Although it is unique in form and style, In Our Time deals with a familiar subject of universal and timeless rele vance: a young person growing up, embarking on a quest for meaning and peace in a tension-ridden and war-ravaged world. Discussions might usefully begin with comparison of other works which follow the same pattern and, more specifically, move to other works which appeared in the 1920s and reflect similar or disparate reactions to World War I (e.g., John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers, 1921; e. e. cummings, The Enormous Room, 1922). Hemingway's sense of disillusionment with the war, and the ensuing sense of a "lost generation" that pervades the 1920s (even though Hemingway disavowed the fashionable "lost generation" notion), might also be compared to the experience of the Vietnam generation. In classrooms, for example, students who are Vietnam veterans or relatives of veterans often comment on how...