During First
World War Ernest Hemingway has served as ambulance driver for Italian Army. From
this experience, Hemingway created a Frederic Henry—the main character of this
book—an American Lieutenant who serve in Ambulance corps of Italian Army during
First World War, just like him.
The story
begins when Frederic was serving on the Italian
Front, the battle between the armies of Austria and German against Italy,
between 1915 - 1918. His roommate introduced him to Catherine, a Scottish (or
English?) nurse served in the same war. One day a mortar shell fell in a ditch
where the ambulance drivers were having breakfast. Frederic wounded on his knee,
brought to a hospital, where Catherine also joined him, and they fell in love.
After their vacation in Milan, Catherine was pregnant, and the couple pretended
they were husband and wife (although they never really married). After recovering,
Frederic must return to the front. However when Italy was on retreat, Frederic was
captured, but managed to get away; and disgusting at the war, decided to desert.
Catherine accompanied him in desertion; they went to Switzerland, where she
would give birth to the baby.
To be
honest, I have expected more about war than the romance from this book. A
Farewell To Arms is said to be the bleakest book from Hemingway, maybe it is
so, but I don’t feel that way. Anyway, I can’t expect cheerfulness in a war
story, can I? However, what annoyed me most is how Frederic and Catherine took their
lives for granted. I think it’s not right to rely one’s life only on love; as
long as the couple loves each other, everything will be OK. Maybe Hemingway
wanted to show us how war makes us depressed and hopeless. After witnessing his
comrades died for nothing, it’s natural for Frederic to become skeptical. Still,
it didn’t give him rights to deprive life from others. After finding that he
loved Catherine, he should have married her and so, provided her and their
coming baby with a decent and respectable life.
*spoiler
alert* I don’t want to be a severe judge, but I believe that what we did in the
past—good or bad—would somehow come back to us, either now or in the future.
Seeing Frederic and Catherine, with how they only regarded life as a series of
enjoyable moments, I was not surprised with the tragedy they had in the end. It’s
clear that Frederic and Catherine were not ready to be parents from the
beginning—Frederic wasn’t even touched by his newborn baby(?). And approaching
the end, I knew that something terrible must have awaited me, because it’s impossible
to have such comforts without suffering something. And the title also speaks
about a farewell, doesn’t it? *spoiler end*
Apart from
the story, Hemingway’s writing is quite unique. This is the second time I read
a stream-of-consciousness novel, and I must say Hemingway’s is much better than
Woolf’s—which I have failed with. Maybe it is the stream-of-consciousness, or
maybe it’s the lack of moral depth, that made this book felt flat and sometimes
boring. After finishing it, I could only ask Hemingway: So, what did you want
to say to me? That war is cruel? That life is mortal? (I don’t know about
Hemingway, but both Frederic and Catherine here did not have any religion). In
short, I felt a hollowness or shallowness from this book, and the only
consolation I had is the beautiful way Hemingway wrote about nature, which I
also caught in The Old Man and the Sea (my only favorite from him so far).
Three and a
half stars for A Farewell To Arms.
~~~~~~~~
I read Vintage Classics paperback edition
*This book is counted
as:*
4th book for Baca Bareng BBI 2013: (August) –
Books on War
51st book for The Classics Club Project