Episode 35: Escaping War for Love in Ernest Hemingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Send us Fan MailErnest Hemingway's 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms is probably the most famous war novel in American literary history. Inspired by his own wounding on the Italian front shortly before his nineteenth birthday, Hemingway tells the story of a disillusioned American serving in a foreign army, Frederic Henry, who falls in love with a Red Cross nurse, Catherine Barkley, shortly before the disastrous rout the Italians suffered at Caporetto in late 1917, which Frederic barely survives. In an epic tale that explores the tragedy of love amid combat, Hemingway offers a brutally naturalistic portrait of the Great War that somehow manages to be stylistically beautiful. In this episode we explore the biographical background of the plot, the Italian history that Hemingway managed to cull from his studies (the novel takes place before his own time in Italy), and the question of whether love and war hasn't become one of the hoarier cliches in the literature of soldiers in battle.     Canon Fodder discussions include: Three Soldiers, John Dos Passos; The Enormous Room, ee cummings; and (crossing our streams to a European novel), All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque.  All opinions are the hosts' own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants. All show music is by Lobo Loco.  The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.”  For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.