Why I Liked the Book

     Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is a true American masterpiece.  Hemingway's writing is detailed, intricate, structured, and evocative of one of the more depressing eras in U.S. history.  Everything about the novel is well-organized and perfectly set up for ironic and juxtaposing aspects, which work very well in this story by the way.
     The first thing I liked about the novel was the flow of the narration.  Despite being (technically)grammatically iffy, the run-on sentences filled with "and" and lacking any sort of punctuation made for an extremely detailed (albeit a bit clustered) picture of the current scene.  For example, on pages 5 and 6 Frederic Henry (the narrator) is describing the town his men have set camp at (the "front").  While intricately detailed, the whole description lacks a lot of punctuation aside from commas and semi-colons.  Almost no periods pervade the mass of text.  The other half of this is the short, punchy sentences that follow.  After that long description on those two pages (which lasts essentially one sentence), the very next sentence is simply "The war was changed too" (6). 
     This pattern occurs frequently throughout the story: long, run-on sentence followed by a short and choppy phrase.  Hemingway has actually created a writing foundation that directly reflects the juxtaposition of love and death presented in the story.  Just as he juxtaposes war and love, so these two sentence structures juxtapose one another.
     Another thing that I enjoy about the book is the subtleties of Hemingway's writing.  It's almost rather comical to me.  For example, just before Frederic suffers his serious wound (even while the group is being bombarded by mortars), he is wining and dining with his fellow comrades.  After the fact, rather than begging for medical attention, Frederic essentially says "I'm fine" despite having a possible fracture in his skull... "fine" indeed.  I suppose that may speak to Frederic's character more than a comedic aspect, but for some reason I saw humor in that.
     The development of Frederic and Catherine Barkley's love is also classic.  As with any budding couple, it is initially a seductive game.  While this spurs Frederic into action, it initially inhibits Barkley's desire to advance the relationship beyond that point.  Of course, this partially being a love story, there is nothing that Catherine Barkley can really do.  She eventually succumbs to the whims of the writer and ends up being a "perfect wife" for Frederic, like a fairy-tale ending.  Oh yeah, except she dies of hemorrhaging at the end of the novel... so much for that.  That being said, Hemingway is a master at ironic elements and setting readers up for a wrong turn, which is one of the reasons why I liked this novel.