A review by arbaazk1999
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

3.0

This book gave me a rather unflinching portrayal of war from a fairly close point of view (since most of it is autobiographical) with some very interesting philosophical ideas and what it means for soldiers who go to war. The prose was direct and sometimes hard hitting (and funny at times as well) but something about the novel did not resonate with me as much as i would like. The old man and the sea felt much more direct and to the point than this book. I have no idea why but it took me longer than it should have to finish it. And there were places where it felt like it dragged a bit and the plot seemed either irrelevant or confusing (like how are they going from one scenerio to the next? Did i just blink and miss something in between?). This might not be an issue with the book but perhaps my own attention span or my own reading of the novel. I might need to reread this some day in the future to understand it better. As of right now, i feel like i liked it but just not as much as i would have liked. It just didn't make me feel emersed as i wanted it to be.