A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway (EPUB)

Description

Set in the waning days of the First World War A Farewell to Arms (1929) is the epic love story of American ambulance driver Frederic Henry and British V.A. D. Catherine Barkley, who are drawn together yet torn apart by the tides of war. Drawing on his experiences as an ambulance driver in the First World War, A Farewell to Arms is considered to be Hemingway’s bleakest novel, depicting the futility of war and the cynicism of soldiers during wartime, but remains one of his best known and loved literary works.HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” is one of the books I have re-read the most throughout my life, along with Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and “Under Western Eyes” and Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” In many ways, it is to me, as ‘perfect’ as any novel I have ever read. Its structure is flawless, the characters unforgettable, and the writing is bold and terse, hard and yielding all at the same time. I never fail to learn something new each time I read this wonderful work of art. If I was to teach a class on how to write a novel, this would be the book I would assign to my class.The Hemingway Library Edition of “A Farewell to Arms” I received as a gift also came with an Appendix that included the thirty-nine other endings Hemingway considered for the novel. Many are quite telling and a two were used in the serialized versions that appeared in Scribner magazines before the actual publication of the book. I simply love this book.

⭐This book is a lot longer than the Dr Suess books that I normally read. I wish the author hadn’t been feeling so full of himself when he went to write this, he obviously had a lot to get off of his chest. I am trying to get done reading this so I can go out on a date with a girl that I told I had already read it, and it’s her favorite book. She keeps asking me when we can go out and if I can’t ever get to the end of this book then I’m guessing that will be like in July or something? Why does this book have to be so long? I think that it really could have been much shorter.

⭐I am beginning to realize that a good chunk of classic novels aren’t that great. This is one of them. While there were some passages that were lovely, the rest of the story seemed void of anything substantial. War is horrible, the toll it takes on people and civilization as a whole even worse, but I didn’t get that from reading this book. I didn’t care about any of the characters and had to push myself through to finish. I wish I could say that I loved it because Hemingway is considered one of the best novelists of all time but I honestly do not understand why.

⭐After years of hearing how Hemingway was a genius and a writer that brought the truth of war to readers, this was a huge disappointment. Ponderous, constant use of unintelligible slang, endless useless conversations. I tried slogging through this mess, but finally gave up and sought better books.

⭐…but OMG, Hemingway was depressed. No wonder he ended his life.He was caught in stoic masculinity, which, if life fails you, you must end.The themes are war/running away from war, self/insignificance of self (as in war), religion/secular humanism, and men/women. If I were an English teacher nowadays, I would wonder about how to approach the love affair, and Catherine’s deep abiding love. I can’t figure out exactly what she was in love with, but the presentation of the affair/marriage is what 1930s and 1940s Hollywood pictured women as–hardly masters of their own fate. Honestly, Catherine as a heroine was something like Bacall in Casablanca–fresh, young, self-possessed, and powerless in the relationship.I apologize if anyone is offended by this interpretation of Hemingway’s story. After all, he did win a Nobel Prize.

⭐Ernest Hemingway really was a great writer. His plain-spoken style is symbolic of the main character’s values, as well as his own.This novel will shred you to pieces. Hemingway was trying to communicate a specific emotion with this novel -somewhere between hope, hopelessness, and numbness- and he really achieves it. Behind this novel is the plain and constant shock of modern warfare, and the strange way that affects men’s minds, for better or worse.Beautiful novel. A pillar in modern literature on the rite of manhood.

⭐Now having devoured several of Hemingway’s greatest hits, I feel as though this is his greatest tale. Front to back, “A Farewell to Arms” tells his best story in a page flipping commercial hit. This book was timely and life-changing for the generation it was written for. All of these years later, the book continues to find ways to jump off the page and walk beside you. I loved the beginning the most, when Tenente courts a young Catherine and they walk together in the garden. I can see it in this very moment.

⭐This is an extraordinary book that packs a whopping emotional punch. It’ll grab you by the gut and squeeze until tears stream out of your eyeballs.I’ve recommended this book to a few friends and they’ve all reported back with “meh” reviews, some not even finishing it. Here’s why: this isn’t f***ing cocktail hour, this is all business, and like all of Hemingway’s books it takes a few hundred pages of build up to get to the real meat and potatoes, to the good stuff. A Farewell To Arms demands the reader’s patience, and then rewards it ten-fold. For example, there is a specific passage toward the end of the book which F. Scott Fitzgerald praised as “the finest passage ever written in the history of the English language.” (or something to that effect, *not a direct quote*, but you get the idea).Special note: this Library Edition is a beautiful book that contains all kinds of goodies (see product description) — a must for writers and serious readers.

