Posted: 15 May 2006 at 3:41am | IP Logged
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I recently read that when F. Scott Fitzgerald first read Hemingway's unfinished manuscript of A Farewell to Arms (back then they were still close), he proposed that Hemingway end it much earlier. Fitzgerald's ending is when Frederic and Catherine are reunited in Stresa. The last sentences would then be:
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
Of the page which the above passage ends, Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway: "This is one of the most beautiful pages in all English literature." Appearantly Fitz made a lot of corrections or suggestions to the manuscript Hemingway sent him. He tried, however, to balance his faultfinding with praise and at the end of his comments he wrote: "A beautiful book it is!", wich Hemingway responded to by writing "Kiss my ass" in the margin..
Does anyone else support Fitzgerald's suggestion of the ending? According to my copy of A Farewell to Arms, that would have meant scrapping about 70 pages...
__________________ "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"
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