I have been watching the Ken Burns documentary on Hemingway on PBS for the past few days. Since I had never read A Farewell to Arms, I thought this would be a good time to do so. I've had an unread copy on my shelves for years. I have read a few other books by Hemingway and were kind of mixed about them. I read The Sun Also Rises for a college course and at the time didn't really like it. I probably need to do a reread.
As for A Farewell to Arms, I didn't really enjoy it too much either. Hemingway's prose was very understated with a lot of dialog. The novel is set in Italy and Switzerland during WWI. The narrator is Frederic Henry, an American who goes to Italy as an ambulance operator during the war. He has an affair with Catherine, an English nurse he meets while recovering from wounds suffered during a mortar shelling. This all leads to a rather tragic ending. The novel is based on Hemingway's real experiences when he worked as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in 1918.
I know this novel is often considered a realistic depiction of war and it established Hemingway as a successful writer, but I found it to be somewhat tedious and could not relate very well to the story of Henry's experiences on the Italian front nor his love affair with Catherine. I think there are better novels out there that depict the horrors of war but then again they are not Hemingway. Based on the PBS documentary, I will probably read more of him especially his short stories and For Whom the Bell Tolls but not sure when I will get to them.
As for A Farewell to Arms, I didn't really enjoy it too much either. Hemingway's prose was very understated with a lot of dialog. The novel is set in Italy and Switzerland during WWI. The narrator is Frederic Henry, an American who goes to Italy as an ambulance operator during the war. He has an affair with Catherine, an English nurse he meets while recovering from wounds suffered during a mortar shelling. This all leads to a rather tragic ending. The novel is based on Hemingway's real experiences when he worked as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in 1918.
I know this novel is often considered a realistic depiction of war and it established Hemingway as a successful writer, but I found it to be somewhat tedious and could not relate very well to the story of Henry's experiences on the Italian front nor his love affair with Catherine. I think there are better novels out there that depict the horrors of war but then again they are not Hemingway. Based on the PBS documentary, I will probably read more of him especially his short stories and For Whom the Bell Tolls but not sure when I will get to them.
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