A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms

First edition cover
Author Ernest Hemingway
Country USA
Language English
Published 1929 (Scribner)
Media type Print (hardcover)
Pages 355

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. The book, published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant ("Tenente") in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The title is taken from a poem by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.

A Farewell to Arms is about a love affair between the expatriate american Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley against the backdrop of the First World War, cynical soldiers, fighting and the displacement of populations. The publication of A Farewell to Arms cemented Hemingway's stature as a modern American writer,[1] became his first best-seller,[2] and is described by biographer Michael Reynolds as "the premier American war novel from that debacle World War I."[3]

The novel has been adapted for the stage, initially in 1930 and subsequently, for film in 1932 and 1957, and as a television miniseries in 1966. The 1996 film In Love and War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in the events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arms.

Plot summary

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Frederic Henry, an American paramedic serving in the Italian Army is introduced to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, by his good friend and roommate, Rinaldi, a surgeon. Frederic attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins. Frederic doesn't want a serious relationship, but his feelings for Catherine slowly start to grow. On the Italian front, Frederic is wounded in the knee by a mortar and sent to a hospital in Milan, where Catherine is also sent.

The second book shows the growth of Frederic and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Frederic and Catherine fall in love as Frederic slowly heals. After his knee heals, he is diagnosed with jaundice but is soon kicked out of the hospital and sent back to the front after being discovered with alcohol. By the time he is sent back, Catherine is three months pregnant.

In the third book, Frederic returns to his unit, and soon discovers morale has severely dropped. Not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. Due to a slow and hectic retreat, Frederic and his men go off trail and quickly get lost, and a frustrated Frederic kills a sergeant for insubordination. After catching up to the main retreat, Frederic is taken to a place by the "battle police," where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated has been killed, Frederic escapes by jumping into a river. He heads to Milan to find Catherine only to discover that she has been sent to Stresa.

In the fourth book, Catherine and Frederic reunite and spend some time in Stresa before Frederic learns he will soon be arrested. He and Catherine then flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. After interrogation by Swiss authorities, they are allowed to stay in Switzerland.

In the final book, Frederic and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Frederic to return to their hotel in the rain.

Background and publication history

The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[4] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Michael Reynolds, however, writes that Hemingway was not involved in the battles described. Because his previous novel, The Sun Also Rises, had been written as a roman à clef, readers assumed A Farewell to Arms to be autobiographical.[3] A Farewell to Arms was begun during his time at Willis M. Spear's guest ranch in Wyoming's bighorns.[5] Some pieces of the novel were written in Piggott, Arkansas, at the home of his then wife Pauline Pfeiffer,[6] and in Mission Hills, Kansas while she was awaiting delivery of their baby.[7] Pauline underwent a caesarean section as Hemingway was writing the scene about Catherine Barkley's childbirth.[8]

The novel was first serialized in Scribner's Magazine in the May 1929 to October 1929 issues. The book was published in September 1929 with a first edition print-run of approximately 31,000 copies.[9] The success of A Farewell to Arms made Hemingway financially independent.[10]

The Hemingway Library Edition was released in July 2012, with a dust jacket facsimile of the first edition. The newly published edition presents an appendix with the many alternate endings Hemingway wrote for the novel in addition to pieces from early draft manuscripts.[11]

The JFK Library Hemingway collection has two handwritten pages with possible titles for the book. Most of the titles come from The Oxford Book of English Verse.[12] One of the possible titles Hemingway considered was In Another Country and Besides. This comes from The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe. The poem Portrait of a Lady by T. S. Eliot also starts off by quoting this Marlowe work: "Thou hast committed/ Fornication: but that was in another country,/ And besides, the wench is dead." Hemingway's library included both works by Eliot and Marlowe.[13]

Censorship

There are at least two copies of the first edition in which Hemingway re-inserted the censored text by hand, so as to provide a corrected text. One of these copies was presented to Maurice Coindreau; the other, to James Joyce.[14] Hemingway's corrected text has not been incorporated into modern published editions of the novel; however, there are some audiobook versions that are uncensored.

