A Farewell to Arms

Well, my first major Hemingway (I don't count The Old Man and the Sea as a "major" work, though it was pretty cool) in my back pocket. Pretty good. More "literary" than I thought. There was a delicacy and an intelligence beneath the surface of the text that I had not expected. Kind of like reading the poet Michael Berry: deceptively complex, touching, and graceful. I was impressed. I can easily see why Hemingway is Berry's favorite author (or one of his favorites). I enjoyed the sparse prose and the inexorable, consistently-paced movement of the plot which I found easy to read and enjoyable. There were several scenes I did not anticipate, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. The unexpected shooting of Aymo, the near-shooting of Frederick, the escape into Switzerland (and his near-capture). I appreciated the atmospherics of the novel as well. The discussion between the two provincially-partisan Swiss guards after the border-crossing as each extols the virtues of his home territory and attempts to convince Frederick and Catherine to visit (with all their money, of course). This novel was quite a change from the dense Victorian prose of Dickens and a startling contrast to the flowing, poetic style of Nabokov. I'm looking forward to The Grapes of Wrath next. This would be an interesting work to read right after having finished Catch-22. Both have similarly cynical (maybe disillusioned?) takes on different wars.