A Farewell to Arms

When Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms in 1929, it was a contemporary novel, but today it's a period piece. The novel depicts an ambulance driver's personal view of the Italian Campaign of World War I, and readers get a window into Italian rural life, the dangers faced by wartime medical personnel and civilians, and gender roles during the 1920s.

There are plenty of decent people in Hemingway's novel: Narrator Frederic Henry is a loyal, level-headed antihero; Catherine Barkley is brave in a stiff-upper-lip way; and most of the other medical personnel and civilians that Henry encounters are generous. However, Henry and many of his friends drink heavily and engage in casual sex; they're not necessarily teen role model material.

Sex is more suggested than graphic in Hemingway's novel. This is in part because the original version of the book--which included more explicit sexual activity and language--was edited in an effort to satisfy censors of the day. However, characters do visit brothels (referred to as "bawdy houses"), and there's some passionate kissing between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barclay. Henry describes a fantasy, as well, about being naked with Catherine in a hotel. Though their lovemaking is not clearly described, readers are told that Catherine joins Henry in his hospital bed.

Lots of wine and alcohol varieties mentioned in the novel, but no mentions brand names.