A Farewell to Arms (book review)

I'm not a huge Hemingway fan to start with. I like more generous descriptions. Plus, all of his men and women seem the same. I think of all his men as being named Nick, even though in this one he's usually called Signor Tenente (because he's a lieutenant). He's also called Fred and Henry, because his name is Frederic Henry. I had to look that up on Sparknotes--flipping through the book didn't tell me. Tenente is an Ambulance driver in the Italian army in WWI. He's American, but America wasn't in the war yet, so he signed up for the Italian service. It begins mid-war. War is just something that he does, not something that he thinks about often. It's his job. It's dangerous, but it's just his job. Other characters are the ones that reveal the pessimism. They suggest the war ends when one country is just too tired to keep going; they feel tired themselves, but they can't quite give up yet. Lt. Henry is wounded, not particularly heroically but definitely painfully, and he goes to Milan to recover. A nurse he had been flirting with on the front gets switched to his hospital and their affair turns sexual. Neither seems particularly in love with the other. It's a love born out of desperation. And habit. Lt. starts to feel real connection to her and needs her, but it seems like it's more a desire to be away from the war and to find some meaning. CAtherine gets pregnant, Henry gets jaundice from excessive drinking, and he goes back to the front. They're ordered to retreat and it goes extremely poorly. Like an impatient driver on I-75, he tried to find a way around the mess but ends up getting the ambulances stuck, he shoots one of his men who refuses to help, and another man is shot by mistake by some Italian citizens. He rejoins the retreat but the "battle police" is executing commanding officers. Henry sees how it's going and escapes by water, then miraculously refinds Catherine in Strasa. They escape by boat to Switzerland, Henry rowing all night. She has the baby, the baby dies, and she dies. By the end, you get the feeling that he has learned to feel somewhat, but he's still quite confused.

I disliked the style of the book strongly. Hemingway uses excessive coordination especially in the beginning, which makes Tenente sound childish (it's 1st person). He still seems a child in the end but a bitter child who has just lost his toy.