There's only one way to put it: War sucks. But that's about the only thing that I truly got from this novel – are you allowed to say things like that about Hemingway? He is, after all, a Literary God some might argue, but one that I might fail to pray to.



Set against the backdrop of WWI, this is the story of an Italian ambulance driver who falls in love with an English nurse. It's the story of how bad things can happen to good people and how when you live in times of war, it becomes part of your average, daily life.

n  "If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."n

I think my main problem lies with Hemingway's language. He's famous for his simple and straightforward, minimalist use of words even and in a way, his narrative style suits the language: in times of war, the shocking things you witness become nothing to shock you, you take it all in with a spectacular sobriety due to the sheer commonplaceness of horrors. Unfortunately, it also makes for a spectacularly boring read – the dialogues feel dimwitted, the romance loveless and the plot random. The things I understood about this story I failed to feel.



He's also got a strange way of writing female characters. Maybe it's the sign of the times, but Catherine was incredibly sentimental, solely characterised through her love for Henry. It makes me grapple the idea that they were just really into each other, but an annoying character is not one that I can make myself truly care about.

In total, I get this book, whereas I am failing to feel it. Maybe I'll re-read it one day and maybe I will find something amongst these words that slipped me now.

كروايته الأخرى (مازالت الشمس تشرق) بإمكانك اعتبار هذا العمل ثرثرة مطولة أو تحفة مُبجلة، وتكون في كِلا الحالتين محقاً. كيف هذا؟ بناءً على نظرية الجبل الجليدي التي تعتبر أبرز إسهامات هيمينغواي في الأدب، يجب أن يكون النص بسيطاً في ظاهره، عميقاً في جوهره بحيث يشابه الجبل الجليدي، لا ترى منه سوى قمته بينما معظم كتلته تربض تحت السطح..

تعكس الرواية الكثير من اهتمامات هينمنغواي وخبراته الشخصية: الحرب العالمية، العمل في مجال الإغاثة، أوروبا، الصداقة، الحب، الفن والنبيذ. تجري أحداث الرواية في إيطاليا أثناء الحرب العالمية الأولى، لذا ستجد الكثير من وصف ظروف الحرب، وتصوير إيطاليا كبلد جميل. تدور الأحداث حول رجل الإسعاف الأمريكي الذي تطوع للعمل في إيطاليا وعلاقته الغرامية بالممرضة البريطانية الفاتنة ضمن سلسلة من المغامرات والكوارث. تمضي الرواية ببطء ممض في البداية وتتحرك العجلة أفضل في المنتصف حتى تتحول إلى مغامرة شيقة قرب الختام. أما النهاية فهي موضوع آخر، وجدتها مؤثرة إلى درجة أنها رفعت تقييم الرواية عندي من 3 إلى 4 نجمات.

فيما يتعلق بشخصيات الرواية، وهو أمر جوهري بالنسبة لي في أي عمل، لم أجد فيها من يستحق الإشادة سوى رينالدي الإيطالي النزق، أما البقية فشخصيات نمطية، تنزلق من الذاكرة دون أثر. في وجهة نظري لم يوفق الكاتب في رسم شخصية الآنسة بيركلي حيث كان تصويراً باهتاً وغير ناضج بعكس شخصية برت آشلي في (مازالت الشمس تشرق). فالأخيرة أكثر امتاعاً وأقل نمطيةً وأشد شبهاً بالبشر في عالم الواقع.

