Farewell to Arms: The Hemingway Library Edition
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About this ebook
Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time, along with early drafts of other essential passages, offering new insight into Hemingway’s craft and creative process and the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingway’s own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel, a personal foreword by the author’s son Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author’s grandson Seán Hemingway, this edition of A Farewell to Arms is truly a celebration.
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His novels include The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1899, he died in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961.
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Reviews for Farewell to Arms
141 ratings105 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's been a long time since I read Hemingway. This is my first time for "A Farewell to Arms." It's a slow starter, but I learned to pace myself. The action is restrained but steady, and I realized gradually that a key element is the relentlessly realistic dialogue. The American protagonist, Frederick Henry, is involved in every scene. The life of the book is his life. His recurring, desultory involvement in his own life and his role in the Italian Army in World War I is the backdrop of his elaborately played out relationship with the nurse, Catherine Barkley. "A Farewell to Arms" doesn't really seem to be a war novel. On the other hand, except for brief interludes, the characters really don't seem to be at peace. For Henry, it's an ironic farewell.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My least favorite of Papa's major novels. It merits mention fo rbeing a conversation starter. I was reading this in a pub and was approached by a guy. He proved to be a nutter. I didn't know that then. He approached, pointed to my book and began rambling about how Hemingway and Hunter Thompson understood the essence of things (this was years before Thompson's suicide) and that their lives of excess were a just a relief for their clairty. That is my paraphrase. I wound up talking to the guy for hours and drinking a deal of beeer. I have seen him twice since then. He doesn't appear to remember me.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An interesting text illustrating how Hemingway transformed his inner emotions and memories into art. His prose has the feel of hand-rubbed oil-finished oak wood grain, and the more the reader knows about Hemingway's biography, the more interesting this book becomes as a crafted surface displaying the objective correlatives of his inner life. From his difficult childhood, to his experiences in WWI at the age of 19, and his immersion into a literal landscape of corpses and ideological pointlessness, there touched by a flame of romantic hope only to have it blown out, all of these elements combine in A Farewell to Arms. Beauty, the possibility of meaning, bombs blowing limbs off, any second your life could be over, a glimpse of hope and then “War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound.”
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hemingways gaafste roman. Opvallend contrast tussen harde oorlogscenes en sweet talk tussen de geliefden. Hun relatie is onromantisch, maar toch zoet;
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My encounter with Hemingway has been a long time coming; he sat on my TBR pile for more than a year. Hemingway employs a unique style, a deceptive simplicity that hides layers, and at first I misinterpreted. The spare style had me initially convinced that I was reading a scene from the narrator's childhood. Realizing my mistake, I felt the detached manner reflected his sense of not belonging, a lack of identification with the troops he serves with. When he exchanges a goodnight with the priest who’s been subjected to ribald humour, it's clear he relates more to this outsider than his fellow servicemen.There's an interesting repetition of words/ideas. From chapter four: "It evidently made no difference whether I was there to look after things or not.” Just a few lines later: “Evidently it did not matter whether I was there or not." Does Hemingway want his readers to pay special attention to this point, or is this to convey a sentiment the narrator dwells upon? It happens mostly in the early chapters, then crops up again later.The love story begins when Catherine reveals that she sees as clearly as he does the game they’re playing, and suddenly he views her as a person and doesn’t know how to deal with the emotion this engenders. He tries to treat it lightly, then is surprised when he cannot. Their romance develops in a charming way, but takes a poorer turn when she makes statements like "There isn't any me anymore. Just what you want." But how much does she mean it, really? They mutually acknowledge his lies, or at least she does; but he does not challenge her words that might be spoken only as part of their game of love.You cannot run away or hide from hardship, is the moral. Or perhaps you can for a time, but you'd best appreciate the interval. The narrator has a premonition of this when he is lying awake in the chalet. He has escaped Italy, but he cannot possibly escape all bad things, nor predict from what quarter the next will arrive. The movie "Silver Linings Playbook" spoiled the ending for me, but I was made glad I knew what was coming. War cannot last forever, thus a farewell to arms; nor can most else.