A Farewell to Arms 是海明威第一部长篇小说，也是我最早读到和最喜欢的海明威作品之一。中译本书名《永别了武器》。译者是著名翻译家林疑今（曾为厦门大学教授，据说是林语堂的侄儿）。但我觉得这译名可以有争议，因为Arms 不止有武器的意思，也还有怀抱（双手拥抱）的意思，可以引申为爱情，所以似也可以译为《永别了爱情》。作者这里可能语带双关地用了这种表达的双重含义。由这本书改编的电影，中译名为“战地春梦”，可能兼顾了书名的双重含义。但我不知为什么不喜欢“战地春梦”这一译名，所以这里还是用了原文 A Farewell to Arms。 

    有些小伙伴可能没有读过这部作品。所以摘录了两段英文，算是对此书的一种介绍和推荐。第一段英文是对该书大致情节的交代；第二段则出自卡洛琳-戈登对海明威此书开篇第一自然段的分析和高度赞扬。这两段文字都选入了锦城学院外语系自编的美国文学介绍性读本。该读本还全文选录了海明威的短篇《印第安营地》英文原文，以及对海明威的一篇传记性研究。限于篇幅，这里挑选出来与喜欢读书的英语小伙伴们分享的仅是以下两段简短的文字。

A Farewell to Arms 

A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in 1929. The novel is told through the point of view of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during World War I. The title is taken from a poem by 16th century English dramatist George Peele.

The novel is about Hemingway's World War I experiences and his relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky in Milan. His wife Pauline underwent a caesarean section as Hemingway was writing about Catherine Barkley's childbirth.

On the surface, A Farewell to Arms is about the tragic romance between an American soldier Frederic Henry, and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. Below the surface, the novel is about World War I and individual tragedy within the larger picture of greater tragedy. The novel portrays the cynicism of soldiers, the displacement of populations. Hemingway's stature as an American writer was secured with the publication of A Farewell to Arms. A Farewell to Arms was adapted to film in 1932 and again in 1957.

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Henry meets and attempts to seduce Catherine Barkley and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine and by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long after, the Austro-Germans break through the Italian lines and the Italians retreat. Henry kills an engineering sergeant for insubordination. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is taken to a place by the "battle police" where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. However, after hearing the execution of a Lt. Colonel, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowing boat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labour. After a long and painful labour, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to haemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.

A Hemingway’s Sample 

by Caroline Gordon 

Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms begins:

“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. the trunks of the trees were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.”

The tone of the whole book is set in the first paragraph. The tone, in this case, is a mood, a dramatization of the wistful rebellion of youth, confronted with the hard facts of life, love and death. This mood is evoked by the very sound of the words in the first sentence:

“In the late summer of that year ---- “ and persists throughout the book.

The rendering of the rest of the passage is also admirable. The action of the sun shows the pebbles and boulders that lie in the bed of the river to be dry and white. The river is clear and moves swiftly; the further specification that it was blue where water was deepest (in the channels) makes us see it flow. We are convinced that the troops passed the house by the fact that enough dust was raised to powder the leaves of the trees and even the trunks.

The phrase, “the leaves fell early that year,” is an admirable preparation for the climax of the action; that is to say, “My love died young.” The whole Resolution is, in fact, both prepared for and symbolized in this passage: “We saw troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.” A human heart, ravaged by grief, will ultimately become as bare and as quiet as the white road that the soldiers have passed over.