The Sun Also Rises

[The Sun Also Rises] was the book that changed my mind forever about Papa. Before reading it, I was fairly cold on him, thinking him the epitome of overblown classic literature – books about nothing, authors reviling in their own voices and self-abased behavior. But, at the encouragement of my wife who is a huge fan, I dipped into the book and then couldn’t put it down.

The story follows Jake Barnes and his tumultuous relationship with Lady Brett Ashley. Jake, a World War I vet, suffers from physical and emotional scars. Brett is promiscuous and wild, apt to seduce anyone, and her seductions break Jake and his friendships. The action of the novel is set first in bohemian Paris, then in the Pyrenees, and finally in Pamplona during the show more days of the running of the bulls. Hemingway based the characters on his own friends in Paris and some of their antics.

Ultimately what won me over was Papa’s deeper look at the souls and inner lives of the people who were later to be known as “The Lost Generation.” Their lives are often viewed as the very height – or perhaps depth – of depravity and debauchery. But Hemingway digs deeper into their souls to find uncommon strength and subtle nobility. The other element, of course, is the master’s spare but evocative prose. The emotion and sense that Hemingway packs into a few words is unparalleled in literature.

Bottom Line: Hemingway at his best – looking deeply where others don’t and packing a punch in just a few words

5 bones!!!!!
A Favorite of All Time show less

There's something empty, pathetic, and poor about The Sun Also Rises...yet every time I have reread it, I continue to find that there's an extraordinary insight into this group's dynamics. The characters and situations are so realistic and the progression of their stories so believable. It is very satisfying to read. The bullfighting, racism, and macho business doesn't age well, but I think you have to see this as a product of it's time. The worst I can say about Hemingway (as I also would say about Led Zepplin) is that he inspired so much awful imitation that it sometimes makes you question if we woudln't be better off never having the original...

“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.”

I was looking for something with lots of light—burning sun, baking sand. I was looking for something with a fight in it. I got it with this book, even if I had to wait nearly 130 pages before I got to Spain and longer still, waiting out the seemingly interminable festival week, to witness a bullfight, blood, and thumping fists.

The opening is artful misdirection. I thought this would be about Cohn, that he would somehow become a matador, or find his bloody-toothed victory in the sands of the arena. Not so. He does fight. But the moment where he merely takes off his glasses in preparation for a potential punch-up is the most show more stirring moment of the novel. Hell, the fistfight 𝘪𝘴 cool, though, when it happens.

The dashing yet respectful bullfighter is a gentleman with a sword, with words, and with his swinging arms. However, just because you can down a maddened bull with a perfectly placed sword thrust doesn’t mean you’ve got the chops to outswing a boxing champion. Different skills, the same passions, a variety of human struggle caught up in the rocket’s confetti. And Cohn, simmering slugger that he is, is no match for a more urbane human—or inconstancy—or a confession of weakness cloaked in drunken braggadocio across the barroom table.

I got the sun. I got the fight. All that will undoubtedly work its way into my next novella: 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘴. The fact that the inspiration that I gleaned and will most likely pilfer wasn’t exactly what I expected is one of the best gifts that a reader can be granted. I hope to put that same pupil-constricting illumination into my own work.

Paris would be cool. But, goddamnit, I want to see the sun in the north of Spain.

“I do not know how people could say such terrible things to Robert Cohn. There are people to whom you could not say insulting things. They give you a feeling that the world would be destroyed, would actually be destroyed before your eyes, if you said certain things. But here was Cohn taking it all. Here it was, all going on right before me, and I did not even feel an impulse to try and stop it. And this was friendly joking to what went on later.” show less

This is a story that may feel distant to the modern reader, but with a little work there are some timeless themes that can be sifted enjoyably from it. It may be hard for many to relate to the main characters in this book--disaffected "lost generation" souls living in Paris after World War I, working out which friendships and relationships matter most to them, and why. But the ennui that hangs over the lives of narrator Jake Barnes and his unrequited love interest, Lady Brett Ashley, is not unlike the search for purpose that most young adults experience, especially after such a cataclysmic event as the great world war.

I had my own similar experiences in my 20s, when I spent many years as a young, single professional in northern show more Virginia living and working amongst a group of twenty-something friends, sorting through who loved who and where and how one would feel most fulfilled in life and work. I suppose I felt a kinship with these characters as they sought to find meaning in their lives--often mistakenly seeking for it in temporary adventure and entertainment.

Hemingway's writing style is sparse. He leaves interpretation of events to the reader. It is both jarring and appealing because he leaves us free to insert our own meanings into the gaps.

