A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway - Donald Davidson (review date 3 November 1929)
Donald Davidson (review date 3 November 1929)
SOURCE: A review of A Farewell to Arms, in Hemingway: The Critical Heritage, edited by Jeffrey Meyers, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, pp. 126–30.
[In the following review, originally published in 1929, Davidson criticizes what he calls Hemingway's behaviorist, “scientific” approach to writing in A Farewell to Arms.]
Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms is like a direct and most remarkable answer to the recent wish of Dr. Watson,1 prophet of behaviorism, that somebody would write a novel containing people who act in a lifelike and scientific manner. That is exactly what Mr. Hemingway does, with such astounding verity as to overwhelm, befuddle and profoundly impress all readers. Mr. Hemingway here is playing scientist, and he is watching people behave. It is a mistake to suppose that people behave morally or immorally, becomingly or unbecomingly. That...
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