I bought this book sometime back from amazon, just a random
pick wanted to read some classic- if this be so called. I am not sure and don’t
care whatsoever; just a book it is.
I haven’t had read any of Hemingway’s. Just have a faint
recall about having read something while at school, a prose maybe. The story of
which has no traces left in my memory. Hence l has not read Hemingway’s.
A Farewell at Arms, is based during the world wars of 1940’ties
when Germany was on side of Austria and fighting with Italy who were with the
Allied nations.
The story goes around one Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American who has volunteered to lead a team
of Ambulance drivers; ferrying patients from frontline to field hospitals.
Henry also being the narrator and protagonist of this story tickles the deeper
thoughts of a man in middle of war and women. The woman here is his love Miss Catherine
Barkley, a British nurse who is trying to fill in the gap from her past life-
her dead fiancé, by serving as a nurse.
Henry is wounded by
splinters from a bomb. A near escape from death that landed him on hospital bed
and some glory. Where he was repaired and recovered all while making love with
Cathy. Soon they realize he has to report back to duty and she has now conceived.
Until then it was
quite a happy go lucky for Henry, but soon War shows up its ugly face. His team
of Ambulance drivers get lost, missed and killed. Misunderstood, mistrusted,
mislead into grapevine rumors; a scene of complete melee and chaos at the
losing Italian side. Henry was himself almost dead from being shot at before his
escape to Milan. Where he meets Cathy again and their overnight journey into Switzerland
via the lake is quite an experience. Even though I felt my author was kind of
hurrying at the end a second thought makes me realize that on contrary I am the
one who was hurrying to the finish line.
The overall
experience was good and what I learned apart from this being a great story that
during those war times wine flowed more than water.
Here goes my favorite quote from this book:
"That's why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.”
Ernest Hemingway, A
Farewell to Arms
