Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms is, quite irritatingly, the slipperiest of all my Hemingway books. The Sun Also Rises is a fun romp through Spain that puts me in the heart of the upper crust of old. If it weren't for that book, I might not understand the concerns of my clients. Not quite a road book, but not far off. For Whom the Bell Tolls is immeasurably thick and unfinishable and probably has a gloriously devastating ending that I will never see. I also have a collection of short stories that features The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Short story collections never get read cover to cover, though. No sir, when it's good Hemingway I really need, it's always A Farewell to Arms.

Unfortunately, that book is never anywhere to be found on my shelf. I know I purchased and read it back in 2002. I'll never forget my great purging of 2006 right before my travels that lightened my burden by 50 some-odd books at a local bookstore and Salvo. This book was not included. It is impossible that it could have been. I think it surfaced somewhere for a few weeks a few years ago but has since receded into that hiding place it has discovered. I haven't gone out and bought a new sampling of that profound sadness because I'm always pretty sure I still own a copy.

Maybe it's time to buy a new one.

Sigh.