A Farewell to Arms (1929) - Ernest Hemingway Audiobook

Written by Ernest Hemingway
Read by John Slattery
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Release date: May 1, 2006
Duration: 08:34:45

The definitive edition of the classic novel of love during wartime, featuring all of the alternate endings: “Fascinating…serves as an artifact of a bygone craft, with handwritten notes and long passages crossed out, giving readers a sense of an author’s process” (The New York Times).

Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield—weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semi-autobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.

A readers comment…”This is not unabridged …
Really a great story from really a great narrator…… However, all of the profanity is omitted. There is a silent gap where Hemingway intended a profane word. Hemingway chose his words carefully and he used profanity to make a point about World War I. Of another of his works, Hemingway said “I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.”

“John Slattery reads this classic novel of an American ambulance driver in the Italian army during WWI and his fateful love affair with a British nurse. Slattery narrates in an expressionless voice—perhaps to mirror the simplicity of Hemingway’s prose. But the prose, or at least the dialogue, at this remove often seems mannered, and the reading obstinately flat. Slattery becomes expressive when doing accents, which is a relief. His Scottish and Italian are good, though all the Italians sound alike, including the women. His British accent is not quite so good. But taken altogether, this production effectively presents a novel that still carries some power.” W.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

This is the only unabridged commercial recording of this book available. My library had a CD copy.

Try to find the 2012 Scribner ebook….”Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. The ebook edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time, along with early drafts of other essential passages, offering new insight into Hemingway’s craft and creative process and the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingway’s own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel, a personal foreword by the author’s son Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author’s grandson Seán Hemingway, this edition of A Farewell to Arms is truly a celebration”….You also have all the profanity.