Did my face really just start leaking while finishing this? Yes... Yes it did. ( )

Sorry. I know it's a classic. I know there were passages that were magnificent. But I could not handle Catherine's "if I do exactly as you wish, darling, you'll love me forever and never leave me, right darling?" - not just once but every time she opened her mouth. ( )

OMG, Hemingway! I took a seminar on him in college so I have all his books. Thirty years on, I'm in the process of rereading them. I remember having such mixed feelings about him in the class, and that hasn't changed a bit. On an intellectual level, I can appreciate his style, and how it changed how books were written. Despite, or perhaps because of, the paucity of words, this novel is easy to visualize. But he leaves a lot of work for the reader. You have to intuit the emotional content, because Hemingway doesn't reveal any of that. It's as if the entire thing is alt text, precise and workmanlike. But there's a LOT going on in this novel.

DESERTION VS DUTY: As an American living in Italy, Lt. Frederic Henry volunteers to serve in the Italian army during WWI as an ambulance driver. When Lt. Henry is wounded, he goes through the agony of recovery, falls in love with a nurse, and still returns to the front when he is able to do so. It is during the retreat, when wounded soldiers are abandoned, when the whole operation is a disaster that Henry begins to lose faith. Two of his men desert, and he shoots at them, killing one. (This was standard practice in WWI). Their ambulances get stuck in the mud and must be abandoned as they walk to where the army is regrouping. Another man deserts in the night, another man is killed by friendly fire, and eventually Henry is captured by the Italian police and is going to be shot as a German in disguise. It is then that he escapes and decides to abandon the army. It's all heady stuff, but there is NO emotion on the page. The reader has to guess what Henry is feeling by his actions, and it's not always clear. But the man has gone from being willing to sacrifice his life for abstract reasons to refusing to do so when the stupidity and uselessness of sacrifice become clear.

The love story is the same. The dialogue is utterly banal. Catherine Barkley is insipid and insecure. But Henry is deeply in love, or at least we imagine so because he goes through a lot of danger and effort to be with her. He does not abandon her when he so easily could. But despite 'doing what is right,' he still loses everything in the end. And as usual, the reader is left to imagine his pain.

So I still have mixed feelings about this story. Due to the simplicity of the language, it's a fast read. But because scenes and sections pass so quickly, one doesn't have time to think about what is actually happening. It's very easy to stay on the surface, and tempting to think that the surface is all there is. The entire story is between the lines; too much so, in many aspects. The only thing that is clear is that there is no reward for sacrifice. ( )

no paper cover

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. … But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no such hurry.” (Hemingway 249) ( )