The scenes on the Italian plains hold more atmospheric truth than those of the mountain roads, but all are admirably wrought. Thence in mufti he gets to Stiesa and meets Catherine, and the lovers escape to Switzerland by a long night row up the lake. The American hero escapes death by diving into the river and, later, arrest by concealing himself in a gun truck till it reaches Milan.

The last 50 pages of book three describe the Italian army in retreat, the block of transport on the main roads, the bogging and abandonment of Henry's cars on a side road, the Italian privates' behaviour and their hatred of the war, and finally the shooting of the elderly officers in retreat by the Italian battle police at the Tagliamento - these pages are masterly. The year has been a serious one for the Italian army, and the breakthrough of the Germans at Caporetto brings disaster. And the story deepens in force when Henry, patched up, returns to the Isonzo front. In the scenes in the Milan hospital, where love laughs at matrons and maids, the author increases his hold over us. Catherine (who might be a younger sister of the heroine of Fiesta) is most skilfully modelled as the eternal feminine in nursing dress. Henry, whose good relations with the Italian officers in his mess are drawn with delightful freshness, is wounded, with a smashed knee in a night assault near Plava, and is sent down from the field hospital to the American hospital at Milan, where he is the first case, and here Miss Barkley gets a transfer to nurse him.Īll the descriptions of life at the front and in the hospitals, the talk of the officers, privates, and doctors, are crisply natural and make a convincing narrative, though the hero is perhaps already a little too mature and experienced.

First edition a farewell to arms