Rating: 
Summary: Farewell...to this Book!!
Review: I also read this because I have heard a great deal about Hemingway. I have previously read The Old Man and the Sea, and really enjoyed that. But this book was torture.Someone else mentioned the dialogue, and they're right. It is the worst dialogue I have EVER read. I dare you to find people who talk like that! I know the book was written in the 50's or so, but there's no way people have ever spoken like this. Maybe the characters all had shell shock... And the whole love affair seemed strange. The girl hardly knew the central character, and was talking about love on the first date, all the while the guy didn't seem to care about her. I found myself hoping they would break up, just to move on. But, they don't. So, I skipped half the book and read the end. I suggest the same. Anyway, if you are looking to read Hemingway, I can only advise you to skip this book. Life is short, read a good one.
Rating: 
Summary: What a shame.
Review: After never having read a word by Ernest Hemingway, I was eminently looking foreward to being swept away on one of his imaginary executions. What I got instead was a bumpy ride. I'm not saying A Farewell to Arms was an awful novel, far from it in fact, but I expected so much more from one of America's "great" writers. First off, the dialogue was absolutely appalling - it was stilted, bland and uninteresting. The only reason why I became interested in reading a Hemingway novel in the first place was because some internet-goer praised Hemingway's ear for dialogue. The fool! What planet does he come from, I wonder? If you like great dialogue, read a John Steinbeck novel, watch a Billy Wilder film or see a Tennessee William's play, but what ever you do, don't bother looking in Hemingway's direction. Having said all that, there's much to admire in this book; for one, I enjoyed Hemingway's writing style, it's often elegant and poetic, not to mention his tactile sense is quite startling at times, but I think that comes from having been immersed in the horrors of war. If you're looking for a great novel, do yourself a favour and read John Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH, you will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: A Farewell to Arms
Review: I think this has to be the best work that Hemingway ever produced, and the best book that I have read. It covers everything that you want in a book. It has war, it has alcohol, it has sex, and it has a wonderful relationship between the two characters. It is a book that is good thru and thru. it is a book that I will read again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: a book with a heart-wrenching ending
Review: I don't have much time to read books and this is my first book of Hemingway, and I just finished reading it tonight. Well, I have to say that the whole book just immersed myself into the story which leads up to the final few pages that make me feel that all this pages of writing pay off in the end. It is a great book that might seem a little boring at times, but don't be disppointed at that point, because that's how a good story should proceed before it reaches the climax. You will realize that without reading all the events and knowing how these two are loving each other before the ending, you couldn't have felt what the author is preparing you to feel.So be patient, and you will be gald that you were. Terrific book, unforgettable ending!
Rating:
Summary: Romantic prose
Review: This was a very nice war-time romance, but not what I expected. The story, while always downplayed, is quite gripping at times. It's always interesting to track adventures across Europe in an unusual setting. Hemingway employs his famous journalistic style again. I get rather sick of Hemingway's "strong characters." I have never met people like these, I guess he has. Something just didn't click. I guess you have to be a Hemingway fan. Obviously, don't look for a story with a point. This is another documentation of a nit of human experience. Take it for what it's worth.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Modernism . . . Typical Hemingway
Review: Ok, I am not the biggest Hemingway fan, but even I cannot deny the power of this book. It is honest and sensitive, while at the same time depressing and dark. There seems to be no hope at all in the lives of the two main characters, and this lack of hope leads us to expect the ending. The review on the back of the book says that this is the best novel to come out of WWI. I suppose it fits in that category--mirroring the modernist mentality of isolation and disconnection. It's not hard to read and you really can't put it down once you begin so be prepared.
Rating:
Summary: A great book!
Review: ~In Ernest Hemingway~{!/~}s A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry is an American ambulance driver who works in the Italian army. He meets a pretty British nurse, Catherine Barkley. He falls in lover with her. Catherine dies when she gives childbirth. Frederic tries to discover the true meaning of two activities, war and love. He tries to find the right game to play. He must say farewell to arms twice, first as a soldier, finally as a lover. With the last goodbye, he learned what Hemingway had~~ taught~{!*~}that neither in war nor in love could man expect victory. Hemingway once wrote: ~{!1~}The fact that the book was a tragedy and knew it could have one end.~{!1~} We can feel Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley as victims. They are not responsible for what happens to them. They act very well but suffer doom. Their suffering has nothing to do with their actions.~
Rating:
Summary: what's all the fuss about?
Review: the two most boring "lovers" ever written. a complete absence of passion/feeling. totally flat characterization. "dialogue" that would embarrass a budding high school author. what on earth did either see in the other (would ANYONE else be attracted to either of these cardboard images?)WHY were they in love? how did it happen? the glowing praise of this "love among the ruins of war" escapes me entirely. who cares what happened to these two individuals?.... give Hemingway credit for his geographic descriptions; on the other hand , it's not thought to be a "travel" novel. Greatly over-rated, and as Harold Bloom has noted elsewhere, Hemingway's novels (as opposed to his short stories) are coming to be seen as period pieces, not enduring literature. that's even generous for this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't Deserve A Title
Review: I'm gonna get right to the point: this book is far from being a "classic." First, look at the convoluted, obviously artificial dialogue. I almost cried because the dialogue was sooo bad. Who talks like that? I challenge anyone to defend that. Second, Hemingway's characterization in this book is by far the worst I've seen in literature. Nearly all his books are plagued with this problem, but not to this extent. Who is Henry? Who is Catherine? At the end of the book, the reader is no closer to the main characters than they were at the beginning. Catherine, for example, is the most one-dimensional character I can think of. She exists only in Henry's world. She seems like a mindless woman, who has no life of her own; I believe my old college prof. had it right when he said that Catherine was Hemingway's depiction of his "masturbatory fantasy" of women--namely, sex objects who lavish their men with praise, and have no lives themselves. Needless to say, since the MAIN characters aren't developed, the supporting characters seem non-existent. Can anyone name that many of them? There is Rinaldi...but all we know about him is he thinks he has syphllis. There is...Uh...Count Greffi...but I think he had too small a role to count. There is...wait, what was the name of that Spanish guy who got shot by his own side? I can't remember for some reason...he he he. I love classic literature as much as anyone. However, I would shy away from this shallow, simplistic, one-dimensional novel. Try not to be fooled by the romantic, entrapping image which Hemingway cultivated for himself-- you'll be disappointed when you see what he actually had to say. Oh, and if you want characters who will blow your mind away, read Faulkner.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: A Farewell to Arms was an amazing story during a terrible war. The hidden love affair between Lt. Henry and Cathrine culminated with tramatic results such as the War itself. This is a story that can not be left half finished. This is one of the great books of Ernest Hemmingway that can not be forgotten.
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