حقیقتا سخته که بخوام راجع همینگوی بنویسم. دلیل این موضوع بیشتر از هر چیز مربوط به بلاتکلیفی‌ای هست که بعد خوندن آثارش بهم دست میده. چند روز پیش در مورد همینگوی یه بحث کوچیکی با یکی از دوستان داشتیم و تقریبا همون حرف‌ها رو می‌خوام الان بیارم چون دقیقا وضعیتم رو توضیح میده.
ببینید من می‌دونم همینگوی چی داره میگه‌. هدف و منظورش رو درک می‌کنم. این قضیه کوه یخ و نوشتار ساده و معنای عمیق رو تا حدی باهاش اوکیم. با این حال برای من، کتاب و قلم همینگوی اون چیزی که باید نیست. اون حسی که همه ازش می‌گیرن رو من نمی‌گیرم. در عین سادگی و روون بودنش، جذبم نمی‌کنه و باعث نمیشه بخوام اهمیت بدم. و همین اذیتم می‌کنه. می‌دونید یه حس جداافتادگی به آدم میده که خیلی‌ها این آثار رو دوست داشتن و من جزو این دسته نیستم. آره خودم می‌دونم که همه قرار نیست از همه کتاب‌ها و نویسنده‌ها خوششون بیاد و طبیعیه ولی از این جهت یکم برام ناراحت‌کننده‌س که همینگوی یکی از بزرگان ادبیات دنیاست و من نمی‌تونم باهاش ارتباط بگیرم و از کارهاش لذت ببرم.
با این حال نمره‌ای که دادم صرفا به این خاطر نیست. بخش‌های عاشقانه‌ای که توی کتابه به‌نظرم توی هفتاد هشتاد درصد اوقات به‌شدت لوسه و هی تکرار میشه. با این حال نمی‌تونم بیشتر از دو تا ستاره کم کنم. بیشتر به خاطر اون احترامی هست که نسبت به همینگوی قائلم و حس می‌کنم بیشتر از اینکه مشکل از کتاب باشه، از سلیقه و حس منه. هنوز یکم تعارف دارم...
و خب این از اون ریویوهایی نیست که همیشه می‌نویسم و دوست دارم. بیشتر شبیه غر غر شد ولی همون‌طور که گفتم واقعا سخته برام از همینگوی بنویسم.
همین دیگه. یه تیکه‌ای رو که از کتاب دوست داشتم این پایین می‌گذارم.

«بعد از جنگ کجا زندگی کنیم؟»
گفت: «شاید تو خونه‌ی یه خانواده‌ی پیر. سه سال من همه‌ش مثل بچه‌ها منتظر بودم که جنگ موقع کریسمس تموم بشه. حالا دیگه منتظر موقعی هستم که پسرمون درجه‌ی ستوانی بگیره.»
«شاید سرلشگر بشه.»
«اگه این جنگه که صد سال طول می‌کشه، اون وقت داره هر دو درجه رو بگذرونه»

آدمهايي كه گناه ميكنن سليقه خوبي دارن

از سری ریویوهای غیبت صغری
همینگوی نویسنده‌ی عجیبی بود؛ ادا در نمی‌آورد و راست و پوست‌کنده حرف می‌زد. اهل تزئینات و خوشگلاسیون هم نبود و گاهی از تکرار مکررات دست برنمی‌داشت. خوندنش تو بعضی روزها حکایت شنیدن اخبار رو از کانال‌های مختلف برام داشت. همه می‌خوان اطلاع رسانی کنن و در عین حال همون خبر رو فقط میدن. شاید فصول کتاب و اعدادش تغییر میکرد ولی محتویاتش انگار همونی بود که تیتر شبکه خبر گفته بود. حالا میاد و از زبون یه پرستار میپرسه. بعد افسر. بعد کشیش. بعد هم‌رزم و همینجوری این داستان ادامه داره.
ولی یه حرکتی می‌زنه. مثل اخبار و روزنامه‌نگار و گوینده‌ی خبر و... به گذشته اشاره نمیکنه تا شنونده رو تحت تاثیر قرار بده. اون میاد و تو کتابی که پیرامون جنگ جهانی اول تو جبهه ایتالیا سیر میکنه، به حال می‌چسبه. به تنها زمانی که میشه بهش چنگ زد و زندگی در این لحظه معنادار میشه.
شاید بگی کار شاخی نکرده ولی به نظرم کرده. این حرکت زیباش باعث سرمای بی‌بدیلی میشه که میتونه ارتباط بیشتر رو دریغ کنه. انگار بری تراپی و از گذشته نگی. از اتفاقات مهلک و کابوس‌های شبانه‌ات حرف نزنی. ازت بخواد که واکاوی کنی ولی بگی خب فقط هفت هزار تن نظامی از وبا مردن. شخم بزنه که از کجا اومدی، چرا خبری از خونواده‌ات نیست و انقدر تنها افتادی و بگی در عوض کاترین رو دارم و اون خونواده‌ام هست. یعنی زمان رو در لحظه فریز کنی و نذاری که عمقی ایجاد شه و اطلاعات بیشتری دریافت کنن.
همینگوی برای من اینطور بود. به چیزی رسیده بود که انگاری تو جريان زندگی خیلیامون از دست میره. اون نمیگه که پرپر شدن جنگاورها جلوی چشمش چه حسی داره. در عوض به طبیعت جنگ‌زده پناه میاره که زیباست و چقدر خوب میشد با عشقش بتونه لب جوی بشینه و گذر عمر ببینه.
هنری و کاترین حتی تو رابطه‌ی عاشقانه هم مثل بقیه نیستن. ممکنه اعصابت رو خرد کنن که چرا دیالوگاشون عمیق نمیشه ولی رابطه‌شون چطور؟ به واسطه جنگ میدونن که این وقتی که دارن شاید تنها فرصتشون باشه. از عشق همدیگه به راحتی گذر نمیکنن و راحت تصمیم میگیرن که چی میخوان. طوری که اگه بگه چمدونا رو باید ببندیم، دست به کار میشه و میگه الان حرکت کنیم. اما اگه جنگی نبود، چقدر طول می‌کشید که زندگی رو از سر گرفت؟
همینگوی حتی دیدگاه منصفانه‌ای به نبرد داره. وقتی رو جروبحث‌های پیرامون جنگ زوم می‌کنه‌ با کمی سرچ میشه فهمید حرفش بیراه نیست و نگاه درست و تأمل‌برانگیزی داره.
حتی از نظرم شخصیت‌هایی هم که خلق میکنه در عین حال که ترس در وجودشون رخنه کرده اما قوی هستن. طوری که یه جا میگه:

