As before mentioned, I TRUDGED through the first 150pgs, or so. It felt Hemingway was establishing his dominance or something, I swear. The problem may be that I was reading it at the end of the semester so I was extremely busy and wasn't taking the time to really process what he was saying, and with him that is a problem because he didn't give an inch the first half of the book. I was constantly trying to decipher the emotions the characters were feeling and trying to read between the lines of their dialogue. This may be a problem, maybe you aren't supposed to read Hemingway this way. I'm not sure.Another problem may be I've been reading a lot of female authors lately and they are slightly more...I guess hospitable is the word, in their writing style. I maybe got used to having things wrapped up real nicely and Hemingway doesn't give a shit....In the end I guess the very thing that frustrated me in the beginning of the novel is what I began to love towards the end.I feel the book turned around for me when Henry returns to his unit. By far, my favorite narrative in the whole book is Hemingway's description of the Italian armies retreat after the German forces had broken through the front lines. (starting on pg.188 of the "new" version). I felt all wrapped up in the entire sequence. The description of the columns of people moving out in the storm, them drinking wine and eating cheese and apples for breakfast, the virgins, all the talk of Bonello and Piani being socialist and not anarchists, and when they shot and killed the 2 sergeants. Amazing. It felt as a defeat in a war should feel: raw and hard.Possibly my favorite quote is towards the end when Henry is describing his love for Catherine (after they flee to Switzerland) and he says, " Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt like that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can be the most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together." pg. 249. I can think of no better description of being totally comfortable with a person. I crave "alone" more than almost anything and the thought of having someone you can feel alone but not "lonely" with is genius and possibly one of the best ways I've ever had loved explained to me by an author. Good one Erney.Lastly, most of the book I thought to myself, "Hemingway can't write a woman." I did not feel a fondness towards Catherine. I soo wanted to, we are both women and she was a nurse, and yet often she felt flighty to me...and I blamed Hemingway. Until the tragic end when she says, "Don't worry darling, I'm not a bit afraid. It's just a dirty trick." I realized that she wasn't what I had thought she was during that last scene in the hospital. Life had just tired her out and made her untrusting and a little cynical; so she had learned to take things lightly. Maybe? Now, I'm not about to clear a spot in my top 10 female characters in literature or anything, but it made me understand her a little moreI loved it and felt it no one could have written a better and more appropriate ending.Well played, Erney.
-Rosie
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ok this is going to sound dumb of me to say because i was knocking old E. Hem. pretty hard too. and i had the exact same outcome when i finished. i was completely wrapped up in the story and was unable to put the book down by the time i got to the last ten chapters.
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