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In 1918 Ernest Hemingway enlisted in the Italian army as an ambulance driver. His experiences served as a back drop for A Farewell to Arms, the story of an Italian-speaking American lieutenant, Frederic Henry, a “Tenente,” in the Italian army in the First World War. Although Henry is assigned as an ambulance driver near the front, at first he experiences the war from a relatively safe distance. We learn of his casual friendships with other Italian officers and a local priest through their cryptic Hemingway-esque dialog. Henry is wounded in an Austrian barrage when he drives his ambulance to the front to ferry wounded behind the lines. During his recuperation, he meets and falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Though he loves her deeply, he feels a tug of male comradeship for the men in his old unit. Once he has fully recovered from his wounds, he returns to his unit. Alas, the "bromance" of war cannot gainsay its hellish aspects. Henry attempts to lead a small caravan of three ambulances to the front, only to be caught in an Austrian offensive at the Battle of Caporetto that drives the Italian army into a full blown retreat. Henry’s vehicles become mired in deep mud. Two Italian sergeants who had hitched a ride refuse to help extract the vehicles and just run away when Henry orders them to pitch in and push. Henry shoots one of them for disobeying his order, but the other escapes. Henry then must escape the pursuing Austrians to the rear on foot. Things get really nasty when he crosses a bridge over which the retreating army must flee. The Italians have set up a kind of road block where the “battle police” arrest officers who are no longer with their units using a nearly irrebuttable presumption that they are deserters who have abandoned their charges. Punishment by firing squad is swift. Henry escapes by diving into the fast flowing river below, latches on to a large piece of floating debris, and is carried by the current to temporary safety.Henry obtains some civilian clothes and seeks out and finds the English nurse. He learns that she became pregnant during their time together when he was convalescing. Fortunately, the couple is able to escape to Switzerland by way of a harrowing rowboat trip up Lake Maggiore. But unexpected circumstances mar their reunion.Discussion:The novel is written as if spoken by Frederic Henry. Hemingway often begins a chapter with a description of the physical appearance of the locale in which the narrative is about to take place. He picks out small details that are unimportant to the story, but which lend an air of realism, such as: "On a narrow street we passed a British Red Cross ambulance. The driver wore a cap and his face was thin and very tanned. I did not know him."Once the stage is set, however, nearly all the action is described through conversational dialog among the characters.Evaluation: I thought the first half of the novel was pretty slow moving. The conversations that established the relationships among the characters were pretty realistic, but often were repetitive. The action, however, became heart-pounding during the retreat from Caporetto when we see how brutally the First World War was fought. Hemingway does an excellent job setting up the reader for a heart-rending conclusion. This is a gripping, rather cynical tale. (JAB)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Situated around the first world war. Hemingway is so matter of fact about many things. There is something I don't like about this book...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hemingway's theme is pretty clear - "The world breaks every one". Despite Frederic's good luck - finding love, escaping death, getting away from the war - in the end the world still breaks him. As a love story, the novel is very one-sided. Catherine really only exists as seen through Frederic's eyes - and she seems a bit crazy to use her word. There's a curious lack of honor in this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Took me many years and many books to finally get to this one. I listened to the novel. I think thatif I had not been listening, I might have reshelved the book.
Description, setting, the war - extraordinary. Characters are done well but Catherine and Henry left me cold. No tears. Liked the Italians.
A long time since I first read Hemingway so maybe.., - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classic war novel, extremely well written, memorable passages. Something everyone should have read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As a Hemingway fan, I'd put this one towards the bottom of the list of his novels. Read 'Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?' instead.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Depressing. Bleak, unemotional and unengaging. I found Hemingway's prose style annoying and his dialogue worse, and I didn't like his characters. On the other hand, I thought that the plot was well-constructed - I'd have been very surprised if it hadn't been - and that the the book did a good job of conveying the bleakness and uncertainty of war. I made it to the end, but it was a struggle at times.I'm aware, though, that I'm in a minority and many people love the very things that made me dislike the book. If you like terse prose and depressing war stories, you'll love this book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Frederic Henry’s memoir of the days he fell in love during his foray into WWI at the front in Italy as an ambulance driver. He is coping with loss and writing out his struggles. It is raining and we are tired but you know now. I will move on.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53.5***
Fredrick Henry is a young American, serving as an ambulance driver with the Italian army during WWI. He meets a lovely English nurse, Catherine Barkley, and when he is wounded she devotes herself to his care. Their relationship blooms even as the war continues to suck all hope of a normal life from all those mired in it. More and more disillusioned by the war and threatened not only by the enemy but by the Italians on whose behalf he is fighting, Henry seeks solace with Miss Barkley, and the two of them dream of peace and comfort and a normal life.
