May 03, 2004 06:26 PM
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(Updated May 03, 2004 06:33 PM)
After reading The Old Man and the Sea, by Hemingway (if time permits, do read my review on it), I felt like I had to read other books by him. I loved Hemingway’s style in his classic novella. So, I got my hands on one of his earlier novels, A Farewell to Arms. It is the best novel to emerge from WWI, published in 1929 and written when Hemingway was 30.
The protagonist of this novel is Lieutenant Henry who is an American, but is an ambulance driver for the Italian army on the front. He speaks good Italian and feels right at home among his Italian comarades. He is called Tenente by his Italian friends. One day, he meets Catherine Barkeley, a British nurse, and both fall deeply in love.
At a battle, Henry’s leg is wounded when a bomb is dropped close to him. He is sent to a hospital in Milan where Catherine soon comes to be with him. Henry’s leg is operated on, and while he is healing, he spends a lot of time with Catherine and their love deepens. Catherine soon announces that she is going to have his baby and they plan on getting married soon.
However, after he heals, Henry is ordered back to the front. He is assigned the task of getting three ambulances to Udine, where another battle will take place. Unfortunately, the task proves to be harder than he thinks. The traffic and the rain make it impossible to proceed. So, Henry and three other ambulance drivers proceed on foot. On their journey, Henry is arrested by the battle police, but manages to escape.
He arrives back in Milan to look for Catherine. There he finds out that she in in Stresa. He gets rid of his military uniform, dons civilian clothing and journeys to Stresa where he finds Catherine. They live in a hotel together until the barman warns them that the police are going to arrest Henry because he has deserted the army.
Henry and Catherine hurry and escape to Switzerland. They spend many happy days together, but something tragic happens at the end of the book.
The characters are brillantly developed. Henry is a true hero, while Catherine is also one of Hemingway’s stronger woman characters. However, some feminists accuse Catherine of being too submissive and devoted. The minor themes of masculinity, heroism, and loyalty are skillfully interwoven with the main themes of love and war.
As usual, Hemingway’s style is praiseworthy. He speaks unreservedly of the love between Henry and Catherine, and the joys and horrors of war. There are no big words or complex sentence structures. Most dialogues are also very straightforward and terse.
This book is loosely based on Hemingway’s own life. During WWI, he was also an ambulance driver on the Italian front and witnessed the battle scenes portrayed in the novel. I strongly recommend this book to everyone as it is considered Hemingway’s earliest masterpiece.