تو انقدر دل دار و خاموشی که من اصلا یادم میره داری درد می‌کشی.

یا یه جایی که هنری بستری میشه و با دکتر و پرستار حرف میزنه میگه که:

من مریض نیستم. زخمی‌ام.

و بازتاب واقعیت رو در حرفای ساده نمایان میکنه و اغراقی تو کارش نیست. ناز نمیکنه و نازکش هم نداره. چغر هست و تا پایان هم به همین ترتیب ادامه میده.
ترجمه گاهی دچار ایرانیزه شدن می‌شد ولی جدای این مورد، ایرادی نمیتونم بهش بگیرم و از پس لحن نویسنده براومده بود.
در نهایت از سارا و علی ممنونم که لذت خوانش رو مثل همیشه برام دوچندان کردن و با دیدگاه منحصربه‌فردشون، باعث شدن که باز هم به نگرش خودم اکتفا نکنم و جهان‌بینیم رو وسعت بدم.

Without doubt, this is Hemingway's neatest novel, written early in his career. There is a striking contrast between the hard scenes of war (the First World War on the Italian side) and the small talk between the lovers Frederic and Catherine. Especially the scene of the chaotic withdrawal of the Italian troops after their defeat at Caporetto is simply phenomenal. And the relationship between Frederic and Catherine can be called unromantic, but still sweet, although ending in tragedy. Rating 3.5 stars

In the fall of that year we rented a house in the mountains that looked down across the river to the village below. The water of the river was turquoise and the village had a pretty campanile and beyond it rose more mountains and beyond them still more. The man who owned our cottage lived next door and made his own dry cured sausage and we would go round and eat it by the fire and talk about how fine the sausage tasted. On the hills all around there were deer, and in the evenings we would sit on the balcony of our cottage and wrap ourselves in blankets for the cold, and if we looked one way we would see the deer and if we looked the other way we would see the village down at the bottom of the valley.



The village was called Kobarid but it also had names in other languages. The Germans called it Karfreit and the Italians called it Caporetto and I said to Hannah that it was never a good sign when so many other languages had names for one little village. Sure enough we found a museum in the village dedicated to a big battle that had taken place there during the First World War. The people at the museum pointed at the mountain slopes and I don't remember exactly what they told us but I remember feeling sick and upset and thinking that I ought to know more about what had happened there and why.

The Italian army had gotten through a lot of ambulances during that war and one of the men who drove the ambulances at Kobarid was an American called Ernest Hemingway. Later he wrote a book about it and this is that book. The war parts are very good but gradually they recede into the background and a tragic love story comes to the foreground, and the tragic love story is difficult to enjoy because the woman is so old-fashionedly self-effacing and devoted to the hero that she seems either unrealistic or infuriating to modern readers.

