Hemingway begins his story of war with a seemingly peaceful portrait of an Italian village in the summer and autumn of 1916. His rich visual images evoke a natural world that appears at first glance to be changeless. The narrator is merely an observer of the shifting seasons and the apparently distant war. Hemingway says a lot by saying little, and his technique is easily seen in this opening chapter. Although he is writing of war, he doesn't dwell here on gore or glory; fighting is merely "not successful," things are going "very badly." The language is emptied of passion, as if the narrat…
