Farewell to Arms

Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway

A "classic" book, by a classic author? For me, after this read the question remains at large. This book is mostly a life/love story about a foreign national couple who found each other while managing their lives on the Italian side of the Austro/Italian front of the Great War. I call it the Great War because in Hemmingway style, the book is written so much in absolute first person that construction of the main character, Henry, does not make the date setting clear until the last part of the book. Hemmingway does indeed live up to his reputation for making you feel "right there" inside the body” of the main characters.

He builds an appreciation for the moral conscience of those engaged in war. He describes the people within his medical unit as ambivalent to the power mongers of the commanders on either side of the armies at war. This observation does indeed resonate with other material I've read, whereby even the magistrates of the countries involved, were disconnected and somewhat not in control of their armies.

The other moral message that Hemingway raises is one whereby life keeps beating a person into submission of the throws of society. He raises this in the conclusion of the book where Henry looses both his wife and newborn first son in childbirth. Both moral lessons are merely broached with little story line follow through.

The book is only 300 pages in length, which leads me to conclude that his moral lessons were mere coincidences in the course of telling a love story. I can say that his reputation had me looking for a deeper pool of thought. To his credit, he did a nice job describing the northern Italian and Swiss countryside. I can say I did find myself envious of the lifestyle of the average American man with a wealthy father of 1916 in Europe. Send me more money!!!