A Farewell to Arms Discussion

[LitNetIsGreat]

I just started reading the book, and though I have not yet advanced very far, I have to say, I love Hemmingway's prose. It has been a while for me reading him and there is something so poetic and yet "human" within his verse. I am not quite sure how to put it, but he does make everything really seem to come to life and so vivid that it is easy to become engaged within the story.

I cannot wait to keep reading more.

It's got to be a relief after Beloved...

[Dark Muse]

LOL

Yes it is much better after Beloved, already

[Dark Muse]

Maybe someone can help me.

I happened upon the scene where the narrator meets the solider with the rupture, and he keeps repeating that he dropped the truss, or threw the truss, and so forth, and because of that he is accused of causing his injury on purpose so they will not let him go to the hospital.

I looked up truss and found that it was an architectural term, and could not find any other deification or explanation for it, so I am a bit confused about the relation between the truss and his injury and what exactly happened.

[Virgil]

I remember that too Dark Muse, and I know what a truss is in engineering/architecture but I was confused as well. It makes no sense in the passage. Must be some slang of the time.

[Dark Muse]

Well that makes me feel better, at least it is not some obvious thing, that I just did not understand and would make me feel stupid once I found out LOL

[Dark Muse]

Hey I found it!!!

I looked up truss in this old dictionary I have, and one of the definitions for it, is a device that was used to hold a hernia in place.

My first instinct was to look in the dictionary, but typing it in google was easiler (shame on me) but that just goes to show you, the internet doesen't know EVERYTHING!

[Virgil]

Hey I found it!!!

I looked up truss in this old dictionary I have, and one of the definitions for it, is a device that was used to hold a hernia in place.

My first instinct was to look in the dictionary, but typing it in google was easiler (shame on me) but that just goes to show you, the internet doesen't know EVERYTHING!

It was probably on page 5678 of the google search. Good find D-M. Sounds like some contraption.

[Dark Muse]

Haha I know really, at least the mystery is solved, and the passage now makes sense

[Dark Muse]

I loved the dialogue between the drives all about war. It is interesting reading the book at this particular time as well for obvious reasons a lot of relevance can be found just now with certain current events (but I don't want to talk about the politics and opinions of that) just saying reading the book now I think my perspective on it is different if I had read it prior.

But for me a lot of truth did ring through these words.

"It doesn't finish. There is no finish to a war"

"War is not won by victory. What if we take San Gabriele? What if we take the Carso and Monfalcone and Triese? Where are than? Did you see all the far mountains to-day? Do you think we could take all them too? Only if the Austrians stop fighting. One side must stop fighting. Why don't we stop fighting? If they come down into Italy they will get tired and go away. They have their own country. But no, instead there is a war."

"We think. We read. We are not peasants. We are mechanics. But even the peasants know better than to believe in a way. Everybody hates this war."

"There is a class that controls a country that is stupid and does not realize anything and never can. That is why we have this war."

"Also they make money out of it."

"Most of them don't.... They are too stupid. They do it for nothing. For stupidity."

Also, I thought that the bombing scene was really intense, the chaos of the moment was so well and vivid portrayed within the prose of the story. The scene when he is lying in the ambulance, and someone else's blood is slowly dripping down upon him, and he can feel it wet and sticky through his shirt, made me shudder.

[mono]

Good to hear that you have enjoyed A Farewell to Arms thus far, Dark Muse - it remains one of my favorites by Ernesto.

Also, I thought that the bombing scene was really intense, the chaos of the moment was so well and vivid portrayed within the prose of the story. The scene when he is lying in the ambulance, and someone else's blood is slowly dripping down upon him, and he can feel it wet and sticky through his shirt, made me shudder.

I recall this description very acutely, and somewhat surprisingly considering that the rest of my memory rests more upon what occurs later in the novel. Given such a vivid detail, somehow the fact would not shock me if Hemingway encountered many experiences like this, as a paramedic in WWI, writing from first-hand knowledge, so to speak. Odd, even with his typically very brief, narrow, to-the-point descriptions, he can still make one shudder in the same way as a more verbose author bringing light to a similar subject, like Poe, Lovecraft, or Dostoevsky.

