(H/B) A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Παρουσίαση

(...) Read today, in the light of Hemingway's whole achievement, "A Farewell to Arms" is his most carefully composed and complex book. It is clearly a work of his fictional maturity, yet written before his literary methods had hardened, as they would - before the 'one true sentence' turned into a familiar code, almost a parody of itself, before the Hemingway hero had become the tough, hard-cased, exemplary man of action, suffering yet in command, always knowing the right places, drinking the right drinks. Several of the early reviewers were quick to acknowledge the considerable step Hemingway had taken with this book. 'The emotions as a whole are more coloured by thought, perhaps they are weaker and certainly they are becoming more complicated,' noted Malcolm Cowley, 'They seem to demand expression in a subtler and richer prose.' He himself took a good deal of care that the book should be read as something more than a sentimental autobiographical narrative, but a complex and considered reaction to wartime experience. (...) (from the publisher)