There is nothing in A Farewell to Arms that distracts you from the writing itself. The plot is sequential. There are no flashbacks. It is not a page turner with mystery and thrill spilled all over the place. The chapters doesn’t end with a cliffhanger. There are not many characters. The focus stays on the main characters all along. The language is as simple as it could be. Hemingway concentrates only on story telling and nothing else. And he tells it the best way possible. It sometimes feels that you are not reading a book, but listening to an old friend sitting beside you, telling about the time with his lady, in the middle of a war. But in a more elaborate manner.
Hemingway uses certain deviant literary devices to narrate few instances which mark its importance or foregrounds it. The author sometimes uses long, almost unending sentences which is a string of many other sentences joined together with many and‘s. For example consider the below snippet:
“Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we would get in the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking at all the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and …”
This technique catches the reader off guard and has a profound effect. You are forced to read it in a single breath. All the emotions and thoughts converge and intensify the reading experience.
The author also uses a ridiculous amount repetitions. For example:
“Don’t let her die. Oh, God, please don’t let her die. I’ll do anything for you if you won’t let her die. Please, please, please, dear God, don’t let her die. Dear God, don’t let her die. Please, please, please don’t let her die. God please make her not die. I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die. “
There are many other instances where Hemingway uses this method. I felt this was a bit irritating forcing me to skip through the whole part where author makes use of this.
Hemingway sometimes seems to be in a flow and writes his thoughts as it comes to his mind without caring for punctuation or quotation marks to indicate conversations, which he makes use of elsewhere. Consider this snippet:
“You go away in the morning, baby, Rinaldi said. To Rome, I said. No, to Milan. To Milan, said the major, to the Crystal Palace, to the Cova, to Campari’s, to Biffi’s, to the galleria. You lucky boy. To the Gran Italia, I said, where I will borrow money from George. To the Scala, said Rinaldi. You will go to the Scala. Every night, I said. You won’t be able to afford it every night, said the major.”
The courtship between Catherine and Frederic, the main characters, is glorified and a tad too perfect. Maybe a bit unconvincing too. Author creates ideal situations at the time of crisis for the blossoming love. The background setting of Switzerland romanticizes the whole plot. The love is purely conveyed from the romantic settings and the conversations. The author rarely intervenes. He only speaks through the characters and the settings. The absence of other characters creates an exclusivity and the brings forth how the lovers feel when being with each other. The lovers fill each other’s worlds and the rest is a blur.
Frederic character background is not explored much. The character development is slow overall. For most part of the book, author shows Frederic form reactions to his surrounding and not form opinions of his own. Not until much later when he starts to be with Catherine. There are no other significant characters. Rinaldi and the Priest give a sense of the past for Frederic which is non-existence otherwise. Fergusan too plays the same role for Catherine.
War looms over everything all along. Hemingway raises concerns over the futility of the war. There is a hint of irony when Tenente is being considered for a bravery medal and is asked what heroic act he has done to which he repeatedly refuses doing any act of honour. But he is given a silver medal anyway. War is the destroyer of lives, families and one’s loved ones, ultimately reflected in the main plot of the book.
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