March 23rd, 2024
The book starts off in a weird way that’s a bit off-putting. The location is described by an unknown narrator in long, boring run-on sentences. We learn very slowly about the location, situation, and narrator. I read almost 30 pages and I don’t think we even know the narrators real name. What we learn is that the narrator, American Mr. Henry, was in Italy when they joined the war (WWI) and volunteered as ambulance driver. They are up in the northern mountains fighting Austrians, but there doesn’t seem to be much action here yet. The village they stay in has not been evacuated. We know the winter is ending and it is after the Somme, so it must be 1917. Henry’s roommate, an Italian doctor named Rinaldi, introduces him to a nurse at the British hospital named Catherine Barkley. They hit it off well, so Rinaldi relinquishes his claim to the nurse. Catherine’s fiance died in the Somme. Henry is clearly just trying to bang her, and she seems to know it, but they get off to some strange romance after a few days of knowing each other. Things move fast with so much death, but their relationship is just odd. Maybe it will turn into something of a traditional love. The Italian offensive is thought to be starting soon. They have crossed the river and are building a road.
March 24th, 2024
The Book 1 section continues with Henry visiting the front. He then comes back and wants to see Catherine, but gets drunk with his the officers instead and misses her. He comes by the next day to tell her he’ll be at the front for a few days and she gives him a Saint Anthony medal or statue. Henry and four drivers go to the front and wait in a dugout. The Italians discuss war as a concept and whether it is more disastrous to fight or to surrender. Henry goes to the major to get some food for the guys and is informed the attack moved up in time. A bombardment begins and the Austrians start shelling the Italians. Henry runs back to the dugout with some food and they talk and eat. A large trench buster hits them and destroys the dugout. Henry wakes up and can’t move. His legs are damaged and probably partially buried. He wakes up to hear one of the drivers dying nearby. Soon two of the others pull Henry out. They are okay for the most part, and the third has a wounded shoulder. Henry has a quick operation and some British ambulance drivers manage to get him out and to the hospital. Here he is visited by Rinaldo and later Rinaldo and the captain. The Americans have declared war on Germany, so there will be an American hospital built in Milan. Henry will be transferred there. They need room at this hospital for the upcoming battle. The good news is that Catherine is being moved away from the front to Milan also. The priest visits Henry as well. Book 1 ends with Henry’s trip to Milan.
March 28th, 2024
Frederic Henry (we finally learn his name, though he’d been called Federico) arrives at the hospital in Milan, but they weren’t expecting any patients. There’s no doctors and limited nurses, so he makes is lugged painfully to an empty room. He and the one nurse become friendly, but he does not make a good impression on the head nurse. Catherine is not there, but arrives a few days later. Fred suddenly falls in love with her. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. They seem truly in love and call each other husband and wife. She does night nursing so she can be by his side the whole time (banging). There are few other patients. Henry does not trust the doctors there because they come as a pack, signifying a lack of confidence, and because the surgeon is only a captain. The surgeon wants to wait six months. Fred requests a second opinion from the Italian hospital and the surgeon, a major, says he can operate right away. He does and eventually Fred can walk on crutches and then a cane. There’s lots of love between Fred and Catherine and they’re totally co-dependent. She reveals she’s afraid of rain because she sees their deaths in it. Odd.
April 6th, 2024
The second half of book 2 does not have much going on, though there is a big reveal. Fred and Catherine continue their relationship and Fred continues to improve. They spend a day at the horse races and lose money. One night Catherine tells Fred that she is 3 months pregnant, but neither of them seem too worried about it. I guess they don’t know who will still be living in a month, what countries will or will not exist, etc. Very hard to plan a life at a time like that. It seems neither of them cares to go their own home. Fred comes down with jaundice and does not get the convalescent leave he was planning on. The head nurse Van Campen, who hates him, finds the booze bottles and is thrilled. She revokes his leave and makes sure he returns to the front once he is cured. The section ends with Fred and Catherine spending their last night together in Milan. They do some shopping, he buys a pistol for him and a nightgown for her, then go to a hotel where they have dinner in their room and who knows what else. Then they get a cab in the rain and he goes to the train station. There is no dramatic goodbye, and Catherine rides off to the hospital while Fred rides the crowded train. It is fall, so the fighting season should be ending.
