I just finished reading Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms. I read it because I watched Midnight in Paris and I loved Hemingway.
I know.
Lame.
I always had him pinned up with the great writers who wrote stuff that was hard to read and hard to understand and too smart. I read it because I want to be smarter. More well-rounded. It wasn’t hard to read. It wasn’t hard to understand. Apparently all this time I’ve had him wrong. I loved him in the movie and the writers of Midnight in Paris got him exactly right. I felt as if I already knew him when I read the book. He talked exactly the same. I love his train of thought and his style of writing. Brilliant. And the book was fun. Light. Funny. But deep and sad at the same time. A wartime romance and story about friendship, love, death, pain, cowards, and in the background, an American fighting the war with the Italian army.

I don’t feel smarter, but I enjoyed the book and I have now enjoyed a Hemingway novel. Up next, short stories and essays by J.R.R. Tolkien!