A Farewell to Arms [Import] [Hardcover]

Ernest Hemingway (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Book-Of-the-Month-Club; New Ed edition (1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857151496
• ISBN-13: 978-1857151497
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (422 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,838,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic novel of WWI, June 29, 2002

By 

D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Farewell To Arms (Paperback)

A FAREWELL TO ARMS is one of Hemingway's earliest novels. With much of the material loosely based on his own personal experiences as an ambulance driver during World War I, the story captures in great detail the conflict in all of its horror and barbarism.

The book invites us to imagine all of the brave soldiers who went into the war in search of glory. What they found instead was the endless stalemate and hideous prospect of trench warfare. Perhaps more than any other war in the history of warfare, the first World War changed the traditional paradigms of how wars were fought and what the objectives of engagements were. Hemingway, who was there himself, serves as a perfect instrument to portray what it was really like.

The plot centers around Frederick Henry, an American ambulance driver for the Italian army (a job Hemingway performed himself). Henry is a typical masculine Hemingway male persona who falls in love with a beautiful, long-haired & impetuous British nurse named Catherine Barkley. Henry is an exemplar of the WWI soldier who gets more than he bargains for in the war; betrayal and ignominious soldiering of the Italians in the wake of defeat.

The tragic irony of this novel is what makes it so memorable. Henry, as a wounded man who withdraws from the battle, as well as the whims of the Italian Army. However, he does so only to find that life is full of tragedy whether you're in a war or not.

I would highly recommend this novel to all fans of Hemingway, American literature and World War I period historical and literary works. It is with the subtle prose of Heminway that we can be effectively transported back to that epoch of our world history.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE novel of the twentieth century? Plus - a warning..., August 26, 2000

By 

William A. Owen - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Farewell To Arms (Paperback)

Seven decades after the intial publication, A Farewell to Arms now seems to be the Hemingway novel that gets the most attention and many readers new to Hemingway are probably drawn to it for their initial exposure to the author. Normally, starting off with a writer's best book might be a good approach, but not in this case. A Farewell to Arms, while Hemingway's greatest work, also offers the uninitiated reader the greatest challenge. This is as terse as it gets, and if you're not familiar with Hemingway's style, you may find yourself wondering what all the fuss is about. Worse, you may become one of those millions of intelligent, well-read people who think he is a horrible joke. Start with a few of the short stories. Read some of the criticism (positive and negative). Do a little research on WWI (if you feel you need to). Then go for The Sun Also Rises. At that point, you will be hooked, or you will write the guy off forever. If you find yourself in the former category, you will really appreciate the opportunity to read incredible this book.

62 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Anti-War Novel By Hemingway In His Prime!, March 28, 2001

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Farewell To Arms (Paperback)

This wonderful story by a young early Hemingway is perhaps, along with "For Whom The Bell Tolls", one of the finest anti-war novels ever written. In it we are introduced to a young and idealistic man, Frederick Henry, who, through love, experience and existential circumstance, comes to see the folly, waste, and irony of war, and attempts to make his own peace outside the confines of traditional conformity. For all of his obvious excesses, Hemingway was an artist compelled to delve deliberately into painful truths, and he attempted to do so with a style of writing that cut away all of the frills and artifice, so that at its heart this novel is meant as a exploration into what it means to confront the world of convention and deliberately decide to choose for what one feels in his heart as opposed to what one is expected to do. Of course, in so doing, the young ambulance driver becomes a full-grown adult, facing his trials with grace and courage. Still, what we are left with is a modern tragedy, one in which the characters must somehow attempt to resolve the irresolvable.

Yet in all this emotional turmoil and existential 'sturm-und-drang' of two star-crossed lovers caught in the contradictions, deceptions, and brutality of the First World War, we are also treated to Hemingway's amazing powers of exposition at the peak of his prowess. Indeed, as with other Hemingway novels, it is Hemingway's imaginative and spare use of the language itself that wins the reader over. Unlike his predecessors, he sought a lean narrative style that cut away at all the flowery description and endless adjectives. In the process of parsing away the excesses, Hemingway created a clear, simple and quite declarative prose style that was truly both modern and revolutionary.

In what may be one of the most quoted passages in modern fiction, in "A Farewell to Arms" Hemingway gives us his personal view of the world's inevitable negative impact on all of us: "If a person brings so much courage into the world that the world must kill him to break him, so of course it kills him. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those it cannot break it will kill. It kills the very good, the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these things the world will kill you too but there will be no special hurry." Here the human beings are caught in the murderous crossfire of brutal forces fighting to death, and they must flee to save themselves and their hopes for a better future away from the madness. Their journey towards safety is full of the poignancy of all such fragile ventures, and someone must pay the cost of their bravery, gentleness, and love.

What one encounters as a result is a story seemingly stripped to its barest essentials, superficially more like the newspaper man's pantheon of who, what, where, when, and why, and yet somehow transformed into a much more accurate and imaginative effort, one leaving the reader with a much more artful account of what is going on. One reads Hemingway quickly, at least at first, when one learns to slow down and drink in every word and every detail as it is related. For me and for millions of others, the true genius of Hemingway is to be found in his artful use of language. This book was one of Hemingway's finest successful forays into the world of letters, and the result of his collected works truly changed the face of modern fiction. Enjoy!