Literary Response #2 "A Farewell To Arms"

So far, I am really liking this book. I am enjoying Ernest Hemingway's "matter of fact" style of writing. His writing style is really different than any other novelist's style of writing that I have read previously. A Farewell to Arms takes place on the Italian front of World War 1. Much of the book takes place in Milan, Italy. So far in the novel the main protagonist has been living in a villa. He has also been driving around the front in his ambulance. The main protagonist's name is Lieutenant Frederic Henry. Lieutenant Henry is an ambulance driver on the front; he is also an American. Lieutenant is often called Tenente, which is Italian for Lieutenant, throughout the novel. So far I have learned that Lieutenant Henry is the type of character who keeps a lot of his feelings to himself. He is the type of person whom everybody in the novel likes and whom everybody thinks they know a lot about but they do not realize that he is a very deep character. The other main character in "A Farewell to Arms" is Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Catherine is described as very beautiful and tall. She is also very intelligent. Catherine falls in love with Lieutenant Henry almost immediately. He loves her to a degree but tries hard to not fall farther in love with her. I don't know how or if their love progresses because I have not read far enough into the book yet. At this point in the novel it surprised me how frankly their love was portrayed.  Their are two conflicts that I have come across so far in this book. The first conflict being that Lieutenant Henry was wounded in an attack on the Italian army. He is spending time recovering and was moved to an American hospital in Milan right now in the book. Catherine is also being moved to that hospital because there is a lack of nurses. The second conflict I found was Lieutenant Henry's reluctance to love Catherine when she loves him so obviously and boldly. He thinks that she is beautiful but shows a real reluctance to "love" her.