The prose is direct and world-weary and often it sounds fine and ironic and cynical like this:

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

But often it just seems gratuitously pessimistic and this is especially true for the way the book ends. When I went to Kobarid we were very happy. I remember the place very well because we were on the porch of our cottage there when I asked Hannah to marry me. She said yes and our memories of that mountain and that village are very happy ones. This book does not end in the same way and although it is strong and powerful I really wish someone had told me that I should not be reading this ending while my wife is nine months' pregnant.

(Dec 2013)

The way I listened to the audiobook version of this novel narrated by John Slattery didn’t do it justice. Being on holidays, away from home and my usual commuting and exercising habits, I listened in short grabs, either just before going to sleep or when I woke up in the early hours of the morning and wanted to get back to sleep again. I had to re-listen to bits I'd missed by dozing off, which does not make for a smooth and cohesive literary experience. In addition, it’s a reasonably short book, but it’s taken me a month or so to finish, which is not good when I have such a poor memory for plot details.

That said, I enjoyed the book much more than I thought I would. I've not read a huge amount of Hemingway, although I've read enough to know that he's not my favourite writer. However, I like the deceptive simplicity of Hemingway's prose - a simplicity extraordinarily difficult to achieve. I also like the way in which Hemingway used his personal experience of being a volunteer ambulance driver at the Italian front during World War I to ground the plot. And I appreciate the complete absence bull fighting in this novel, a passion of Hemingway's to which I cannot relate.

Slattery’s narration is excellent. Thankfully, he’s not one of those male narrators who heads into the falsetto range when voicing a female character. Overall, this has been an unusual audiobook experience for me, but a worthwhile one nevertheless.

n  War is Boringn

Hemingway’s narrator writes not as a soldier but as a journalist-soldier, channeling Hemingway himself, recording with precision and apparent objectivity the things that happen around him and to him - practical and prosaic and always pragmatic about everything. People die and bombs explode in the same paragraph as the one where breakfast was considered with equal interest, and he takes it all in his stride.

As best as I can tell, the action of A Farewell to Arms takes place from 1916 and before the end of the war. Place references and political references come and go without troubling the narrator too much - he is not to be bothered with such details. His context is not simply this war, but all wars and the notions of honor, heroism and patriotism - all of which he looks at with pristine incomprehension.

War always generates backlash, even from the Mahabharata and the Iliad to the many anti-war epics over the ages - the honor and glory that war is supposed to provide is questioned in its aftermath. The bloodlust and the fever-pitch cries of honor precedes war and then they calm down into searching questions about what those terms mean or into scathing parodies.

I am not entirely sure whether Farewell to Arms is a sober questioning of these virtues or a shambolic parody of them. It is never quite clear whether Hemingway is making fun of war or just expressing profound ennui. Especially when he combines Love with War, and both seem to get the same treatment, it becomes even harder to deduce whether Hemingway is ridiculing war and its virtues or life and its delusions in general and including love also into it. After all, the famous ending doesn’t leave us with much to pick up the pieces after.



The narrator tells the often ugly truth about war, without even trying to be anti-war in any way. By depicting daily life, he achieves it without an effort. It is the prosaicness of action, the utter lack of drama that becomes the most significant force in the narration - even his injury is incurred not in valorous combat but while he is eating spaghetti.

All this combines to show up war as a hideous game, but one entirely not worth the bother. There are so many subtle ways in which he trivializes war, always retaining the impression that it is not a conscious effort, as if he was not even telling us anything about the war, letting it remain in the background as a boring humm.
n  

“The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else's college.”

n
We are not even allowed particularly intelligent characters to liven up the drudgery of our reading, the novel is full of the Ordinary, the exceptional striking in its absence - and the readers are left disoriented, repeatedly trying to remind themselves that they are in the midst of the greatest and most destructive war humanity had yet known.

In the end, war is exposed as not only meaningless but boring. Usually war writers exploit the Pathos of war, Hemingway walks right inside, shows us around and escorts us out after having shown us the utter blandness of the ‘heroic’ exercise.



