Final Week: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Read-a-Long

Welcome to the final week of the Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long.   If you missed week 1 , week 2, and week 3 check them out.

For this week, we read chapters 31-end.  Here are this week’s questions, feel free to join the discussion.  Watch out for spoilers.

1.  In Chapter 31, as Henry is swept down the river, he refers to a “we”.  Who do you think this “we” is?

S:  At first glance, I felt like he was anthropomorphizing the log, which may be the case.  But I kept reading the “we” and wondered if there were not two of himself floating on that river — the dedicated, courageous stoic engaged in the fighting and his duty and the man who was becoming disillusioned and heartbroken about what the war had become and had taken from him.

A: I didn’t give that much thought to be honest, but it’s an interesting question. I must say that I like your answer.

2.  After Henry’s escape into the river, he talks about not having any obligation to the war effort on either side, though he wishes both sides luck.  Do you think he is no longer brave/courageous or is it something else?  Explain.

S:  I think after being targeted simply for being an officer once the lines of defense are broken and for being an American, Henry has a new perspective on his comrades in arms.  There is a greater sense of “otherness” in Henry’s statements.  I wouldn’t say that he is any less brave or courageous, but I would definitely say that he’s fed up with war and all that it entails.

A: I was going to say the same thing, that he’s just fed up. He even says something about it not being his show anymore, which could mean that he’s done with the entire war or that as an American in the Italian army, he’s realized that it’s not his fight. I do think that running away from the police and jumping in the river while being shot at was pretty courageous, especially when you consider that none of the other officers followed him.

3.  In this last section, it seems that some humor comes into play between Henry and Catherine.  Did this impact your feelings about the characters and/or their relationship?

S:  I think it was good to see Catherine and Henry away from the immediate effects of the war and the front.  While I, overall, do not like Catherine’s subservience to Henry emotionally and psychologically, I did see a side to them that was tender and playful.  I chuckled a bit when she threw the pillow at him after he mentioned that he had a baby at the recovery hospital after she said that she knew little about babies because very few of the soldiers had them.  I also saw a tenderness between them as they rowed across the lake to Switzerland, which was good to see after thinking that their relationship was based on mutual comfort in war time.  Of course, the final scene in the book tells all about Henry’s love for Catherine.

A: I liked the part where he’s all tired and sore from rowing, and she’s laughing at him because the umbrella he uses as a sail turns inside out. And her having him grow a beard and him watching her get her hair done, that was pretty intimate in the long-term-relationship kind of way. Although I found the chapters when they were in Switzerland kind of boring, I did like two of them a little bit more because they were away from the war and settling into a more comfortable relationship.

4.  What did you think of the ending? Did you think it was too abrupt?

S:  The ending for me was not too abrupt so much as I wanted it to have ended when he was in the room with Catherine’s dead body.  I wasn’t too crazy about the ending, but I can see that Hemingway was going for total desolation here, though he could have achieved it more easily with an ending that came sooner.  I don’t think the conversation with the doctor was necessary.

A: I agree that the conversation with the doctor was unnecessary, and I really wanted to know what happened next. Where did he go? Did he make it through the rest of the war without being arrested?

5.  What did you think of Catherine’s death and Henry’s reaction to losing her?

S:  I knew her death was on the horizon, but that could be because Hemingway is not a happy writer, at least not in my experience.  When the doctor said he could do the Caesarian, I knew that was the end for her.  I think I was more dumbfounded by his reaction to her death than anything, but he’s definitely a broken man by this point and probably can’t muster much else in response.  What bothered me more than anything was his reaction to the baby; he “had not feeling of fatherhood!”  And there was such a disregard on his part for finding out what was going on with the baby!  If that’s not telling about his character and his relationship, I don’t know what is!  Yes, he’s devastated and overwhelmed, but this is your child for god-sake!

A: I wasn’t surprised at his reaction to the baby. Maybe he was in shock and still needed to process his son’s death, and at the same time, he has this feeling that Catherine is going to die, and those thoughts consume him. However, they didn’t seem to think too much about the baby during the previous months, even waiting until the last minute to buy baby clothes and other supplies.

I thought it was interesting how the book ended with Henry so lost without Catherine because it reminded me of all the times that she indicated that she was lost without him. I know I didn’t buy their being in love at the beginning, but by the end, I was more convinced of it. I’m still not sure whether it would have lasted, but that ended up being a non-issue with her death. I figured she was going to die, and even though she’s a fictional character, it did make me feel a little guilty for being so annoyed with her throughout the book. She may have been a weak, nagging woman, but she didn’t deserve to die like that.

