious faith as a creaking structure that falls apart in the face of the horrors of modern life and death, Hemingway is implying that faith and hope cannot stand against the tragedy of the war. Frederic says at the end of the novel that "that is what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn." Death is meaningless and inevitable, and religion naively tries to make death a part of God's plan.
- Frederic is an anti-hero, in that he loves Catherine (which is the only moral belief he holds) but seems distant from her, constantly drinking and making love to her, impregnating her, but without any kind of plan for how they will go on after leaving the war. Frederic is the typical Hemingway hero in that his own ego and his self-image gets in the way of a meaningful emotional connection. While it is clear that he loves Catherine, he is never vulnerable to her. He has to keep up the facade of being in control. ( )

One way or another, the world does you to death. Twin disasters, the Italian Army retreat at Caporetto in 1917 and the hero's love for an English nurse create a final crushing pathos to this outstanding novel. Every part of this novel, dialogue, the sparsity of its detail, the sublime passion of the love affair and the terse reality of wartime conditions keeps the reader in mind that we are sharing in an unforgettable story written by a stylist at the top of his game.