Farewell To Arms

Rating:
Summary: Simply put, this is a great novel
Review: This book was able to touch me in a way that few novels ever have. Hemmingway's simple and direct prose can be decieving, because underneath there is powerful emotion. I found myself thinking about passages from the novel for days after having read it. It will make you happy, but unfortunately, it will also make you cry. The story of Henry and Catherine will grab you and not let go until the tragic end. An incredible reading experience. "A Farewell to Arms" is Hemmingway's greatest novel. It surpasses "The Sun Also Rises" as well as "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which are also great works by Hemmingway.

Rating:
Summary: Perfection in Literature
Review: Hemmingway's romanticism is unparalleled. He sweept me up into a world of love and war so completely that I had to remind myself to breathe. His combination of intensity of emotion and eloquence of language creates a story so beautiful that I do not begrudge him my tears but laud his genius in making me feel something so deeply.

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Summary: QUITE POSSIBLY THE GREATEST BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Review: I cannot believe it took me so long to get around to this book. It is phenomenal. The main story surrounds two lovers: Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley. Much of the book takes place in World War I in Italy. The way the book ends is such a shocker, and yet is not. You will love this book!

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Summary: A sad farewell to youth, idealism, and love
Review: The tragic and doomed love of two people hurt by life and the world, but not as good as The sun Also Rises.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful love story.
Review: This is a profoundly beautiful love story set in World War I in Italy. Frederic Henry is an American, driving ambulances for the Italian Army. The reason for that he gives is because he was in Italy and he spoke Italian. Catherine Barkley is a British nurse. It is their story with the war as backdrop. It is very sensual in that I could taste ever dark beer and cool glass of wine. I could feel the damp rain and see the snow. In the end you are left drop dead stunned and deeply sad - yet happy for all of his beautiful words and the surprising ways he sometimes puts them, such as the description of the wine shop he entered one morning for coffee, "It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine-glasses."

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Summary: Left to Mourn
Review: The young, immature characters set against an intense, tragic plot gave the novel as a whole a unique voice that at times only seemed contradictory.I often expect and rely on an author to walk me through the grieving process after a character dies, or at least to devote a couple pages of mourning or after thought. I closed this book and had to take a couple moments of silence. Hemingway just left me to face the death on my own, to come to my own conclusions about life and death. It was time for bed when I ended it but I felt instead like going out and doing something special, of savoring the moment. The next morning, I still had the character's death on my mind and I had to cope with that on my own.

Rating:
Summary: Very bad.
Review: Bad reading; the descriptions are okay, but the characters stink. The heroine doesn't seem lovable and great, she's crazy and stupid. It's bad. The drawing on the cover is as good as it gets

Rating:
Summary: Hemingway rode on the coat tails of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Review: None of Hemingway's work including A Farewell To Arms should be touted as "Classic". Hemingway caught a ride on the coat tails of F. Scott Fitzgerald and without him as a predecessor Hemingway's body of work would have died the timely death it deserved. A Farewell To Arms is yet another example of Hemingway's inability to forward narrative in an interesting manner or to develop characters that anybody could care a whit about

Rating:
Summary: a great book
Review: I just read this book for the first time in my college Humanities class and I loved the mix of humor and seriousness that Hemingway mixes so well. My favorite line was, "I was blown up...eating cheese."

Rating:
Summary: Overall, this book lacks a source of intrigue.
Review: This book, while portraying realistic portions of World War I, seems more of an attempt to boost the author's ego than to entertain. The way he (the author) has the nurse systematically slobbering over the wounded soldier is nauseating, at times to the point where it is more rewarding to skip the entire section. The only interesting parts that I found in this book were the battle scenes, too bad there were only one or two of them