6.  What are your overall impressions of A Farewell to Arms?

S:  Hemingway’s writing style here worked for me best when Henry was at the front, escaping his enemies, or fleeing Italy for Switzerland with Catherine.  The short, declarative sentences increased the tension of those moments for me.  Where the style didn’t work for me is in Henry’s exchanges with Catherine, which just seemed like staged conversation or even ridiculous.  Moreover, there was a distance between the reader and the narrator, Henry, who seemed to be telling his tail in the first person, but from somewhere in the future and looking back.

There are a great many losses piling up throughout the novel and these really crush Henry in the end where he wonders what is left to do.  Without the war effort, his friends, his escape, and Catherine, what is left for him but to merely survive.  It makes me wonder if he is strong enough in spirit and faith to find a new dream and to live life fully in the aftermath.  Although he seems brave and courageous, is that enough to see him through this tragedy?

This book was just an OK read for me; having read other books of his, I don’t think this was his best.

A: I don’t think I’ll be running out and buying other Hemingway novels, that’s for sure. I didn’t prefer his writing style, but there were times that it worked, like when Henry goes back to the front. I thought the book started out slow and boring, then picked up when he goes back to the front and escapes, but once they make it to Switzerland, it was really boring again, until the very end.

Please post your thoughts (and any questions you might have) in the comments below, or feel free to link to a post you’ve written on your blog.  Thanks for participating!

Also, please let us know if you post a full review, and we’ll be happy to feature it on the main page.

Week 3: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Read-a-Long

Welcome to week 3 of the Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long.   If you missed week 1 and week 2, check them out. 

Please post your thoughts (and any questions you might have) in the comments below, or feel free to link to a post you’ve written on your blog.  Thanks for participating!

Beware that these discussions could contain spoilers.

1.  “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one” is a statement made by Henry, and he and Catherine enter into a discourse about bravery.  Do you think either character is brave and do you think Catherine is right when she says the brave die more deaths but just don’t talk about it? Explain.

S:  I don’t think either character is particularly brave, though I suppose there has to be a bit of courage in both of them given the circumstances, with Henry volunteering for the Italian army as an ambulance driver and Catherine being brave enough to disclose her pregnancy to a man that she isn’t married to and hasn’t really made a commitment to her.

As for the brave facing more deaths, that may be true in war and most of the time they brave ones likely do not talk about it.  Do they really have the luxury of talking about it if they are consistently throwing themselves in harm’s way to save the innocent or in times of war their fellow officers and soldiers?  I think not.

A:  Maybe the brave not talking about the times they’ve faced death keeps them from breaking down.  They can’t think about it because if they do, they’d become fearful and more likely to do something careless and die.  I remember a discussion along those lines in the Stephen Ambrose book, Band of Brothers.

I think they are both at least trying to be brave, with Catherine saying she’ll figure out the best place to have the baby knowing that Henry probably won’t be with her and she likely will be shunned by some of the nurses.  There is so little emotion or inner turmoil on Henry’s part, but he seems to calmly make arrangements to get back to the front, which might be construed as bravery.

2. What do you think about Henry’s reaction to Catherine’s pregnancy announcement?

S:  He doesn’t really have time to react at all; she’s too busy talking over him and telling him not to worry.  He has little time to just agree with whatever she’s talking about, and that seems to be how they relate to one another.  The short responses from Henry tell me a great deal about the shock he’s feeling and his possible mixed emotions about his relationship with her and how careless they have been.  They aren’t even married and it never really crosses their minds to change that situation, even for the sake of the child.

A:  Catherine tells him and goes on about him not worrying and whether it’s all right, and all Henry gives are short responses.  “Of course.”  “I’m not worried.”  I would have loved to know what was going on in his mind, which really is the benefit of the first-person POV, but you get none of that here.  Here he is with a woman he says he loves but probably doesn’t truly love getting ready to go back to war, and she still thinks of them as married but they’re not, and he just learns he’s going to be a father.  Maybe the short responses are very telling, but it’s difficult to know that for sure given the distance between the reader and the narrator from the very beginning.

3.  Why do you think Catherine suddenly feels like a whore rather than Henry’s wife?  What does that say about her character?

S:  She only seems to think of herself as a whore once they enter the hotel room on the day before he leaves for the front once again.  It seems as though she’s been just going along with their affair with little thought beyond the pleasure and comfort it provides her, but now that she’s in a room with deep red drapery and satin sheets, she realizes that she’s been sleeping with this man out of wedlock.  Still, she has no desire to go into the cathedral and remedy the situation before that, and part of me wonders if that’s her denial or fear of what will happen if she were to suggest it, especially now that she is pregnant.

As for her character, it’s pretty telling already what kind of woman she is.  She has no identity without him, she doesn’t plan anything ahead of time, and sort of goes with the flow to the point of the ridiculous.  She is such a weak character.