Even the “Love Story” is constructed out of the boring bits and of repeated bland conversations that seem almost never-ending and droll. Here Hemingway is probably playing us again: instead of the usual technique of showing the pleasant bucolic scenery of distant daily-life and contrasting that against gory war scenes and thus asking the reader to thirst for the war to end, Hemingway places both the personal and the public sphere next to each other, exposes both and yet somehow derides war through this. I am not yet sure how he does that, but my feelings wherever I encountered this tells me that he does it well.

Hemingway’s notorious fault is the monotony of repetition, and he has always been considered a better short story writer than novelist - the short form plays into his prowess for portraying ironies in short staccato beats. In A Farewell to Arms, he brings both his strengths and weakness as a storyteller and makes them both work for him masterfully. He converts the act of boring the reader into an art form and into an exercise in supreme irony. Very effective. Almost as effective as comedy, if you ask me.

While it is hard to interpret A Farewell to Arms as hopeful, to me it was so, though in a subtle way. It leaves us the hope that if only more soldiers could be like the Tenente and just walk away from all the boredom, even though only boredom awaits in normal life, things could be better.

To me the most striking impression of all, in a work filled with unforgettable impressions, was the sheer acceptance exhibited by the narrator: The hustle of the war, his own life, and the entire world even seems to move past the stoic Tenente who is left a mere spectator, but who never seems to question the events that unfold.

This captures the spirit of the war and also of the times.

یک. وقتی که در حال خواندن این کتاب بودم، احساسات متنقاصی به من دست می‌داد. گاهی حوصله‌ام را سر می‌برد و گاهی واقعا نمی‌شد کتاب را زمین گذاشت. راوی ماجرا مدام از جنگ و رنج‌هایش به رابطه‌ی عاشقانه و مشروب پناه می‌برد، این هجوم احساسات متناقص به خواننده ناشی از همین دوگانه‌ی آرامش عشق و جنون جنگ بود. دوگانه‌هایی پررنگ: دوستی و جنگ. واقعیت و خیال. آزادی و گرفتاری. و در آخر دوگانه‌ی اصلی: اراده‌ی معطوف به زندگی و هجوم مرگ.
دو. قصه‌ی کتاب به وضعیتی که امروز درگیرش هستیم بسیار نزدیک است. آشوب کرونا. بیرون از خانه آشوبی عظیم برپا است و گویی کاری هم از دست مردمان جهان برنمی‌آید. هر لحظه ممکن است مرگی ناگهانی به سراغت بیاید و امتداد تو را در جهان ناتمام بگذارد. از این آشوب، از این ناتوانی، همه به خلوت خزیده‌ایم و امیدواریم ماجرا به زودی پایان بگیرد. اما خیلی وقت‌ها ماجرا و آشوب دیگر برای ما تمام نمی‌شود. بچه‌ای مرده متولد می‌شود، عزیزی از دست می‌رود، عشقی ناکام می‌ماند و زخمی روی صورتت می‌نشیند که همیشه به یادگار باقی می‌ماند و شرایط دیگر برای تو، نه در خلوت و نه در خیابان عادی نمی‌شود. آشوب برای همیشه در وجودت حکم‌فرما می‌شود.
سه. جنگ و هر چیزی که زندگی آدم‌ها را در دوره‌ای تحت تاثیر قرار می‌دهد شاید به لحاظ تاریخی، در روزی شروع شود و در روزی دیگر متوقف شود. اما هیچ‌وقت تمام نمی‌شود. تا ابد در وجود آدم‌ها و رنج‌هایشان امتداد پیدا می‌کند. تمام.

At the beginning of this year I decided to try reading some of those books that we all should have read while we were still in school. I've never read anything by Hemingway and after reading this book I don't think I've missed much. This was supposed to be one of Hemingway's better books and it was dreadful. A good writer can use words like a painter uses a full palette and an array of sable brushes to create a picturesque scene. Hemingway uses a palette of thin primary colors and paints with his fingers. As for the romance between the two main characters, Frederic and Catherine, I could not see them as anything but a silly pair of adolescents on hormonal overload. The evolution of their relationship is illogical and baseless and the dialogues they exchanged were sophomoric. This book read like the fantasy of some teenage high school boy carrying a crush for some cheerleader and written with about as much insight and depth. I guess you could say I didn't like the book so I suppose that's why there is vanilla and chocolate. On to my next book.

I have so many thoughts but no idea how to put them into words…*weeps rainy tears*