What do F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Edwards have in common?They were both right about this book!Jack Edward rated this as “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy” and said it was quite dull. F. Scott Fitzgerald was even more savage. These are direct quotes from Fitzgerald to Hemingway:“The characters too numerous […] Please cut! There’s absolutely no psycholical [Fitzgerald’s bad spelling] justification in introducing those singers—its not even bizarre. […] This is definately [again Fitzgerald’...

welcome to...A FEBRUARY TO ARMS.you know it, you love it. a bad month and title pun, an intimidating book, and me, at the beginning-ish of february. it's another installment of project long classics, in which every(ish) month i read a long(ish) classic in small(ish) chunks to make them less scary.because i'm picky about what i read. unless you put it on a list titled "books you must read in a lifetime." then i'm falling for it every time.CHAPTER 1this entire chapter was about 2 pages long and ma...

4.5

I have so many thoughts but no idea how to put them into words…*weeps rainy tears*

There is something hopeless in love in the time of war… But love there is…
A Farewell to Arms was the first novel I read in English… I never was out of a dictionary… Reading was quite a labour… And the book made a very strong impression on me… I can’t recall the novel without an attack of nostalgia ever since.

And you’ll always love me won’t you? Yes. And the rain won’t make any difference? No.

…till the war do us part.

I'm not a Hemingway guy. I yearn for internal dialogue, various and ladened spiritual questioning, and deep psychology in my characters. I prefer writing that is smooth and philosophical. Hemingway gives me little of this.

But the settings of this book were beautiful, and the dialogue between characters, poignant. By the end, I found that Hemingway had craftily fucked with me to the point of my complete immersion into the novel.

It made me cry.

I feel like awarding the great Hemingway only two stars has officially consigned me to the seventh circle of literary hell. But I must be honest. By this website's criteria two stars indicates that a book is "okay" - and to me that describes this work perfectly.Hemingway himself is undeniably gifted. I love his succinct style (though at times it degenerates to downright caveman-speak), his honest diction and his wonderful sense of humor. That being said, he gets away with utterly ignoring most r...

The old joke proves itself upon reading.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A (Hemingway): To die. In the rain.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classics" for the first time, then write reports on whether or not they deserve the labelBook #17: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway (1929)The story in a nutshell:Published in the late 1920s, right when Modernism was first starting to become a...

I just finished it, and I'm disappointed. And not only disappointed; I'm also bothered by it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at Hemingway's one-dimensional, sexist portrayal of Catherine Barkley, having read much of his other work, but somehow I still am. Put simply, Catherine is a ridiculous figure, and it's no fault of her own. Hemingway gives her no opportunity to sound like anything more than a half-crazy, desperate, fawning caricature with no real desires or opinions of her own. How many ...