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.