A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)

I used to tell anyone who asked me that I hated Hemingway. Then I read A Moveable Feast this past September and it changed my mind. While I didn't love A Farewell to Arms, a novel published in 1929 and set in Italy during World War I, I'm glad I read it. 

For readers who don't know anything about Hemingway, in brief, he was an American author and Noble Prize winner who penned classics like The Old Man and the Sea (I've never read either of these) and For Whom the Bell Tolls. He also happens to be one of the most famous alcoholics in American literary history, a factor which may have contributed to his suicide in 1961. 

Many readers consider A Farewell to Arms to be Hemingway's best novel. Unfortunately, it didn't move me the same way A Moveable Feast did. In fact, I had hard time feeling emotional attachment of any kind for the characters in this book. I wanted to like this book, but it left me without much feeling at all. 

There's nothing particularly romantic about the love story involved, but perhaps that's the way Hemingway meant it to be. The characters meet and fall in love way too quickly. I don't buy it. Of course, their love is a sham at the start--a piece of acting which they both see through--but then it becomes real. Even when it is real though, I still don't buy it. Perhaps it is because Hemingway offers the reader no real glimpse into the emotional lives of the characters. All we're allowed to see are actions, dialogue, and minimal thoughts.  

I suppose Hemingway's writing style is just not my cup of tea (and I enjoy a wide-variety of teas). That doesn't mean I dislike his works, though. If anything, I would say I'm neutral. I neither love nor hate him, and I can appreciate certain pieces of his work like A Moveable Feast.