A: I suppose I would feel like a whore, too, if I were to go to a hotel with a man I don’t know all that well and am not married to just to have sex in the few hours he has left before going back to war.  And when he leaves, she’s going to be alone, with no husband, no boyfriend, most likely no job, and a baby to take care of.  I guess that put it all into perspective for her.  And don’t forget stopping on the way to buy a nightgown.

4.  When Henry is debating the feeling of defeat with the priest and the possible end to the war, Henry says, “‘They were beaten to start with.  They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army.  That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start.’”  How is this statement true or not true?

S:  In many ways when farmers and peasants are “conscripted” into the military during these kinds of wars, they are taken from their homes without warning and leave their families to fend for themselves, which in many cases they are unable to do.  Many of these families are in poverty to start with and often see the military as a way out or to earn money, but the problem is that most die or never see any money from their military actions.  While the priest believes that the soldiers are seeing the war for what it is because of the things they have seen, Henry disagrees and says that these soldiers were already beaten before they came to the war.

A:  The peasant who doesn’t join up voluntarily has a pretty good idea of what’s ahead of him.  They’ve just been pulled away from their homes, their families, and their livelihoods, which is difficult in itself, to go off and fight a battle they don’t necessarily want to fight.  They are not the officers that plow ahead and follow orders and keep focused on the goal.  They know what it’s like to be down, and they know already that war isn’t going to make anything better for them.

5. What do you think about the way Hemingway describes the front?

S:  I really enjoyed this section of the book most.  The short sentences provide the right amount of tension for the movements and the hiding from the Germans who unexpectedly show up.  If I had to pick, this would be my favorite part of the book.  He gets right down to the nitty gritty.

A:  Like the rest of the description in the book, it is bland and without emotion.  Even though my mind kept wandering throughout his rambling descriptions, I think his writing style actually works here because the front is dark, desolate, and depressing.  There is no romance in war, and there is no romance in Hemingway’s prose.

6. What do you think about the shift in the story from Henry’s therapy and his relationship with Catherine to the front and the retreat?

S:  I was so glad to be rid of Catherine.  I can’t stand her constant “smoothing” over every situation and every “argument” they have.  The front and the retreat are the best parts of the book for me because this is where Hemingway shines best.  Henry’s not in control of the situation and there seems to be a little fear that he may not make it through the interrogation of the officers and the shootings.  But in true Henry fashion, he takes control again and escapes.

A: I was glad to get away from Catherine and her nagging and blabbering.  The very last chapter of this section, with the retreat, the shooting of the sergeant, spotting the Germans, and Henry being singled out with the other officers for questioning and execution by the carabinieri, was the best part of the book so far.  There was some action, some tension; Henry wasn’t in control of the situation for once.  We’re still distanced from Henry’s inner thoughts, but Hemingway lets us in just a bit when Henry has to choose between waiting for his turn to be shot or making a run for it.  If only more of the book had been that exciting!

Next week, we’ll be reading Chapters 31-41 (aka the end).  We’ll post final discussion questions on Friday, June 29.

Week 2: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Read-a-Long

Welcome to week two of the Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long. 

For this week, we read chapters 11-20.  Here are this week’s questions, feel free to join the discussion.

1. There is a lot of talk about being tired or the priest looking tired in this section.  What do you think Hemingway is trying to get at?

S:  In many ways, these scenes in which the narrator talks about people being tired or looking tired, I think it’s Hemingway’s way of demonstrating that war takes its toll on everyone, including priests and soldiers.  In a way, it demonstrates how just being a witness to war can take its toll.  However, I wonder if Hemingway could have done more to describe the characters as being tired, rather than having the narrator tell readers that he looked or was tired.  I wanted to see the bags under the eyes and the drawn faces and pale complexions from lack of sleep.

A: That’s about the most descriptive Hemingway gets, to simply say he seemed and sounded tired. So far, aside from the scene in which Henry is wounded, it feels like it’s a book about the war without being a book about the war. The war is always there, in talk of the front, in the priest being tired, in Henry being wounded, but it’s like it’s in the background, which I think is tied to the distance Hemingway puts between readers and his characters.

2.  The relationship between Henry and Catherine is heating up.  At one point she talks about how there is no separate her and that she is Henry.  Please explain what you think she means.

S:  I wonder if this relationship truly is a love match.  I think that they are overly dramatic about their feelings for one another and remind me of young teenagers in love who are obsessive about their feelings and proximity to one another — much of which is related to high hormone levels and immaturity of emotion.  It is unclear how old Henry is, but he would have to be a young man given his reactions to the world around him and his seemingly carefree attitude about his injuries and the obsessive nature of his “love” for Catherine.  I think Catherine finds an escape from the war in Henry, and she quite easily loses herself in their relationship because its the brightest spot in the ordeal for her.

