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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was *incredibly* depressing, even for me.
Also, so. Much. Drinking. *_*
Also, so. Much. Drinking. *_*
4.5 stars
Hemingway's minimalism and dialogue has always intrigued me, and "A Farewell to Arms" encapsulates just why I love his work so much. A beautifully written narrative, gorgeous dialogue, and a profound usage of WW1 in contrast with the relationship at the heart of the novel are just a few of the reasons why this book is so memorable.
Not Hemingway's best novel, in my opinion, but definitely an excellent piece of work nonetheless.
Hemingway's minimalism and dialogue has always intrigued me, and "A Farewell to Arms" encapsulates just why I love his work so much. A beautifully written narrative, gorgeous dialogue, and a profound usage of WW1 in contrast with the relationship at the heart of the novel are just a few of the reasons why this book is so memorable.
Not Hemingway's best novel, in my opinion, but definitely an excellent piece of work nonetheless.
Gun cupboard love: I find Hemingway a challenge with his macho, huntin’ shootin’ fishin’ image and a vague uneasy feeling that he’s a poster boy for preppers and vigilantes everywhere (but mainly in America). Rather a surprise then at this first dip into the Ernest world that it’s a tender love story as much as a meditation on the theme that man who is of woman born has but a short time to live. I don’t fancy the bullfighting much but maybe should give him another go. Anyone who can quote Westron Wynd in a modern setting can’t be just muscles and gum-chewing.
I just could not get into this book. It was hard to connect with the protagonist and the story that Hemingway was trying to tell until books 4 and 5.
Read it because it is Hemingway, if you must, but it lacks the action of a great story about war and the emotional depth needed to be a great love story.
Read it because it is Hemingway, if you must, but it lacks the action of a great story about war and the emotional depth needed to be a great love story.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was my first Hemingway book, and I didn't actually hate it as much as I thought I would! This book is about an American soldier who is fighting in the Italian army in WW1. He is an ambulance driver. He meets a pretty nurse, Catherine, pretty early in the book, and they begin a love affair. This romance during war was what I thought would appeal to me the most, but I actually didn't like Catherine very much. What I did like were the scenes from the battlefield and when he deserted from the army. Hemingway used this story to tell about the bleakness of war, no matter who you were and where you were fighting.
2.5 stars.
It was ok. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it either. The relationship between the protagonist, ambulance driver Fred, and his lover, Nurse Barkley, seemed incredibly superficial and fake to me. Something about their dialogue struct me as particularly disingenuous, and I couldn't tell if their relationship was meant to seem superficial or if Hemingway was trying to make their connection feel real, in which case he failed.
I was also thoroughly unimpressed with Hemingway’s macho masculinity and his depiction of women in general. Clearly he wrote this before feminism was invented, or at least before feminism became mainstream enough for him to be unable to ignore it. Besides Nurse Barkley having air-headed dialogue, she also displayed an extreme level of self-sacrifice in her relationship (“there’s no me, there’s only you”) and self-blame for getting pregnant (it takes two), repeatedly apologized to her lover for not looking, or being, good enough for him, and was always deferent to his whims. The other female characters weren't much better, and the men had some pretty unsavory moments as well. For example, some soldiers called two girls “difficult” for not wanting to get raped, and the protagonist seemed to agree with this assessment rather than attempting to see it from the girls' viewpoint for a moment.
In light of his opinion of women, I was somewhat surprised by what I assume was a conscious juxtaposition of childbirth for women against war for men, because that would've given women more acknowledgement than he deemed them worth. I'm no literature major though, and there's every chance that I missed or misinterpreted the Point. If I had to summarize, the overall message I got was "war sucks, and even when you escape war, life sucks." But that might not have been the intended takeaway.
Sidenote, don’t read Chapter 9 while eating. War is awful.
It was ok. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it either. The relationship between the protagonist, ambulance driver Fred, and his lover, Nurse Barkley, seemed incredibly superficial and fake to me. Something about their dialogue struct me as particularly disingenuous, and I couldn't tell if their relationship was meant to seem superficial or if Hemingway was trying to make their connection feel real, in which case he failed.
I was also thoroughly unimpressed with Hemingway’s macho masculinity and his depiction of women in general. Clearly he wrote this before feminism was invented, or at least before feminism became mainstream enough for him to be unable to ignore it. Besides Nurse Barkley having air-headed dialogue, she also displayed an extreme level of self-sacrifice in her relationship (“there’s no me, there’s only you”) and self-blame for getting pregnant (it takes two), repeatedly apologized to her lover for not looking, or being, good enough for him, and was always deferent to his whims. The other female characters weren't much better, and the men had some pretty unsavory moments as well. For example, some soldiers called two girls “difficult” for not wanting to get raped, and the protagonist seemed to agree with this assessment rather than attempting to see it from the girls' viewpoint for a moment.
In light of his opinion of women, I was somewhat surprised by what I assume was a conscious juxtaposition of childbirth for women against war for men, because that would've given women more acknowledgement than he deemed them worth. I'm no literature major though, and there's every chance that I missed or misinterpreted the Point. If I had to summarize, the overall message I got was "war sucks, and even when you escape war, life sucks." But that might not have been the intended takeaway.
Sidenote, don’t read Chapter 9 while eating. War is awful.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes