Hemingway is another answer I sometimes give when asked as an ice breaker: “Who would you like to have dinner with if you could choose anyone, dead or alive?”. Specifically I would like to hang out with him on the Left Bank in Paris during his heyday although I have no illusions about my ability to keep up with him intellectually or in the consumption of alcohol.
I have enjoyed his work over the years although, with my tendency in past times to read nonfiction, I tended to confine myself to these works. This is the first of his celebrated novels and it made a nice change from struggling through William Faulkner’s impenetrable Absolom. This was nothing like that and the narrative is straightforward although beautifully crafted as one expects from Hemingway.
The story is the developing love affair between an American ambulance driver for the Italian army and Catherine, an English nurse. The descriptions of the war, the dying soldiers, the injury that befalls Frederic, the escape to Switzerland are gripping and flow through the story. I find these much more compelling than the narrative describing the love affair itself.
Obviously this is of its time and much more is implied than is written and this is first class literary writing of course. Much is left to the imagination which adds to its power in my view (even though this word was STILL censored at the time in some places). However I find Catherine’s characterization unconvincing – she (and he to an extent) come across as needy and constantly in need of validation for their feelings. This isn’t a problem early on but becomes tiresome. Maybe I miss the point here somewhere.
The ending is, of course, well known and poignant. It is sad actually. It is perhaps appropriate and certainly makes a change from a “happy ever after” ending that is so prevalent in modern writing but it is nonetheless stark, dark, emotional and jarring. The metaphorical “walk into the sunset” which is actually a walk into the driving rain is haunting and evocative. One is left asking: “what happens now?” and “How would I cope with that?” and it is viscerally moving. I was, although expecting it, shocked at the stakes of the ending, outlined as it is in a couple of matter of fact pages.
Hemingway apparently agonized over the wording of the ending and toyed with several versions, some ostensibly much happier than the final version. It is very dark to me but nonetheless real for that, and certainly something that has happened to many. Set against an overall backdrop of death and destruction, one is left with a very bleak feeling that Hemingway certainly doesn’t care to alleviate for us. This is great writing to be sure, it is a shame that the characters of the main protagonists tend not to be that likable, at least to this reader.