Hemingway - Love found

I had to read Farewell To Arms in High School and pretty much hated it. Granted, at the time I was into dark Romantic, 19th Century poetry and literature in the vein of Lord Byron, Gerard de Nerval, Baudelaire etc, but I just didn't get the Hemingway thing. For some reason I also had some kind of idea that American literature just wasn't as good as European literature. You have to remember I grew up in France, on French education...
I just found Hemingway's writing style too simple for my tastes, and my mind kept wandering away from the novel. Maybe it wasn't the best one to start with, or maybe I just wasn't ready for it. Anyway, I decided to try again, 15 years later (never too late, right?).

I was browsing the bookstore last weekend, looking for something that would make my mind work. I've been guilty of reading too many thrillers recently (excellent ones at that, but I need more diversion), and after a while of looking through the shelves I stopped in front of Hemingway. "Why not?" I thought, and randomly picked up "Across the River and into the Trees".

I often judge a book by how much I want to get back to it. I have a 30 minute subway commute in the morning, so I need a good book on me at all times, and if I am actually looking forward to going to work it means that I am reading something that has grabbed my attention. Hard. And this one did...

What a beautiful story! Set in Venice at the end of WW2, the last days of a love story between an older American Colonel and a beautiful, young Venetian Contessa. Hemingway's "simple" style that i once disliked so much, just conjures up the emotions and feeling even more than a mountain of difficult words would. I'm a convert.

Now I just need to choose the next one... Try Farewell to Arms again, or another?