Count Greffi in A Farewell to Arms

Count Greffi

A man who is ninety-four years old. He’s a friend of Frederic’s and only appears once in the novel. Frederic says, "He was living to be one hundred years old" (35.13). Some critics claim that this means that Greffi lived to be a hundred years old, and that this proves that Frederic is narrating the novel at least six years after the events. We don’t quite buy this. If Frederic wanted to say "lived," he would say "lived." "Living to be" means trying to stay alive, we think. How about you?