Reviews with content warning for War - A Farewell to Arms

Don't take anything I've written here seriously.
Between 2.5 and 3. I'm pretty traumatized by this book. It's so dark and heavy. The last chapter was good because the writing finally clicked with me. I managed to relate to Frederic's suffering.
I didn't like most of the book because of multiple reasons. Firstly, I didn't care about the war. The main character worked as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front, and he told his side of the story during WWI. He was just a random guy, who drank a lot to suppress the horrors of war. Later on, he suffered a major injury to his legs and had to spend time in the hospital. After his legs were mostly healed, he was forced to go back to the front, which he didn't want to do. Understandable. Secondly, the whole romance was weird from the beginning. Catherine has a funny way of talking and she's such an insecure, submissive woman. It was tedious to read about Frederic and Catherine. Catherine's colleague nurse Ferguson is even worse. She seemed normal in the first half of the book but later, the scene where Frederic, Catherine, and Ferguson are in a restaurant happens. Ferguson's behavior was irrational and unnecessary. I think Hemingway really knew how to accentuate the "feminine" traits into absurdity.
Reading this book felt like watching a pointless war movie that was longer than it should have been. In the end, the course of the story completely changes because of Frederic's actions. That's where the story was slightly more interesting. It almost seemed like a slice-of-life story about a man and his pregnant wife living peacefully in the mountains. But alas, it had to be ruined for the sake of even further trauma. I heard that there were alternate endings to this book because Hemingway didn't know how to end the story. I think that only shows that maybe he should have written a different book. I don't want to come off as mean or rude. Is it too late to say that?
A Farewell to Arms is such a weird little book. Is it supposed to show the mundane terror of war? -Yes. Does it want to show a slow progression of a war-torn relationship between two random people? - Also yes. Except it was the most uninteresting, uninspiring story, with extremely dry simplistic writing. Although I have to give Hemingway props for that one sentence that spans a whole paragraph, where he talks about taking Catherine to Milan. I love a good long sentence. Also, he didn't seem to know where to put commas. Me too, Hem, me too.

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ashmont27's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

What can I say, Hemingway's writing is stunning and this story had me completely captivated.

I think this book had the bleakest ending to any book I've ever read. So devoid of happiness and resolution and I think it's maybe genius?? <\spoiler>

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merlinduh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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agonyofdesire's review

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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? Yes

0.5

In the great tradition of venerating white men who write books regardless of whether they are good or not, my literature class is analyzing Ernest Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms.
Now I myself don't see the purpose of reading a Hemingway book, ever. Despite having never read a story of his in the past, I still got the impression that he is an over-glorified mediocre writer, which made me loathe the thought of him and swear to never read anything of his. Yet, fairness and circumstances decided otherwise, and so here I am reading A farewell to Arms.

The plot: this would be where I offer a plot summary, alas I couldn’t find a plot to summarize. The best I can guess is: A Farewell to Arms follows Frederick Henry, an American in the Italian Army as he gets injured, meets a not nurse nurse, and falls in love with her. Frederick recovers from his injuries and then goes back to the army ̶ only to desert ̶ possibly due to Catherine, his lover, being pregnant, possibly to him being sick of war. It is all quite confusing. The two lovers have to escape to Switzerland where Catherine, after giving birth to a stillborn via cesarean, dies.

The narration: This book is from a first-person point of view. While the intended effects might have been to offer the reader an inside look into the psyche of the protagonist, the narrative style succeeds at only irritating the reader. Instead of focusing on the protagonist’s mental and emotional state due to the war, Hemingway gives the lion’s share of the book to describing the countryside in excruciating detail. This excessive description pulls the reader out of the narrative and serves only to confuse.

The characters: Most of the characters were forgettable. The only ones of note are Frederick and Catherine and that is only because as readers we are trapped in Frederick’s mind. The Protagonist is intolerable, and him also being the narrator added to the irritation. He is not an active agent in the story, things seem to be happening to him instead of the other way around, and no matter how much that draws parallel with real-life helplessness of humanity, it is no excuse for the lack of personality that characterizes Frederick. As for Catherine, despite her importance to the romantic subplot, she is inconsequential. Catherine’s whole existence is tied to Frederick, she does not exist beyond Frederick’s relationship with her which is irritating enough on its own, but then you add to it her very nonchalant demeanor and she becomes just as annoying as Frederick.

War: This book’s main focus is to reveal the consequences of war. Its goal is to give an intimate account of the horror that war brings to the soldiers, and the pain it puts them through. The book fails in its intentions though, as the excessive description dulls the tension and robs the action of its emotional impact.

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