Hemingway himself served as an ambulance driver during WWI, was wounded and received a medal for valor. This novel is one of his earlier works and his style is still a little raw, in my opinion. Yes, he explores the alienation and human tragedy of war, but I never get the feeling that there is a clear sense of purpose or a just cause for which to fight. Henry seems just to have gone to war for the excitement and simple “maleness” of battle. Don’t misunderstand me … I do not think Hemingway is glorifying war. There are plenty of scenes that give the reader the sense of the horrors of the situation, the mind-numbing boredom interrupted by moment of sheer terror, the bone-weary exhaustion of days spent trudging through rain-soaked terrain without shelter, adequate food or rest.
And then there is the love story. I think my main complaint with this work is that I never really connect to the central characters. Their dialogue seems stilted and over simplified. I don’t really feel love between them. I see them, instead, as two lonely people connected by the circumstances in which they find themselves. I admit to a few fleeting thoughts of “what might have been,” but in general I don’t care enough about them.
NOTE: The cover of my book is completely different ... yellow, with a purple center block and a black-and-white illustration of a nurse and soldier. But the ISBN number is an exact match - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I must admit that while I have been mesmerised by anything Hemingway for some time now, it was a bit of an effort to get through the first half of this book. While my attitude towards the book changed each time I got back into it, I think the source of the problem for me was the emptiness that can only be expressed by those who have first-hand experience of large-scale conventional war. Nonetheless, and despite the historical background to the story, I found it to be written clearly in the present tense. Yet I couldn’t help but sense the emptiness I had once felt when I was about seven years old. I remember visiting, for no particular reason, an old war widow, who gave me two shillings (five cent pieces - one for me and the other for my sister) but then she cried and pointed to the faded photographs of her husband and her brothers who were all killed in the Second World War. The empty feeling of the interior of her dark house with its art deco furniture and the smell of stale tobacco smoke accompanied me throughout “A Farewell to Arms” and I think I avoided it until I decided that I would finish it off in one go. As the climax emerged suddenly towards the end of the book, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. By this stage of the plot the war was almost an afterthought for the main characters and bits of classic Hemingway emerge (beards, boxing, and booze). But by the end, I needed some quiet time to emotionally recover. I’ve never cried from reading a book before. I still don’t like this book. Nevertheless, it is truly magnificent and how somebody in their mid-twenties could comprehend so much beggars belief. It can only be genius.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I see so many mixed reviews about Hemingway's novels. This was my second book by Hemingway that I have read and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it! It was by no means the perfect read but I really enjoyed the setting and the characters. There were a few times it got a little sluggish but for the most part I really liked this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Woof - what a depressing book in many ways. I had a love/hate relationship with this book while reading it. The writing style of short and to the point sentences was both appealing and frustrating. I felt that it made the characters a bit too one dimensional, but at the same time helped give a matter-of-factness to the war and the people living through it. I am glad I read this, my first Hemingway, and feel like I understand the point of the hopelessness of war and life of the time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed the book. It moves through different emotions and seasons seamlessly even though there are dramatic shits in action. I found myself very involved with the characters which seemed distant.