A Farewell to Arms is set in Italy during World War I. It has a semi-autobiographical character as it draws from Hemingway’s personal wartime experience. The protagonist, Frederic Henry, is an American who volunteered to be an ambulance driver in the Italian army. He is introduced to the nurse Catherine Barkley, and we follow along as their acquaintance turns into a romantic relationship. The tale thrusts the protagonist in deadly and gripping situations. Just to give a few examples: Frederic Henry is badly wounded by a trench mortar shell at the front, he escapes certain execution by jumping into a river in the dead of winter and later on rows across a lake to seek asylum in Switzerland. Albeit the story is set in WWI, very little of the actual battles is narrated, for which I was very grateful. The reader is spared pages upon pages of troop movements and strategy elaborations. The relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley is quite bizarre. For me personally, Catherine Barkley is a rather unrelatable person. It is quite disconcerting how she is giving away too much of herself and agrees to everything Henry says, despite not agreeing with it. She goes above and beyond to mould herself into the person she thinks her boyfriend wants her to be. It is an utter act of desperation and shows that she is terrified of being left by Henry. Catherine is not the only female character in the book who is depicted in a most sexist way by Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms deals with a number of important and, quite frankly, still relevant topics, such as the futility of war, life and death and tragedy that can strike at any time. Unfortunately, the author does not succeed in conveying these notions in an effective way. The most notable reason for this is the linguistic style Hemingway uses in his work. Short and unblemished sentences devoid of any descriptions and adjectives seem to be the trademark of this novel. Some might describe this writing style as succinct, being a significant characteristic of the modernist era, but it made reading the story strenuous. Imagine having to read the above-mentioned action-packed situations in a style that is strictly matter-of-fact, and instead of feeling any rise of adrenaline, you are rendered numb. A Farewell to Arms was the first Hemingway novel I read, and I am afraid it will remain the last.