May 16, 2009 12:34 AM
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It is difficult to be critical of Hemingway when he has been the subject of so much acclaim. His work is still influential and the fact that readers can be enthralled by his works over 50 years after they were published, demonstrates that good writing is timeless.
Farewell to Arms is a book set in wartime, but it is more than a book about war. At its heart it is a love story of two people who put their love for eachother before everything. Damaged by the war they look for happiness and escape. As ever the writing is precise and the economy of Hemingway's style makes the imagery vivid and instantly memorable.
But for me there was a lack of involvement with the main characters. Perhaps it is the way they abandon everything to pursue their self obsession. It is hard to feel empathy with those who seem to have no sense of a broader duty and are willing to put their own self interest before everything. Their passion is personal and self serving and their tragedy is of their own making.
It is interesting to compare Farewell to Arms with Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Both are stories set in wartime where the main protaganist is an American participating in a European war. But in For Whom The Bell Tolls we have a man who sacrifices himself to a cause. Somehow the demise of an idealist has a greater sense of tragedy that the downfall of those who seek only thier own fulfilment.
That said, Farewell to Arms is a masterpiece of 20th century literature. Perhaps it is fitting that only another work by Hemingway can overshadow it and highlight its weaknesses.