A: I think they love each other in the sense that they comfort one another in the midst of war. I’m still not convinced that it’s really love. I would love to know if Catherine seemed so crazy in her life before the war. The way she talks and goes on about whether he really loves her and if she’s doing everything he wants her to do, etc., is a bit much. If it weren’t for the war, I wonder how quickly Henry would tire of her. Maybe because of her recent loss, she’s desperate for some love and happiness. You can see that desperation in her unwillingness to get married because she doesn’t want to be parted from Henry and she’s already lost someone she’d been waiting to marry.

3.  What are your impressions of Henry so far given his reaction to the war, being wounded, falling in love, and his relationships to others?

S:  I still feel distant from Henry, like I know very little about him given that he does not tell us his age at the time of the war and that the POV seems to be from an older Henry sometime in the future and reflecting back.  This construct makes readers distant from Henry the character and the narrator, which makes me wonder what he’s hiding about his past.  I did find it odd that he seems to be the only one able to take charge of the situation at the recovery hospital that is ill-prepared for his arrival and that he calmly adapts to the situation and the pain in his legs before, during and after surgery.  However, part of that may be his use of alcohol to numb the pain, as he’s seen drinking and or getting drunk at several points during his transition from the field hospital to the hospital where he will have surgery and commence his recovery.

A: I don’t feel any real connection to Henry. I don’t even know if I like him, and I don’t feel too invested in his story at this point. I’m intrigued about why an American would join the Italian Army, but we get so few details about him. I don’t know how old he is, I can’t form a picture of what he might look like in my mind, and I don’t really understand what motivates him. He seems like a good officer, with command over any situation, and he seems well liked and respected. He’s not someone who likes sitting still. I wonder if the intensity of his relationship with Catherine during his recovery has to do with him being bored and wanting to forget about the war and having to go back to it soon.

4. What do you think of Hemingway’s writing style and the story itself so far? Are you enjoying it?

S:  I’ve gotten used to the terse prose and the rambling, but the lack of detail irks me.  I want to see the places he is; I want to see the front; I want to know how old these people are.  I don’t mind the story so far, though it really seems to be more about this love affair and less about the actual war.  It’s just an OK read so far.

A: I think I’m getting used to the sparse prose, and if it’s rambling, I’m noticing it less. The lack of detail and connection to the characters is preventing me from really getting involved in the story. I’m only mildly curious about what will happen next, so I just hope it gets better.

Please post your thoughts (and any questions you might have) in the comments below, or feel free to link to a post you’ve written on your blog.  Thanks for participating!

Next week, we’ll be reading Chapters 21-30.  We’ll post discussion questions on Friday, June 22.

Week 1: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms Read-a-Long

Welcome to week one of the Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long. 

For this week, we read chapters 1-10.  Here are this week’s questions, feel free to join the discussion.

So far, how do you feel about Hemingway’s writing style? Are you enjoying it?

S:  His style for this one is a bit mysterious at first.  You’re not sure where you are exactly, though you know that there are troops moving outside, advancing toward battle.  You’re not even sure who the narrator is at this point.  While the mysterious narration helps keep readers moving through the first chapters, it also can become a bit distancing as well, even though there is a first person narration.  It also seems as though the narrator is telling the story from some point in the future and talking about the past.  I’m on the fence about the narration right now, and wondering if I’m going to feel a connection with these characters.  However, I do enjoy the description of the mountains and the roads that Henry journeys on; it helps frame the story and the action for me and gives me a clear image of his surroundings.

A:  I’d really been looking forward to reading Hemingway, but then I read the first chapter and wasn’t so excited anymore.  Did he know what a comma was?  Was he the king of the run-on sentence?  I must admit, I was really bored at first.  The descriptions of the mountains and the town are so bland.  And I don’t like how little information was given about the setting and the characters at the very beginning.  It’s like the narrator is keeping us at a distance.

Rinaldi and Henry seem to have a brotherly relationship.  Do you think that this friendship will survive throughout the novel or will something come between them?  Speculate.

S:  At first I wondered if Catherine would come between them as Rinaldi was the first to talk about how beautiful she was.  But then when he took Henry to introduce her to him, Rinaldi seemed more interested in the other nurse.  He’s an odd duck.  They do seem to be very chummy, but I wonder if the affection is more one-sided than we can see given the point of view.  Rinaldi always seems to be looking to live vicariously through Henry in one capacity or another — looking to Henry to regale him with heroic tales or tales of female conquests.  I wonder if this relationship will last.  I fear that something will happen to Rinaldi or that he will be forced to save his friend and lose his life in the process.

A: I guess it really depends on how long Rinaldi lives.  Rinaldi seems overly friendly, while Henry is more reserved.  It’s a bit of an odd pairing at this point, but then again, we’re not really given much to go on.  Honestly, it seems that all these men do is drink, visit the “bawdy house,” and poke fun at a priest.  The narrator doesn’t really tell us much about the men, nor are we given much of a glimpse of his inner thoughts, other than the occasional opinion about the war.

