Reading Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms

In this comprehensive guide, Lewis and Roos reveal how A Farewell to Arms represents a complex alchemy of Hemingways personal experience as a Red Cross ambulance driver in 1918, his extensive historical research of a time period and terrain with which he was personally unfamiliar, and the impact of his vast reading in the great works of 19th-century fiction. Ultimately, Lewis and Roos assert, Hemingways great novel is not simply a story of love and war, as most have concluded, but an intricate novel of ideas exploring the clash of reason and faith and deep questions of epistemology. The commentary also delves deeply into the roots of controversy surrounding the novels treatment of gender issues through the characters of Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley. Catherine, they argue, is far more than an object of love; she is a real feminist heroine who is responsible for Frederics maturation in developing a capacity for true love. Written in clear and accessible prose that will appeal to scholars and Hemingway neophytes alike, Reading Hemingways A Farewell to Arms is the most sweeping guide yet available to Hemingways finest novel, and contributes to a richer understanding of the writers entire body of work.