⭐Rules become more demanding in times of trouble. There is a clearer and more unforgiving sense of good guys and bad guys, right and wrong. Ironically, however, times of trouble can also see civilised rules of behaviour torn apart. A Farewell to Arms tells a story set in World War One. An American named Frederick Henry joins the Italian army as an ambulance driver. Caught in a chaotic retreat, he witnesses summary and arbitrary justice meted out by military policemen. Realising his own side is as lethal as the enemy, Henry deserts. The story then follows Henry through his desperate escape bid.The writing of Henry’s story mirrors the breaking of rules in his life. As a narrator, Frederick Henry ignores all the civilised writing rules drummed into the aspiring author – repeated words, frequent adverbs, passive voice, limited vocabulary, confusing sentences, liberal use of intensifiers such as “very”, which intensify weak adjectives such as “nice”.And yet the rules of good writing lurk, the demanding sense that these words are shaped. This “bad” writing aspires to excellence. In the famous opening paragraph, Hemingway uses repeated words like “the” to give rhythm, as in a spoken conversation. The use of “the” also serves to conduct us into Henry’s world, where mountains he describes are “the” mountains which narrator and reader both seem to be looking at, rather than any old range of hills introduced to us at the beginning of a story.From then on every untutored line has a hidden quality. Take, for example, the following exchange:“I went everywhere. Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Villa San Giovanni, Messina, Taormina——” “You talk like a time-table. Did you have any beautiful adventures?”“Yes.”“Where?”“Milano, Firenze, Roma, Napoli——”A timetable might not seem like great writing, but there is undeniable beauty in simple place names. Place names, for example, are hugely influential in song writing, the music journalist Nick Coleman suggesting that apart from love, “pop is better on cities than anything else.”The writing of A Farewell to Arms might have the literary quality of a timetable, but that doesn’t mean it can’t aspire to the sort of poetry informing thousands of songs.A Farewell to Arms is a perfect combination of form and content, of what is said and how it is said. As in James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March, A Farewell to Arms is a remarkable writing achievement in the form of not very good writing

⭐This Scribner/ Simon and Schuster edition has so much more than just the actual story, what with photos of the draft and the alterations that Hemingway made, as well as the alternate endings and changes that he made to the text in text format. We can get therefore a clear idea of a famous author at work and honing his craft. Hemingway’s biggest influence on writing of course has been on the short story in America, and it does have to be admitted that a few of those stories of his have surpassed this novel, and indeed his ultimate masterpiece, The Old Man and the Sea is only a novella, but when it comes to his novels, then this is his best.It has to be remembered that Hemingway started his literary career as a journalist, and as with many other such writers he took across what he learnt from writing for papers and magazines into his stories, thus cutting down on extraneous pieces and concentrating on the immediate. He was to come to call this the iceberg theory, where the story remains relatively simple on top, with all the meanings and other elements that you can take away from a novel buried under the surface. His aim was to create tales that were visceral and immediate and took you straight into the scenes and feel them, in effect virtual reality in book form.In this novel then the author used his own experiences from being a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy in the First World War and embellishing that with things that he had heard or had known about. There was quite a bit of research then whilst creating this story, even including checking on the weather reports and communications with others who also served in the country. Here then we meet American Lieutenant Frederic Henry, who whilst recuperating in hospital after sustaining injuries falls in love with English nurse Catherine Barkley. We do know who some of the characters here were based on, and although having a dalliance with a nurse whilst suffering injuries, Hemingway was spurned by her when he wanted to marry her, unlike in this story. We can thus see certain semi-autobiographical elements being used as inspiration and a starting point for some of the things that happen here.As we follow the tale we have scenes of romance as well as war, with explosions, death, shootings and trying to stay alive, along with medical drama, bravery, cowardice and the meaning of loyalty, and even a childbirth. This novel then encompasses so much more than just a simple war experience, and that has helped it remain so popular and worth reading. The writing is simplistic as such, with some great descriptions of the landscape and the weather, with the main elements not gone into in great detail, thus leaving us as readers to experience them more intimately and obviously the more you have lived the greater the effect. As we can also see in the appendices, Hemingway had great difficulty in coming up with a satisfactory ending, but the one he ultimately used I believe was the best one, as it leaves an indelible impression on you long after you have finished the book.

⭐Many years ago, I put down the story after reading about 30 pages or so. But this time round, I force myself to read it again and what a pleasant chance of attitude towards it.What does war mean to a young man? To the protagonist Mr Henry, who serves as an ambulance driver in the Italian territory. It is unsound and unreasonable. He first gets wounded in the knee, gets himself treated and risks his life by going back to the front. When the army is in retreat, he almost gets himself shoot by high-rank officers, who do not reason nor do they care how many soldiers they have to shoot to kill.Mr Henry decides to run away from such madness by jumping into a nearby stream and gets drifted away from the retreating army. With a floating log, he survives bad luck and comes back to visit his girl, Catherine. With the help of a barman, the young couple run away and seek refuge in Switzerland. The story concludes with the death of Catherine who dies of hemorrhage in hospital.The story is written in the first person, with a linear storyline. Unlike For Whom the Bell Tolls, this is not punctuated with artistic effect which calls attention to the text itself; rather it has a smoothness that appeals to readers both contemporary and nowadays.Though the delivery of my book is late for 5 works days, I am able to finish reading it in 2018, the 100th anniversary of the victorious ending of World War One, during which the fictionalized story took place and in which the author drew his experience. Deeply touching!

⭐This book is interesting as far as the story goes, but Hemingway’s style, or rather the lack of it, leaves a lot to be desired! It is very banal and unimaginative, and the deliberate absence of commas is irritating. Also, his characters are one-dimentional. Heaven knows why he is rated so highly … I don’t get it. Read Solzhenitsin if you want good literature.

⭐I did appreciate the legendary Hemingway style: paired back, unsentimental, stark….and the scenes of an army in retreat were memorable as were the moving final passages. Using the first person narrative was sometimes jarring and the characters, particularly Nurse Barclay, I found were unsympathetic, even irritating. As a novel set in WW1 in my opinion, as has been commented eleswhere, it does not compare favourably with “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

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