What kind of relationship do Lieutenant Henry and Nurse Catherine Barkley seem to have? Are they in love or is it something else?

S:  It seems as though Catherine Barkley is looking to relive the moments she was unable to have with her fiance who died in the battle of the Somme, while Henry seems to be looking for a deeper connection than the relationships he’s had with women in the past — brief flings.  However, he also does not believe he’s in love with her — at least not yet.  In a way, this relationship seems to be one of convenience or at least mutual comfort.

A:  I don’t think they are in love, not at this point anyway.  Catherine is a hard one to figure out; she’s obviously scarred from the death of her childhood sweetheart.  I think they both realize that war is hell and this “relationship” provides some sort of comfort or distraction.

Please post your thoughts (and any questions you might have) in the comments below, or feel free to link to a post you’ve written on your blog.  Thanks for participating!

Next week, we’ll be reading Chapters 11-20.  We’ll post discussion questions on Friday, June 15.

Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms Read-a-Long

June is here!  Welcome.  We’d like to invite participants and non-participants to join this month’s Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms read-a-long.

If you’d like to sign up to let us know you are participating, leave you name and blog (if you have one) in the comments below.

Questions will be posted each Friday at the end of the week’s reading.  Here’s the reading schedule:

Week 1 — June 1-8 Chapters 1-10

Week 2 — June 9-15 Chapters 11-20

Week 3 — June 16-22 Chapters 21-30

Week 4 — June 23-29 Chapters 31-41

The first round of questions and discussion will be on June 8.  See you next week!

Read-a-Long Schedule for A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Hello participants!  We’ve decided to host the mid-year read-a-long in June for Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

We’ve decided to post our thoughts and discussion questions each Friday in June beginning with June 8. 

Even if you are not participating in this year’s WWI Reading Challenge, you are welcome to join the read-a-long wit us.  The more the merrier.

Here’s the schedule:

Week 1 — June 1-8 Chapters 1-10

Week 2 — June 9-15 Chapters 11-20

Week 3 — June 16-22 Chapters 21-30

Week 4 — June 23-29 Chapters 31-41

We hope to see you in June!

WWI Read-a-Long of Bess Crawford Mystery Series by Charles Todd

Sometimes kismet happens and another event in the blogosphere happens to coincide with the war we’re covering here at War Through the Generations.  In this case, a WWI-related mystery series written by Charles Todd — a mother-son writing team — is having a read-a-long at Book Club Girl.  The series is those starring Bess Crawford.

If you’re interested in joining, here are some of the details:

The “Book Time with Bess Read Along” kicks off now and runs through the publication of the newest book in the series, An Unmarked Grave in June 2012.

As an added bonus to get you started, the e-book of A Duty to the Dead is just $1.99 for a limited time, so order up today and get reading!

The read-along officially kicks off today (but don’t worry, our first discussion won’t take place until March 26th) and it runs through the publication of the paperback of the most recent Bess Crawford novel, A Bitter Truth (on sale 5/1), as well as the new Bess Crawford hardcover, An Unmarked Grave (on sale 6/5). We’ll end the read-along in June with a Book Club Girl on Air Show with the Charles Todd writing team to discuss all the books in the series.

Here’s the schedule of when I’ll post questions about each book for us to discuss:

March 26th – A Duty to the Dead discussion
April 30^th – An Impartial Witness discussion
May 1st – A Bitter Truth paperback goes on sale
May 29^th – A Bitter Truth discussion (May 28^th is Memorial Day)
June 5^th – An Unmarked Grave – the new hardcover goes on sale
June 25^th – An Unmarked Grave discussion
June 28^th – Book Club Girl on Air Show with Charles Todd to Discuss the Entire Series

Look for updates along the way here, on Twitter (#besscrawford), and on the Book Club Girl and Charles Todd Facebook pages.

Please check out the rest of the details and sign up here.

Week 4: Enemy Women Read-a-Long

This is week four of the Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles read-a-long. Please check out week 1, week 2, and week 3 discussions.  Up to this point, you would have read through chapter 24.

This week’s discussion is for ch. 25 through the end of the book.  We hope that you’ve enjoyed the discussions so far and have commented or answered the questions.

A lot of the latter parts of the book focus on Adair’s time alone in the woods.  She sits and listens to the animals and listens for soldiers and signs of life.  Do you find her reactions to her surroundings as a lone young woman in the woods believable?

