A good short story the length of a novel: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

 A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I have no idea how I picked up this 1969 copy of a book almost a hundred years old. If I bought it, there is no evidence of a price tag, and I don't recognize the name written on the inside cover, which makes it being a gift unlikely. It is quite possible that I obtained it through some sort of book lover's osmosis. It's an old Charles Scribner's sons mass market paperback, a rather delightful example of 60's cheapness, down to the back cover, which is half-filled with a list of other Hemingway titles available from the publisher. 

It is with the small blurb on the back cover that I want to start my response to the book. I am going to reproduce it in its entirety. "A magnificent and tender tale of love and war on the Italian Front in World War I, this novel is among the most enduring works of fiction produced this century." If this is an example of what people in the 30s or 60s thought of as a tender tale of love then my sympathies go to those poor women. I did not buy that these characters were in love till the last quarter of the book. Part of that I feel can be blamed on the writing. Characters repeat themselves a lot, and when it is otherwise romantic dialogue it makes that dialogue less romantic and more sad. Catherine, the female lead, seems like she is in this relationship against her better judgment, and she just can't trust Henry, the male lead, in anything he tells her. The romance gets better later in the book, and I am just going to through up a spoiler warning if you are concerned. The book is a hundred years old so I am not sure how necessary that is, but let's be fair. It does get better after Henry deserts from the Italian Army and he and a pregnant Catherine flee to Switzerland. The book had actually kind of grabbed me, enough that the death of Catherine and her child in childbirth had an impact. But I am not sure if it was enough to save the love story.

So much for love, what about war? Hemingway's depiction of war is also less than stellar. For the majority of the book it is just a backdrop, discussed but not described. There are a lot of scenes where the characters discuss the war over sausages, or whiskey, or wine, or breakfast. Occasionally interesting, not very exciting. The time it ventures to the front it is over pretty quickly. There is one scene of the war I loved, which was shell burst that wounded the main character. That was great writing.

I have spent almost all of this post being quite negative about the book, and I think that it is because it is the wrong style of book for me. I like fiction sci-fi and fantasy, and so books such as A Farewell to Arms fall into some sort of fictional uncanny valley, both too real and too fake to be enjoyed. Of course, because people are complicated this is not a hard and fast rule. I liked Pride and Prejudice. But A Farewell to Arms was not for me. Would I recommend it? Probably not. It is a classic so if you are into books like it you have probably read it already, and if you are not it is not going to change your mind. There are better love stories like Pride and Prejudice, and better books on World War 1. I would recommend Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, a great memoir. 

With that, it is time to select the next book. The number of shelves has not changed yet, so a d20 gets us shelf 6. There are 28 books so I am going to roll a d20 and a d10, subtracting 1 from the result and rerolling if roll a 30. I got a 14 and an 8, for 21. The book is Dinosaurs in the Attic: An excursion into the American Museum of Natural History by Douglas J. Preston. A more modern result. 

Had me in the first half: Dropzone Normandy by Napier Crookenden

I am finding beginning this project a little difficult. I have never blogged before, never done book reviews, and have not done much writing since I finished grad school five years ago, so I am just going to let it come out and leave it at that. The first book is Dropzone Normandy by Napier Crookenden. History books will likely make up a large number of the books I roll for this blog, given my love of the subject. This particular book is from what I think of as my West Point collection. It is a strange story, but not very long so I will tell it here. A while ago my father mentioned my love of history, and the couple of degrees I have in the subject, to a coworker who has a large collection of history books. He then arranged to put me in his will as the inheritor of his library. This coworker of my father, after arranging for the inheritance, remembered me when a friend of his was looking to downsize his collection, and so this friend twice removed called me up and said "Hey I have a bunch of old books from my West Point years, do you want them?" I jumped on it, and now I am the proud owner of a bunch of books from a student who attended West Point in the late 1970s. 

As a book, and not an excuse to tell a story, Dropzone Normandy, published in 1976, is in the sad position of trying to do two things and failing at one of them. It is a history of the British and American airborne landings on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, and the fighting that the American 101st and 82nd Divisions, and British 6th did to hold the approaches to the beaches for the next week. To do this also tells a history of these units, how they were formed, equipped, and trained, and in that it succeeds wonderfully. There are a lot of interesting differences between the two nations, and both nations get great and even-handed coverage. I quite enjoyed the book, until it comes time to present a narrative of the fighting itself. One of the best quotes I have heard on military history is that it is very hard history because it seems so easy, and I feel the author walk right into that. The narrative is confusing, which I initially put down to the confusion caused by sprinkling 20,000 men over France like salt on a steak, but that confusion lasts well after the units form up and lines solidify. The greatest cause of this is that Dropzone Normandy addresses almost all levels of battle. The movement of Corps, divisions, battalions, companies, platoons, squads, and even individuals are all addressed, and this means that the author never spends enough time with any one group for the reader to be familiar with the who and what and where before we are off to another village. 

So in the end I left Dropzone Normandy feeling a little letdown. The first section of the book was really good, but the latter sections were frustrating, and the bibliography is atrocious. Chicago Manual Style, use it. Authors who wrote books 50 years ago, go forward in time and pick up a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, and then go back and use it. Seriously though, I found the book worth a read, enjoyable in places, and if I ever feel the need to go over the development of British and American airborne forces in the Second World War I might pick up the first bit, but this is not a book I would read cover to cover again. 

With that book done, it is time to determine the next book. I currently have 20 shelves full of books with more books needing shelves, but I will pick from the shelved books today. The roll of a d20 gets a 5 for a shelf with 29 books on it, and a roll of a d20 and a d10 gets 17 total, so book number 16 on the shelf. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I have never read any Hemingway. I'll let you know what I thought when I am done.