The Worst Ending Imaginable
Knowing that Nikki does a big unit on Hemingway every year, I ask for one of Hemingway's better novels. "One with a love story if possible, because I really need to study love - so I can be a better husband when Nikki comes back," I tell Mom.
When Mom returns from the library, she says that the librarian claims A Farewell to Arms is Hemingway's best love story. So I eagerly crack open the book and can feel myself getting smarter as I turn the first few pages.
As I read, I look for quotable lines so I can "drop knowledge" the next time Nikki and I are out with her literary friends - so I can say to that glasses-wearing Phillip, "Would an illiterate buffoon know this line?" And then I will drop some Hemingway, real suave.
But the novel is nothing but a trick.
The whole time, you root for the narrator to survive the war and then for him to have a nice life with Catherine Barkley. He does survive all sorts of dangers - even getting blown up - and finally escapes to Switzerland with the pregnant Catherine, whom he loves so much. They live in the mountains for a time, in love and living a good life.
Hemingway should have ended there, because that was the silver lining these people deserved after struggling to survive the gloomy war.
But no.
Instead he thinks up the worst ending imaginable: Hemingway has Catherine die from hemorrhaging after their child is stillborn. It is the most torturous ending I have ever experienced and probably will ever experience in literature, movies, or even television.
I am crying so hard at the end, partly for the characters, yes, but also because Nikki actually teaches this book to children. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to expose impressionable teenagers to such a horrible ending. Why not just tell high school students that their struggle to improve themselves is all for nothing?
I have to admit that for the first time since apart time began, I am mad at Nikki for teaching such pessimism in her classroom. I will not be quoting Hemingway anytime soon, nor will I ever read another one of his books. And if he were still alive, I would write him a letter right now and threaten to strangle him dead with my bare hands just for being so glum. No wonder he put a gun to his head, like it says in the introductory essay.