S:  Her observations about animals in the woods are baffling to me, with raccoons and others having “arguments” most of the time, rather than just being animals talking to one another or simply making sounds.  Jiles’ description of these animal “conversations” just seemed odd to me, almost as if Adair is not 18, but younger and trying to console herself by making up stories to ease her mind.  Only those stories are not fleshed out in any way, but mentioned by passing comments.  They seemed to elementary for her age, but then again, many times throughout the novel, she’s seemed younger than 18.  By 18 during this time period, I would have expected her to be more mature and self-sufficient than she is.

I also wonder about her suddenly being ok with lying naked in the sun and bathing in the wild when she seems so worried about Union soldiers, etc.  And it is strange that she takes time to follow the “steam doctor’s” advice; the timing of these actions is just odd to me.  If I were trying to escape and get home without being found by the Union, I certainly wouldn’t be sleeping much or bathing in the nude or lying out in the nude for long periods.  I don’t see much evolution in her character, she still seems to be that naive girl we met at the beginning.

A:  Honestly, I found this whole section boring, aside from a few scenes here and there.  I didn’t pick up on Adair making up stories about the animals in the woods, but I think you have to remember that she’s sick and she’s been traveling alone with very few people to talk to.  Her mind is going to wander.

As for her spending so much time sleeping and bathing in the sun, etc., I just attributed that to her sickness and her exhaustion and the need to rest often to keep her horses healthy.  I don’t know why she thought it was the right time to shed her clothes, but she also was thinking about the major and about whether she would be well enough to marry, so maybe that’s why she decided right then and there to follow the steam doctor’s advice.

How did you feel about Major Neumann not making another appearance until the second-to-last chapter, especially considering that some of us are finding his story more interesting than Adair’s?

A:  This really disappointed me.  Jiles took the time to build Major Neumann’s character; we see him and Adair together in the prison and him on the battlefield, but when it’s time for the two of them to make their way to the meeting point (Adair’s home), he falls out of the picture until the very end, and then only to get rid of Tom Poth and find out about Adair’s father.  It seems almost as though Jiles couldn’t decide who was more interesting; she may have wanted to write about a strong girl’s experiences during the war, but found that Adair’s character just couldn’t carry the story alone.  It also makes me wonder why the romance was added to the story anyway.  Adair is shown thinking about the major only a couple of times on her journey back home, making the romance almost a non-issue.  She was going back home with or without Neumann.

S:  I agree the lack of the major in the last part of the book was disappointing, and the end where he shows up shouting that he will wait for her forever and she’s just staring for the longest time is dumb.  I understand that they will be together, but I wanted greater resolution, I wanted more conclusive evidence that she loved him or even thought more of him than as a means of escape from the women’s prison.  And if she didn’t love him, would she tell him or merely marry him because he was the only one around that she knew and that was left.  Jiles disappointed me on so many levels with this book; she relied too heavily on plot devices that were not necessary most of the time, and she failed to expound upon the relationship or the struggles that each would have encountered to get back to one another.  It seems that she was more interested in providing the historical documents she found at the beginning of each chapter than the contents of the chapters themselves.

What are your final impressions of the book?

S:  Ultimately, this book was disappointing to me for a number of reasons, the two-three chapters we saw of the Major were more interesting to me than the entire story of Adair.  The beginning was so quick to get her captured, then her time in prison was so mixed between the poor treatment and the delight of the major, only to give away to the extra long journey home.  I couldn’t identify with her at all, which soured my enjoyment.  The prison chapters were interesting in that there were more characters to see and ponder, but those chapters were short lived.  Adair, at least to me, remained the same naive girl that she was at the beginning.

I really had to push through the slow unfolding of these final chapters to read the end.  I just wanted it to be over and when it was, the ending left me feeling flat, as if nothing was resolved for her or her family.  What happened to her sisters or her brother?  I presume the Major will tell her what happened to her father, but he may want to spare her the news.  To be honest, I have a tough time with Civil War books in general; I’m not sure if the time period doesn’t interest me or if I haven’t found the right book, though I did enjoy Cold Mountain when I read that years ago.

A:   Well, I certainly didn’t like the book as much as I did the first time I read it.  I didn’t hate it, but those last chapters were somewhat boring and a chore to finish.  I didn’t mind Adair; I just thought the chapters that follow her journey fell flat.  Jiles’ writing seemed to come alive with Neumann in battle, but when the focus was on Adair, the story plodded along.  And the end was frustrating, especially the non-reunion of Adair and the major.  I loved their interactions when she was in prison, and I was hoping for more of that at the end, but readers are left wondering what happens when Adair makes her way down the hill.  Do they marry?  Does she survive the consumption?  What about her family and their home?  Honestly, my disappointment has made it difficult for me to think of some good discussion questions, so I hope the other participants will help us out!

What questions did you have?  What did you think?  Feel free to answer these questions in the comments and even pose your own.  We’d love to discuss the book with you!

