More than many authors for me, I get more out of Hemingway's stuff as I re-read it later in life. There's plenty there to meet me at whatever age or place in life I find myself. This isn't true of every author. I love The Hobbit, for example, and delight in re-reading it, but I don't often encounter new things in it the way I do with Hemingway. I guess that's as good a definition of "literature" as can be found.
So, whether I'd read it years ago and forgot, or read it for the first time this summer, I can say that I was deeply moved by A Farewell to Arms (hence AFTA). I've read quite a bit of Hemingway history and criticism, including Carlos Baker's biography. I know the real-life circumstances behind some of the plot of AFTA. I also know this is a young Hemingway coming to grips with his own story in ways to which The Sun Also Rises--no matter how autobiographical--never comes close. Not by a mile.
So this is a serious work. It's a story of war, of love, of loss. By the time EH wrote it, he'd had some taste of all of these. By the time of my recent reading, I'd had a decent grounding in two of them. I'm willing to let EH's instincts as a writer and storyteller inform me of the third.
I'm writing neither a review nor a book report, just some of my impressions. Let me share a few of the things I really liked and one I really didn't.
As a statement about war, I like what Hemingway's done. The book is one big ode to the futility of war. The war has already begin before the fist page and isn't over when we get to the last. That leaves this reader is a sense of permanent war. This is a feeling expressed by many of the characters, as well. There's a sense of exhaustion and helplessness throughout.
Though set against the backdrop of battle and death, there are only a few depictions of actual warfare perpetrated on by by the characters. An Italian sergeant is shot at and killed by the main character as he abandons them during a retreat. One of the ambulance drivers is shot and killed by his own side while wandering between enemy lines. Later, groups of officers are pulled aside during a general retreat and systematically shot for abandoning their men.
What's telling is that all the warfare that's actually depicted in the novel is done by and to members of the same side. The Austrians--and later the Germans--are there in the background, but mostly it's Italians killing Italians. It's as if Hemingway is giving us a not-so-subtle clue to the true nature of war: everyone ends up killing themselves.
Key to the main plot is the pregnancy of Catherine Barkley by the protagonist, Frederic Henry. Her child is stillborn and Catherine dies of hemorrhage, leaving Frederic alone at the close of the book. This pregnancy can be instilled with many great and portentous readings. What do we hope is being born out of the sacrifice of war? What brave new world are we expecting to emerge? Whatever hopes we might have had--of a life free from fear, of a world free of violence--are shattered as the pregnancy bears no living offspring and, in fact, kills the mother. A powerful metaphor for the nihilism of war.
The Sun Also Rises (TSAR), Hemingway's popular first novel, was an ensemble piece, following a groups of folks around Spain. AFTA is a more private work. Most of the conversations are one-on-one. Where TSAR can be catty and mean-spirited, AFTA is intimate. Lots of conversations occur in empty hospital rooms, hotel rooms, and restaurants (their emptiness another echo of war). This is generally done well and suits the purpose of the book. But there is a problem.
In their pillow talk, Catherine Barkley comes off as some sort of mewling imbecile. I don't know if women used to talk like that in the 1920s or if Hemingway hadn't had enough experiences of real women. Catherine is a needy, whiny girlfriend. There's a touch of the crazy bunny boiler from Fatal Attraction in her. I spent some time wondering what Frederic saw in her. Maybe she had qualities that don't come across fully in print [nudge nudge, wink wink]. Every other conversation is tight and well-written, classic Hemingway stuff. She comes off vain and shallow.
I know there are reasons for her characterization, stemming from Hemingway's own wartime experiences. Still, he clearly was writing his heart out here with great purpose. He should have done better by his characters.
Still, I highly recommend A Farewell to Arms and consider it one of Ernest Hemingway's best.
