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Essay Archive - A Farewell to Arms: Style
A Farewell to Arms: Style
Critics usually describe Hemingway's style as simple, spare, and journalistic.
These are all good words; they all apply. Perhaps because of his training as a
newspaperman, Hemingway is a master of the declarative, subject-verb-object
sentence. His writing has been likened to a boxer's punches--combinations of
lefts and rights coming at us without pause. Take the following passage:
We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to
realize they were cooked would win the war. We had another drink. Was I on
somebody's staff? No. He was. It was all balls.
The style gains....
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