Week 3: Enemy Women Read-a-Long

This is week 3 of the Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles read-a-long.  If you missed the week 1 and week 2 discussions, please take a minute to join the discussion.

This week, each of us had to read the Chapters 16-24.  Please be warned there will be spoilers if you have not read the chapters previously.

In Chapter 17, once Adair has escaped the prison in St. Louis and is searching for a way South, Jiles makes a point of demonstrating the nation in transition between farming and industrial and traditional and modern sensibilities.  How does she accomplish this and is it done well?

S:  Adair seems focused on making herself presentable as she searchers for a way further south, seeking out a hat to cover her head and make her a “lady” once again and to find a ticket or basket as a way to give her purpose.  Meanwhile, she is walking or sneaking along the road by free Black men working into the night and by the levee where ships are being loaded and unloaded and factories are puffing smoke.  I liked the contrast between her and her surroundings, especially when thinking back to her more simplistic farm life with the barn and its horses at the beginning of the novel.  It did raise questions for me about whether the hat really would have made the difference with the soldier in terms of deeming her respectable.  Perhaps it merely only hid her true identity.

A: I think the contrast between the old farming South and the new industrial South is emphasized by the fact that we’re seeing it through Adair’s eyes.  She doesn’t seem like she’s ever left the country, so it’s all new to her.  But I think the contrast really takes a backseat to Adair’s search for a hat and other things she will need in order to make her way south.  I honestly didn’t even notice it until you pointed it out to me, but going back to that chapter now, I see what you mean.

These chapters center on two things — Adair’s escape and attempts to return home and Major Neumann’s journey to join his new unit and the battle where he loses part of his hand.  Which storyline do you find more interesting at this point?

A:  It seems like much of the book so far has centered on Adair traveling.  This trek seems more authentic to me than the one before her imprisonment, maybe because Jiles does more to show how difficult it is to travel alone, sick, and with few resources.  However, I found the chapters about Major Neumann and the skirmishes he’s caught in to be more interesting.  I think Jiles’ writing comes alive in those action scenes, whereas it’s more plodding and tempered in the chapters about Adair.

S:  I agree that Adair’s trek back home is more authentic and interesting, perhaps because it shows the journey as it should have been shown the first time in terms of its length and arduous nature.  I was waiting for some battlefield action, and thankfully, Jiles provides some in these chapters, though I would have liked to seen more of it.

What do you make of the woman and the daughter Adair stays with for a time?  Do you think these scenes are necessary?

A:  I think they are only necessary insofar as to reunite Adair and Whiskey and maybe to illustrate the different things people do to survive during the war.  Maybe I’m having problems with the writing or the lack of quotation marks or whatever, but I didn’t know what to make of Lila and Rosalie.  Rosalie seemed flighty, and Lila seemed hospitable to Adair at first and then there was something mean or sinister about her.  I don’t think I got to know them enough to know exactly what they wanted from Adair.  I wonder if they’ll make an appearance later on.

S:  I knew that the scenes with the woman and her daughter would be used as a plot device to reunite Adair with Whiskey.  A stroke of luck or the author’s pen, but you knew it was coming because of her passionate connection to that horse and her need for companionship on the journey home.  Lila seemed like a woman who wanted another accomplice, someone they could make complicit in their stealing and killing of Union soldiers.  If Adair had been a weaker character and more traditional, perhaps she would have fallen in line with the other women and stayed on there.  Rosalie seemed simply eager to have someone to talk to and share things with because as it was her father had left them for another woman, so her mother seemed closed off and bitter, which probably led to Rosalie’s loneliness and seeming need for companionship.  I think she hoped to find a friend in Adair.

Out of curiosity, do you think you would be as merciless as Lila and Rosalie or more cunning like Adair if you needed to steal to survive?

S:  I would like to think that I would be more cunning than Rosalie and Lila.  I’m not naturally the murdering type, but who is.  I can’t say for sure, but I have a tendency to lurk in the backgrounds of social gatherings, so I probably would take advantage of an opportunity when it presented itself, rather than make my own move to steal whatever I want/needed to survive.

A:  I think I’d be more like Adair.  I’d steal what I needed if it didn’t hurt someone else and only out of a need to survive.  I’d look for opportunities, like Adair did when stealing the woman’s luggage.

What is your overall impression of the book at this point?  Are you enjoying it more?  Less?

A:  I’m having mixed feelings about the book now.  I’m still interested in Adair’s story and hope to see more of Major Neumann in the coming chapters, but I had some difficulty getting through this section.  Other than the action in the scenes with Major Neumann, I found it to be slow going.  Now that Adair has found Whiskey and is on the move again, maybe something exciting will happen in the final chapters.

