Hemingways A Farewell to Arms Receives Positive Criticism Essay

Hemingways A good-by to blazon Receives Positive Criticism Published in 1929, Ernest Hemingway finished A Farewell to Arms when he was barely 30 years old. Hemingway had been planning on writing about World War I for more than a decade, and chose A Farewell to Arms to be his attempt at a blockbuster, a novel which would sell very well.1 This view is supported by the fact that one of Hemingways original works, presumably loss in the trouncing of Hadleys luggage, was also a war novel, emphasizing Hemingways firm belief in the importance of war and love as a theme. By this time, of course, Hemingway was already fairly well known, having already published four short fable collections and one successful novel in The Sun Also Rises. In this sense, Hemingways timing in his quest for a big seller was perfect. fortuitously for Hemingway the book did sell, and although he was already close to being a bestseller at the time of A Farewell to Arms publishing, the novel went on to expir e best-seller lists after only a few weeks in publication. In product line to the lack of money-making power of Fitzgeralds novels, A Farewell to Arms sold 45,000 copies in only seven weeks in fact, the interest in the book was so high Scribners had to renegotiate Hemingways contract following the unexpectedly large gross revenue statistics.2Although at this time declaring the novel a popular success roughly worked against its being recognized as a good literary work, the sign reception for A Farewell to Arms was nonetheless strong. Especially move were the people Hemingway cared about the most his fellow famous writers. Ford Madox Ford, in an introduction he wrote for a 1932 publication of the novel, wrote of Hemingway The aim - the achieveme... ...positive reception from his peers. Although in later years Hemingway turns on many of these fellow writers who praised him so lavishly, (see responding to Fitzgeralds 10 pages of criticism with kiss my ass) their critical acclai m helped launch him to writer superstardom.1 Linda Wagner-Martin. Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms A Reference Guide. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT (2003), p. viii.2 Ibid., p. i-viii.3 Ford Madox Ford in Introduction to Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms (1932) p. 246, from Wagner-Martin Reference Guide.4 www.allhemingway.com/afta/46585 Ibid.6 Ray B. West (1949) in Harold Bloom. Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms youthful Critical Interpretations. Chelsea House Publishers, New York, 1987. p. 36.7 Charles R. Anderson (1961) from Ibid., p. 46.8 www.allhemingway.com/afta/46589 Wagner-Martin, p. 175-180.