ERNEST HEMINGWAY – A Farewell to Arms. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1929. Reprinted numerous times. From Wikipedia:”The novel has been adapted a number of times: initially for the stage in 1930; as a film in 1932, and again in 1957; and as a three-part television miniseries in 1966. The film In Love and War, made in 1996, depicts Hemingway’s life in Italy as an ambulance driver in events prior to his writing of A Farewell to Arms.”

   So after a particularly bad experience at the hands of Travis McGee, I needed to read something good. Something I knew that a lot of very important people, if such a group exists, universally hailed as being a good novel. And of course hardboiled in its prose. Since that’s what I’m into. Crisp, clean words, washing over me like a cold shower shocking me from my malaise.

   A foundational work of the hardboiled school, no less. On my (kill me if I ever say ‘bucket’) list.

   Yet I’ve started the book many many times, unable to make it much past the first paragraph:

   “In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.”

   To me, it reads exactly like the original version of In Our Time published by Ezra Pound in 1924: https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61085/pg61085-images.html

   In other words, to me, it sings. It sings a hardboiled poetry like an incantation. It seems strange to call something hardboiled lyrical. Yet there you have it.

   So for years I’ve read that first paragraph. And read it again. And read it again, trying to comprehend it. Trying make literal sense of it. Trying to get into the story from the beginning. But the phrases are too beautiful. I can’t stop enunciating the sounds of the words in the schoolhouse of my mind.

   And further, how could I go on? How can I keep going if I can’t make it past the first paragraph?

   So eventually I’d put it down, and move on to Travis McGee or something.

   But this time I just sat down and plowed right thru. I still couldn’t digest the first paragraph, but I figured my digestive system would catch up with me. Or maybe it would just stay as is, like an unmasticated kernel of corn in the ole proverbial chamber pot.

   And there is a linear, straightforward story. A doomed war story and a tragic romance.

   So it’s World War I and American Frederic Henry volunteered for the Italian army as a medic, rising to Lieutenant, and in charge of some ambulance drivers. He screws around with the local nurses and is generally having a pretty good time of it. He’s really likes this new British nurse Catherine. She’s quite attractive, and they play act at pretending this is some great romantic love story. You know. For shits and giggles.

   Suddenly Frederick is called to the front. He and the drivers huddle in a dugout, trying to score some soup.

   One of the drivers starts griping about the war: “If everybody would not attack the war would be over”.

   Our protagonist responds. “I believe we should get the war over. It would not finish it if one side stopped fighting. It would only be worse if we stopped fighting.”

   “It could not be worse….There is nothing worse than war.”

   “Defeat is worse.”

   “I do not believe it…What is defeat? You go home.”

      …….

   “I know it is bad but we must finish it.”

   “It doesn’t finish. There is no finish to war.”

   “Yes there is.”

   … “War is not won by victory…. One side must stop fighting. Why don’t we stop fighting?”

      …….

   The conversation is interrupted by a huge shell exploding near the dugout. Shrapnel flying everywhere.

   And now many of his drivers are dead. Including the pacifist.

   And Frederick Henry can’t walk. Something’s wrong with one of his legs.

   So he gets sent to the hospital. And he gets reunited with the Catherine, the British nurse. But now they’re not pretending any more. They really do desperately want to be with each other, to love each other, to savor, to protect.

   And then he heals up and goes back towards the front. And it’s bad. They’ve underestimated the Austrians and now the Germans are coming. And now all of the officers are calling for retreat. No. Wait. Don’t retreat. No….. Actually. Yes, on third thought. Retreat.

   So they start to retreat. But there’s only one road. And a huge line of infantry and trucks on the single road. No one is making progress. And pursuit is coming.

   So Frederick directs his charges through the woods. They get stuck and are forced to plod on by foot. All but two of his charges go awol and then one of the two gets shot.

   By the time he makes it close to a safe Italian town, Frederick sees a bunch of infantrymen set up. Stopping every officer. Asking where’s the rest of your regiment? Asking why did you order retreat? Then shooting them. A traitor to the motherland.

   Frederick manages a heroic escape, diving into a river, tearing off his officers uniform, going in search of his love.

   Frederick is done with war. All that’s left now is Catherine.

   And he finds her. And they almost make it.

         ____

   It’s heart rending. To rend, lest we forget, means ‘to tear a hole in, slash from top to bottom, separate in parts with force or sudden violence.’

   The book left me breathless at its magnitude as a work of art.