Book Review: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
One of Hemingway’s greatest talents as a writer is his ability to dramatize without being dramatic. By this I mean he has a knack for emphasizing essential themes and emotions in a superbly understated way. Nowhere is this talent more on display than in the work that cemented his legacy as the premier 20th century American novelist, A Farewell to Arms.
The story is inspired by Hemingway’s firsthand experience in World War I where he served as an ambulance driver. The protagonist Lt. Frederic Henry is an American serving in the same capacity in Italy during the campaign against Austria. The novel relates his experiences in and out of battle though mostly the latter. The drama comes mainly from Frederic’s love affair with the British nurse Catherine Berkley and the horrific consequences of the war.
Being the quintessential World War I novel, I should hope no reader opens the book not expecting it to end in tragedy. How could it end otherwise and be true to the war that inspired it? But what is more striking than the story itself is the way it is related. Hemingway’s style is so matter of fact that you find yourself re-reading lines from time to time. It has the effect of making the shocking moments even more memorable and striking. When characters are killed or there is a betrayal or some other powerful plot moment, the almost journalistic style adds a sense of detachment and resignation that underpins the larger feeling of futility the characters suffer.
This indeed is the core tragedy of World War I. Unlike other wars that have neat, accessible (if not always true) narratives of good vs evil, World War I was universally seen as just a waste of millions of innocent lives. The actual on the ground participants understood themselves to be swept up by forces beyond their control in a senseless atrocity dressed up by jingoistic rhetoric. A Farewell to Arms does an amazing job of showing this instead of telling it. Hemingway doesn’t need to indulge in political lectures. The quiet reflection and struggles of Frederic say it all far more eloquently.
Grade: B+