Also, the novel could not be published in Italy until 1948 because the Fascist regime considered it detrimental to the honor of the Armed Forces, both in its description of the Battle of Caporetto, and for a certain anti-militarism implied in the work. More than one biographer suggests that at the base of the censorship of the Fascist regime in the novel there had also been a personal antipathy between the writer and Benito Mussolini. Hemingway was interviewed in 1922, and in his article in the Toronto Star he said of Mussolini that he was "the biggest bluff in Europe's history." But apart from the official reactions, it is known that Mussolini did not like the article at all.[15] The Italian translation had in fact already been written illegally in 1943 by Fernanda Pivano, leading to her arrest in Turin.

Critical reception

Gore Vidal wrote of the text: "... a work of ambition, in which can be seen the beginning of the careful, artful, immaculate idiocy of tone that since has marked ... [Hemingway's] prose."[16] The last line of the 1929 New York Times review reads: "It is a moving and beautiful book."[17]

Adaptations

The novel was first adapted to stage by Laurence Stallings in 1930,[18] then to film in 1932, with a 1957 remake.

A three-part television miniseries was made in 1966.

References

  1. ↑ Mellow (1992), 378
  2. ↑ Wagner-Martin, Linda; Reynolds, Michael (2000). "Ernest Hemingway 1899-1961: A Brief Biography". A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 31. ISBN 0-19-512151-1.
  3. 1 2 Reynolds (2000), 31
  4. ↑ Villard, Henry Serrano & Nagel, James. Hemingway in Love and War: The Lost Diary of Agnes von Kurowsky: Her letters, and Correspondence of Ernest Hemingway (ISBN 1-55553-057-5 H/B/ISBN 0-340-68898-X P/B)
  5. ↑ Spear-o-Wigwam history
  6. ↑ "Hemingway-Pfeiffer Home Page". Arkansas State University. Archived from the original on 16 February 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-30.
  7. ↑ "A Writer's Haunts: Where He Worked and Where He Lived"
  8. ↑ Meyers (1985), 216–217
  9. ↑ Oliver (1999), 91
  10. ↑ Meyers, Jeffrey. Hemingway: A Biography. Da Capo Press, 1999, p. 219.
  11. ↑ Boseman, Julie. (July 4, 2012)."To Use and Use Not". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2012
  12. ↑ Hemingway, Ernest (1929). Hemingway, Seán, ed. A Farewell To Arms (The Special ed.). London: William Heinemann. p. XIX. ISBN 9780434022489.
  13. ↑ Brasch, James D.; Sigman, Joseph (1981). Hemingway's Library: A Composite Record (PDF) (Electronic Edition John F. Kennedy Library, 2000 ed.). New York and London: Garland Pub. ISBN 0-8240-9499-9. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  14. ↑ Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms (New York: Scribner, 1929). James Joyce Collection, the Poetry Collection (State University of New York at Buffalo), item J69.23.8 TC141 H45 F37 1929
  15. ↑ Fernanda Pivano, Hemingway, Rusconi, Milan 1985) (ISBN 8818701657, 9788818701654)
  16. ↑ "The Norman Mailer Syndrome". Los Angeles Times.
  17. ↑ "Hemingway's Farewell". New York Times.
  18. ↑ Young, Stark (1994). "A Farewell to Dramatization". Critical essays on Ernest Hemingway's A farewell to arms. New York: Hall [u.a.] pp. 91–95. ISBN 0-7838-0011-8. Retrieved 4 January 2013.

Sources

  • Baker, Carlos (1972). Hemingway: The Writer as Artist. Princeton: Princeton UP. ISBN 978-0-691-01305-3
  • Mellow, James (1992). Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-37777-3
  • Meyers, Jeffrey (1985). Hemingway: A Biography. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-42126-0
  • Oliver, Charles (1999). Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work. New York: Checkmark Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-3467-3
  • Reynolds, Michael (2000). "Ernest Hemingway, 1899–1961: A Brief Biography". in Wagner-Martin, Linda (ed). A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway. New York: Oxford UP. ISBN 978-0-19-512152-0
  • Roy, Pinaki (2012). Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms': A Critical Appraisal. Kolkata: Books Way. ISBN 978-93-81672-12-9
  • Tyler, Lisa, ed. (2008). "Teaching Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms." Kent, OH: The Kent State UP.
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