S:  It’s funny that you are having mixed feelings about the book now.  I find that I’m more interested in her journey and what happens to her.  Will she make it home?  Will she and the Major be reunited?  What will she think of him once he returns to her with his battle scars?  Adair still seems naive at this point, at least about love.  I just wonder what will happen when the reality of “love” and all that it entails hits her, if she’s reunited with the Major.

What questions did you have?  What did you think?  Feel free to answer these questions in the comments and even pose your own.  We’d love to discuss the book with you!

Week 2: Enemy Women Read-a-Long

This is week two of the Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles read-a-long.  If you missed last week’s questions, please check out the discussion for Prologue through Chapter 6.

For this week, each of us had to read chapters 7-15.  These chapters follow Adair Colley and her plight in the women’s prison near St. Louis.

How would you compare Adair’s thinking to that of a more traditional southern woman, like Rhoda?

S:  It seems that Adair has a more modern sensibility compared to her counterparts.  She’s not afraid to talk back to men and stand up for herself whereas Rhoda and that traditional stereotype seem content to let the men take care of them and not to fend for themselves.  At one point, I think Rhoda says something to the effect that a southern woman must endure her abusers, whereas Adair is looking for a way out of the situation.

A:  Adair certainly is a feisty one!  She will stand up for herself, no matter who is involved, man or woman.  I wonder if this has anything to do with growing up without a mother and not having to do the usual “woman’s work” around the house.  It’s been mentioned that no one really cleaned or darned socks and stuff like that.  It seems she has had an nontraditional upbringing for the time, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’s not a traditional Southern woman (whatever that might mean) and not the type to submit to the will of others.

Describe the relationship between Adair and Major Neumann.  Is it believable? Do you think the war has influenced it and in what way? Has their plight moved you?

S:  At first the relationship between the two seemed to be more about lust and desire, since he wanted to touch her, but as the last chapters in this portion of the reading went along it was clear that Adair was more to him than just an object.  I presume it was the way she opened up to him in her “confessions,” which seemed to be more like letters, that captured his heart.  But I wonder about her motivations.  Is she really in love with him or is the simple “he looks good in a uniform and he can get me free” thing the reason she is so attached?  The war is definitely playing a role in this relationship, and I’m glad that Jiles has Neumann address it aloud in the book.  Their relationship hasn’t moved me yet, but that could change, especially if it endures their eventual separation.

A:  At first I didn’t know what to make of it, and I think the war certainly could play a role in their attraction.  He seems different from the other officers and could be lonely…yet, he doesn’t seem to care as much about any of the other women in the prison.  She could view him as a way to get out of prison…yet she seems genuinely upset when he tells her he is being transferred.  I must admit that I’m a romantic at heart, so by the time I got to the scene where Adair is sick in bed, I totally bought their relationship.  How Major Neumann gets back at Mrs. Buckley was awesome, and giving his ring to Adair was a tender moment.  However, part of me wants to think it wouldn’t be that easy, especially since Adair was so angry about the Union Militia arresting (and likely killing) her father, stealing Whiskey, and attempting to burn down her family home.  Granted, Neumann is not part of the militia, but he’s an officer in the Union Army, but then again, he seemed sympathetic toward her right away and she’d already spent a few weeks being worn down in the prison by the time they met.

What do you make of Adair’s “confessions?”  Do you think she should have followed Major Neumann’s advice and given them anything plausible just to be released?

A:  I really enjoyed reading Adair’s “confessions.”  The first had a fairy tale quality to it, with the inclusion of Snow White and the exclusion of any real hardships she has faced over the years.  She pours her heart out on the page, and it’s touching.  What she wrote about the Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug was absolutely hilarious.  I respect her for staying strong and not breaking under the weight of sickness and the horrid conditions she has been subjected to.

S:  I really enjoyed the confessions, but I think it would have been easier if she did give them some tidbit of information about the confederates, even if it was outdated information.  I do like the fairy tale quality of the confessions.

What is your overall impression of the book at this point?  Are you enjoying it more?  Less?

A:  I definitely am enjoying the book more now, and the lack of quotation marks isn’t as distracting as it was before.  The introduction of Major Neumann’s character has helped the story progress at a faster pace.  I think I even like Adair more than I did before.  Her conversations with the major are entertaining, with much seriousness on his end and sarcasm and even playfulness on hers.  It’s a good thing she’s been portrayed as a tough cookie from the start because with the escape plan in motion, she’s going to need every bit of strength she has to survive.

S:  My overall impression of the book hasn’t changed much, but I didn’t expect it to.  I have a really hard time with the lack of quotation marks and the prose is not as captivating as I had hoped, but I do like Adair and have grown fond of her in spite of her rashness.  I agree that Major Neumann has helped speed up the pace of the plot, though the romance was a bit unbelievable at first for me.

What questions did you have?  What did you think?  Feel free to answer these questions in the comments and even pose your own.  We’d love to discuss the book with you!