April 7th, 2024
Fred arrives back in his old town and reports to the major. Tomorrow he’ll go to the front and take over the ambulance group. Tonight, he rests and lays down in his old room, waiting for Rinaldi. The old friends greet each other and Rinaldi gets a little drunk, though Fred can’t drink much because of the jaundice. They go to the dining hall and it is quiet. It’s the 3 of them and then the priest arrives late. Rinaldi tries to bust the priest’s balls but there’s no one to join in and he gets frustrated. He’s very stressed from all the surgeries he has to do, plus he thinks he has syphilis. Fred and the priest talk in Fred’s room for a bit, but then Fred must sleep. On the front there is constant talk of attacks, though the season is rainy and the river is high. No one believes there will be an attack. But that night, the Croats attack their section and are repulsed. Up north, however, the empire breaks through. The line is turned and must retreat. Henry with his 3 ambulances must evacuate supplies from the hospital. They rest in town one last time and then are stuck in a long queue for retreat. It is a crawl that stops constantly. There are cars and trucks, horses and carts, civilians and soldiers. One ambulance picks up two lost sergeants, while another picks up two teen girls whose dialect nobody can really understand. Fred decides to take side roads. He is afraid that they will be sitting ducks for planes once the rain stops. It turns out to be not such a great idea as they get stuck and lose an ambulance in the mud. The sergeants start to leave and Fred tells them to help push the car. They refuse and Fred orders them to do it, as he is a lieutenant and they are sergeants. They still walk away and Fred fires his pistol at them, hitting one. The one driver takes the pistol to finish the job. They lose two more ambulances and have to walk to Udine.The shooting of the sergeant really bothers me, and it probably is meant to. However, it’s an extremely nonchalant event in the book. I doubt it will ever get brought up again. Has Fred killed before? These guys have no problem killing an Italian. It doesn’t seem like something a real soldier would do. Did Hemingway see or hear about events like this? I want to read about it but I don’t want to spoil anything.
April 8th, 2024
The men continue on foot. Rumor had it that the enemy who broke the line were Germans, and here Fred sees a car of Germans. They try to cross a railroad bridge and see more Germans on the main bridge, left intact by the Italians. The Germans probably see them but pay the four men no mind. It is when they are marching and close to Italian territory that disaster strikes. One the men is shot from across the river, certainly by an Italian, and dies. The Italians are shooting anything that moves. The men recoup and go to a barn to wait for dark. The two remaining Italians go out to find food, but only one returns. The other, who killed the sergeant, went over to the enemy to surrender. He was sure of their death. The other two eat and sleep, and when dark comes they have an uneventful walk to the surrendering column. When the other calls Fred “lieutenant”, soldiers freak out. There is a mutiny against officers, some have been shot. They speed away and the column comes to a bridge. Here there are men with flashlights. They are waving any officer to the side. There is a tribunal and each officer is sentenced to death. Very dark stuff. Fred tries to fight them but is outnumbered. While he waits his turn, he sees the guards are distracted and runs for the river. He avoids getting shot and lets the river take him. He clings to some wood and floats far away, later risking drowning by swimming ashore. He cuts off the stars of his uniform and considers his service terminated. Now all he wants to do is survive. He finds a train and hops on, hiding under some canvas with the guns. The book three ends how it started, on a train, but in very different circumstances.
April 13th, 2024
The fourth book is not as tense as the third, but there is a sort of thriller-type tension. Fred gets off the train at Milan. He goes to the hospital but the porter tells him Catherine and Ferguson are away north on the lakes. He goes to a cafe and the owner can tell he is a runaway and offers some help. Fred goes to a friend’s for civilian clothes. He boards a train to the town Catherine is at, which he has visited before on leave. It is November and the town is mostly abandoned for the season. He knows the bartender and they’ve been fishing together before. This guy has a lot of friends. He finds Catherine and Ferguson rips into him for knocking her up. Anyway, the plan is to make it to Switzerland eventually. He has an American passport and Catherine a British passport, so no problem. However, the police recognize him from his earlier trip and know he’s a runaway. The bartender tells Fred in the middle of the night that he must leave now or he will be arrested in the morning. He gives him his fishing boat to row down the lake to Switzerland, though the water is rough from a storm. It is not easy and some 20 miles of rowing, but they get to the Swiss side by morning. They go ashore, have breakfast, and return to their boat to find a Swiss soldier. He arrests them and they make up a story about being cousins on vacation looking for winter sport. Once the Swiss see their passports and find out they have plenty of money, they become very cordial and accommodating. They need to report their whereabouts at all times, but they’re free to travel the country.
April 14th, 2024
The last book is a bummer. Everything is lovely in Switzerland and they spend the winter in some little town as boarders in little mountain house. Fred and Catherine are a cute couple. March arrives and Catherine will soon have the baby. Once the rains clear up and the roads can be traveled, they head to the big town where the hospital is. They live in a hotel and one night the baby starts to come. They go to the hospital and everything seems to be going normal. Then every family man’s worst nightmare happens. Hours pass and the labor does not progress. The doctor says they must use forceps or do a cesarean. They choose the later and Catherine goes into surgery. It goes badly. The baby had the cord around his neck and is stillborn. Fred can accept this as long as Catherine lives. But she hemorrhages and starts to die. Fred and Catherine have one last moment together. The book ends with her death and Fred going out into the rain. I didn’t think it would be such a depressing ending. Good book, but Hemingway's others are better. The Sun Also Rises is a better romance, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a better war novel. But it’s good. They also never addressed the murder of the sergeant, and not a lot of people seem to discuss it online. It seems completely out of character. It is a black spot on the story.
A comment about the book I read. It was a “good” copy from Thriftbooks, which can have some highlighting. This book was completely highlighted and had a shit ton of notes from some teenage girl. And the notes were terrible. That girl is such a bitch. I never knew I could hate someone so much from their notes. Anyway, I ripped out the pages and recycled them. No one will ever read that brat’s notes again.