[Dark Muse]

I really enjoy the humor that Hemingway included within the story, for me it is part of what makes the story all that more "human" or real as it were, because I am one who can appreciate the comic aspects that can emerge out of tragedy and hardships. It gets me in trouble at times, because something will happen and everyone else will be upset or angry about it, and I will try to look somber when inside I really just want to laugh because I an can see the irony of fate.

I thought that whole scene when he was taken to the American hospital was absolutely hysterical. Because that is how real life is, it is sloppy and chaotic at times, so I really enjoy that sort of realism that Hemingway brings into the story, and his own seeming apperception of the fact that it can be dang funny at times when you least expect it.

[Onikeflava]

If only I could read this book for the first time again.

[Dark Muse]

I have to say I am close to half-way done with the book, and I still do not know quite what to make of Catherine, I do not truly flat out dislike her, but my god, there are times when she is just ridiculously annoying and she really can grate on my nerves.

For one thing, she seems to whine a lot, it is kind of funny, but the way she talks in the book I can hear her in my head having this really obnoxious whinny sounding voice. I am also tired of the fact that every time she asks a question, she than has to repeat it, 50 times in a row.

The other thing, of which I am sure was done quite intentionally by Hemingway, as a way of demonstrating the alienation and isolation of human contact during this period of the war, and the way in which these sorts of relationships are a direct result of the war, and the struggle for people to try and connect again and find some sort of meaning in their lives, they are just so completely shallow.

They have these "conversations" in which all they really do is make random irrelevant remarks to each other back and forth, and they never actually respond to or acknowledge anything the other person says.

[Old Crow]

For me, the ending is what makes this book. Had it ended any differently than it did, I would have been extremely dissapointed. I think Hemingways best moments come when his prose is at its darkest, and during the final chapter of this book Hemingways disgust and bitterness is palpable. Absolutely fantastic book.

[mono]

I have to say I am close to half-way done with the book, and I still do not know quite what to make of Catherine, I do not truly flat out dislike her, but my god, there are times when she is just ridiculously annoying and she really can grate on my nerves.

For one thing, she seems to whine a lot, it is kind of funny, but the way she talks in the book I can hear her in my head having this really obnoxious whinny sounding voice. I am also tired of the fact that every time she asks a question, she than has to repeat it, 50 times in a row.

The other thing, of which I am sure was done quite intentionally by Hemingway, as a way of demonstrating the alienation and isolation of human contact during this period of the war, and the way in which these sorts of relationships are a direct result of the war, and the struggle for people to try and connect again and find some sort of meaning in their lives, they are just so completely shallow.

They have these "conversations" in which all they really do is make random irrelevant remarks to each other back and forth, and they never actually respond to or acknowledge anything the other person says.

Interesting interpretation of Catherine!
Your explanation of Hemingway's emphasis upon social isolation, lack of empathy, and occasional coldness really hit the nail on the head. While reading A Farewell to Arms, I often had many visuals, too, of Henry and Catherine in their dialogues, and thought them the type who would speak almost meditatively in trances, devoid of eye contact, and frequently with a perfunctory nature of consolation. Cold? Somewhat, but it gets better, especially at that halfway point of the novel you have reached. As in For Whom the Bell Tolls, also a novel detailing war and battles, many characters in this novel, I believe, have exhausted many of their emotional reservoirs by the trauma of war, medicine, suffering, death, etc., turning them partially into the antisocial, solitary, flat personalities one sees in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - something worth considering, but, besides Hemingway's war novels, this quality of characters seems relatively universal.
I understand your near-annoyance with Catherine, and partially share your interpretation of her, but I hoped Ernesto would not quite have desired to portray one of the main characters of his novel as somewhat of a whiny ditz, though she can seem so at times. When I think of Catherine, I think of adjectives like vulnerable, sensitive, and susceptible, but simultaneous to yielding, determined, nurturing, and somewhat martyrish in a Florence Nightingale-like style, for the sake of those suffering.