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A classic. Righty so.What a great novel! Man, woman, the war, friendship, respect, love, despair, cruelty .... All the big themes in a love story that in the same time is a powerful anti-war statement. A story of courage and of despair in the same chapter. A strong "wish i was here" feeling that in the same lines turns to an even stronger "i wish i was not here" sentiment.The very easy looking writing style reinforces this, the robustness of the story is in this very straight forward writing, empowered by the repeats of words, sentences and feelings which give the storyline in moments a kind of mantra-like voodoo-ism. I am lucky, i am so lucky, i don't know how lucky i am, please tell me we are lucky ... One can see from faraway that this "lick" is under heavy threats and the repeats try to give some strength to the idea.Amazing for me is that this story is still so readable, so attractive, whilst it is nearly a hundred years old.Hemingway is really one of the great writers of his time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letztes Jahr waren wir in Italien, genau in der Gegend, in der Hemingway im ersten Weltkrieg war, und sahen dort auch Schautafeln zu "Hemingway's War". Seitdem wollte ich das Buch lesen, in dem Hemingway seine Erlebnisse verarbeitet. Er selbst war noch blutjung, 19 Jahre alt bei Kriegsende, und hatte rein optisch noch nichts gemeinsam mit dem kräftigem Mann, den man von Fotos kennt. Hier ist er als junger Soldat mit dem Vorbild für die weibliche Hauptperson zu sehen. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10561536/Ernest-Hemingway-and-the-Dear-John-letter-from-his-First-World-War-love.html Im Buch beschreibt er recht exakt, was er auch selbst erlebte, Kämpfe, eine schwere Verletzung, die Liebe zu einer Krankenschwester. Im Buch desertiert er allerdings, geht mit der Schwester eine Beziehung ein, sie wird schwanger. Für mich ist das Hauptthema die Sinnlosigkeit von Leben und Sterben, v.a. im Krieg, doch eigentlich unabhängig davon. Denn sinnloser Tod holt den Protagonisten auch in ganz friedlichen Situationen ein, schlussendlich stellt sich daher die Frage, wozu wir eigentlich leben - vom Tod sind wir immer umgeben. Passini äußert sich vehement gegen den Krieg, plädiert dafür den Kampf einzustellen und wird noch in der gleichen Minute getötet. Am Ende des Buches reflektiert Henry über einen Ast mit Ameisen, den er einmal ins Feuer geworfen hatte - die Gelegenheit, den Messias zu spielen und die Ameisen zu retten, ließ er ungenutzt - wie der Messias selbst. "Das tat man eben. Man starb. Man wusste nicht, worum es sich handelte. Man hatte nicht Zeit, es zu erfahren. Man warf einen herein und sagte einem die Regeln, und beim ersten Male, wenn man von der Grundlinie fort war, töteten sie einen. Oder sie töteten einen auch für nichts und wieder nichts.“ Diese Stellen und diese Auseinandersetzung mit Tod und Sterben sind wirklich stark. Leider konnte ich mit der vielgepriesenen Liebesgeschichte wenig anfangen. Einerseits finde ich die weibliche Hauptfigur wirklich sehr holzschnittartig gezeichnet. Andererseits lag es sicher auch an der Sprache/Übersetzung. Die Dialoge kamen mir künstlich und gestelzt vor. Die altmodischen Ausdrücke wie "ulkig" und "famos" fand ich auch eher unpassend. Bisher hatte ich Hemingway größtenteils auf Englisch gelesen. Das ist vermutlich empfehlenswert, da er ja auch relativ leicht zu lesen ist.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found this quite frustrating to read.At times the way he writes conversations are incredibly confusing, just lines and lines of speech, with no indicators as to who is saying what. It's OK for a few lines, but after a page and a half, it's very easy to get lost as to who is saying what. Especially when the conversation is a bit banal and largely pointless. There is an odd use of language as well. At times it feels a bit stilted, at others the word choice is strange. Describing something 3 times in the same sentence as "nice" isn't what I expected. At times the choice of language was simple, at others repetitive, it didn't seem to be elegant or well considered. The tale told is both simple and complicated. The central character is an American of (I think) Italian extraction who is serving in the Italian ambulance service on the Italian front. He's there because he's volunteered, not because he's been conscripted. He gets injured, treated and returned to the front shortly before the big breakthrough and collapse of the Italians at Carporetto. He gets swept up in the retreat and the way that the army degenerates is vividly told. However, it also sees the end of his involvement with the war. However this does not end neatly, his own life disintegrates, with the nurse he had met and fallen in love with escaping over the Swiss boarder with him, before failing to survive childbirth. At times I quite enjoyed this, but I failed to warm to Catherine, she was just so insipid as to be nothing that the narrator did not want her to be. She kept going on about being a good wife to him, if she wanted to do something he didn't she immediately changed her mind. I found her impossible to feel for or warm to. There's much that could have been good in here, but it didn't hang together and I found too much to not enjoy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a classic I always meant to read and I'm glad I did. Most of it was fast moving and the plot was interesting. However, I didn't like the character development, especially of Katherine. She seems to be a stereotypic view of what "a man would want." Even when Katherine is in labor she talks about her "grand husband" and how she wants to be a "good wife." Also the guy is suppose to be so in love with Katherine, but I just didn't feel the connection.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brutal
