Seeing Gertrude Stein in Hemingway

I was forced to remember Gertrude Stein as I read Hemingway. It becomes obvious through their friendship and their writing that Stein influenced Hemingway and his work. Stein's infamous run-on sentences and lack of punctuation show through in A Farewell to Arms. Sentences would continue for almost an entire paragraph. While reading that sentence, the audience wouldn't know where to pause or stop for it appears Hemingway enjoyed limiting the number of commas and periods he used. While reading the novel, I would sometimes forget the first half of the sentence and have to start over to refresh my memory. Or I would hit a road block because I didn't know when or if there should have been a break in the sentence. But Hemingway's grammar and sentence structure wasn't the most frustrating. It was very disappointing that in the beginning of the novel Henry seems so detached from everything in his life. He feels no connection to the war he is fighting, which explains why he doesn't care if he's on the front line or not. His detachment even follows him into the first stages of his relationship with Catherine. Henry compares this relationship to a game of bridge, admitting no true love for Catherine exists within himself at that point, which almost brings her to the level of a prostitute. To cope with the disinterest in his life, Henry turns to alcohol. He drinks everyday, no matter where he finds himself, whether it be in the hospital while he recovers from an injury or while on the train to Milan. At least Henry finally stops his destructive ways by connecting with Catherine through love and readers have a way to escape the likeness of Hemingway's writing style to Stein's.