[Crítica a Xelu.net]
D'alguns llibres em costa molt fer-ne una crítica perquè m'intimiden. Són clàssics o llibres que per una raó o una altra han passat a formar part de la història de la literatura, ja sigui per mèrit propi o per la trajectoria de l'autor. Em passa amb el llibre d'avui, A Farewell to Arms d'Ernest Hemingway. Aquest autor per a mi és poc menys que una llegenda, no perquè hagués llegit cap altra llibre seu abans de llegir-ne aquest, que no és el cas, sino per la manera, el respecte i la veneració amb que n'he sentit a parlar sempre, titllant-lo pràcticament de pare de la literatura moderna. El cas és que vaig sentir un podcast al que proposaven llegir aquest llibre per a comentar-lo més endavant, com si fos un club de lectura, i aquell mateix dia em vaig plantar a l'Fnac i el vaig comprar, i després el vaig llegir, i ara estic aqui i no se ben bé que dir perquè el llibre em supera i qualsevol cosa que digui no li farà justícia, i després algú em farà cas, el llegirà, i si no li agrada tant com a mi em sabrà greu perquè el llibre es mereix ser llegit per tothom, més d'una vegada, i comentat, i treballat, i aprofundit i després tornat a llegir. Tant m'ha agradat. I és que de vegades aquests clàssics s'han d'agafar amb cura, de vegades el seu valor és històric i vistos amb ulls d'avui és difícil valorar-los amb justícia, i està clar també que A Farewell to Arms no és un llibre tan vell, la primera edició és del 1929, però sigui com sigui és perfectament modern i vigent i fàcil de llegir sense deixar de ser subtil, poètic, enigmàtic i viu. El llibre viu i respira i palpita i al final és com una punyalada que et deixa sense alè i que a mi em va fer plorar. Així doncs si això que escric no és gens una crítica objectiva i racional és perquè aquest llibre ha destruït la meva objectivitat. Se suposa que una crítica ha ser un esforç d'anàlisi dels recursos, imaginari, argument, teixit, punt de vista, etc que donen forma a un llibre, per tal d'intentar determinar-ne el seu valor en tant que obra literària, obra d'art, retrat de la psique humana, però aquest llibre excel·leix tant en tots aquests aspectes que parlar-ne em vé gran. Així que ho sento, no en faig cap crítica i em limito a recomanar-vos que no deixeu de llegir aquesta meravella.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A superbly written self-pity trip. Beautiful.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Der autobiographisch angehauchte Roman - Hemingway diente im ersten Weltkrieg als Kriegsfreiwilliger im Sanitätsdienst - beschreibt in erster Linie eine Liebesgeschichte zwischen einem amerikanischen Offizier in der italienischen Armee und einer schottischen Krankenschwester. Der Krieg an der Isonzofront bildet lediglich eine Rahmenhandlung. Wer also authentische Kriegsliteratur erwartet, wird enttäuscht. Hemingways Krieg erscheint (trotz beinahe belanglos eingeflochtener Kriegsgräuel, Desertion und Verwundungen) als endlose Abfolge von Lazarettaufenthalten, Fronturlauben, Liebeleien und einer endlosen Abfolge an konsumierten alkoholischen Getränke in diversen Bars und Hotels... Doch auch literarisch überzeugt der Roman überhaupt nicht: Stupide Dialoge wechseln mit uninspirierten Beschreibungen von Alltäglichem. Doch auch bei Dramatischem fehlen Hemingway die passenden Worte, so lautet die Beschreibung eines gefallenen Soldaten nach einem Granatenangriff etwa schlicht: "Er sah sehr tot aus." Passend zum Werk überzeugt auch die deutsche Übersetzung nicht, wer beispielsweise die "Golden Gate Bridge" als "Goldenes Tor" übersetzt, trägt nicht zu besonderer Lesefreude frei.Verglichen mit dem Meisterwerk "Wem die Stunde schlägt" ist "In einem anderen Land" eine einzige Enttäuschung, wer sich also mit Hemingways Kriegserfahrungen auseinandersetzen will, ist mit ersterem weit besser bedient...
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Made it to chapter twelve, decided I din't care about any of the characters. DNF
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am not a fan of the minimalist, reporter that was Hemingway. Nor the amoral characters he populates his novels with. Still, I've read worse. Not all that it is cracked up to be.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Undecided 3 or 4 stars for me. Worth reading, but I have not read enough Hemingway to know how it compares.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best novels of all time. On the first reading, I hated to turn the page to measure what I lost. From the dust on the leaves of the plane trees to the dialogue of the the two lovers as the train left for the front, a reading peak experience.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found the dialogue between Henry and Catherine to be silly and inane. Despite depicting the horror of war, this book did nothing to make you root for the couple.