I enjoyed reading this book. As a religious person, it often surprise me seeing characters fail to find a true purpose to their lives, because I have found a life filled with profound meaning, even in the mundane quotidian, and I often forget that many haven't experienced this.

I loved the descriptions of Barnes' fishing trip in the mountains of Spain, and of the bullfighting fiesta in Pamplona. In Hemingway's spare but melodic depictions of these events, I heard the echoes of a haunting popular song from 1994 by beloved French songwriter Francis Cabrel called "La Corrida", wherein he tells the proud and tragic story of a bullfight--from the perspective of the bull.

Much like the bulls who must fight to the death, perhaps these young friends and lovers, having been thrust into the arena of one another's lives, mistakenly and vulnerably waved the red cape of the matador at each other until they had nothing genuine or meaningful left to give. Perhaps Hemingway's gift is a warning to seek a better kind of life. But even if we all experience periods of this restless searching, mercifully, "The Sun Also Rises" on a new day, and a new chance to live better. show less

Vanity, vanity. All is vanity.

Solomon had a lot to say about that sort of thing. He claimed that the day to day activities were, effectively, meaningless, as there was "nothing new under the sun," no matter how many times the sun rises and sets.

Meet the Lost Generation. They're people in a country not their own, fighting in wars that are not their own, living with people that are not their own, and living lives that are not their own. They are, after all, lost.

Meet Jake, the epitome of frustration. After having lost a vital piece of his essence in the war, he is unable to be "more than friends" with his love interest. Brett. And she, regardless of how Jake feels, makes him feel even worse every time she gets a new boyfriend, including show more the boy-who-would-be-a-man (or was it the man-who-was-a-boy?) bullfighter.

Jake tries to come to grips with his situation, which seems pretty hopeless, hoping to get his mind off Brett and how he can never be with her.

A wonderful work on the part of Hemingway, and definitely worth reading by any fan of the author. Side effects may include severe depression, loss of direction, and advanced stages of literary snobbery. show less

I read this coming off The Scarlet Letter, and it was whiplash. Hawthorne and Hemingway are as close to opposite in style as writers can get. Where Hawthorne never settled for one word when forty would do, Hemingway is sparse to the point that I feel like half the actual story is something he expects you to just sort of infer from very plain statements. "This happened. Then this happened. Quip. Counterquip. Quip. This happened."

The first two-thirds of the story feels like an introduction to the real story, which starts when the group arrives at Pamplona and the running of the bulls. I had been sort of just going along with it until then, and afterward it became clear that this story was about, and had been about, a group of young, show more assholish, and completely hopeless people and the whole theme of the 'lost generation' became clear.

Holy crap though, how are all these people not dead of alcohol poisoning already? Basically they're brownout drunk 24/7. show less

Those familiar with Hemingway know he writes in a very particular style. The sentences themselves tend to be plain and unornamented, yet there's much that goes unsaid. To truly understand a book like this, one must read between the lines, which may be delightful for some and frustrating for others. It also increases the chances of readers interpreting the text in very different ways.

But unless you happen to be an incel combined with a white supremacist with a variety of other intolerances thrown in, modern readers can all agree the characters are awful people. I think that even Hemingway intended us to see them as deeply flawed, although I suspect his conception of their flaws differs greatly from mine. I certainly hope a major point of show more the book is for the reader to view these characters critically, recoiling from their racial slurs and antisemitism and threats invoking the KKK. If it wasn't intended, at least it's possible to read it that way, given the fact that the book has a first-person narrator the reader can disagree with whenever he voices an unsavory opinion.

I also felt free to make up my own mind about the leading female character, which was aided by the fact that she has deep flaws even when applying modern standards instead of old-fashioned sexist ones. Combined with the read-between-the-lines approach, I was able to choose to believe the narrative was criticizing her for, say, holding with intolerant attitudes and failing to establish an open relationship with her fiancé. Although I certainly had an inkling of how Hemingway might have wanted me to think about her instead.

Plotwise, the book starts very slow and never gets much better. Personally, my interest picked up a bit after the characters set off for Spain, although at first that was only because I was actually interested in long descriptions of the people and places they encountered. If you want a narrative picture of 1920's Spain, that will be a highlight of this book for you. Otherwise you'll have to wait for the festival and be satisfied with bull fighting and interpersonal drama.

I suspect most modern readers won't want to pick this up purely for entertainment value. Perhaps you love a classic novel that allows you to reflect on what the author might be saying about post-war disillusionment and the way it affected a generation (as multiple sources claim is the point... I found more value in analyzing the psyches of individual characters). Perhaps, like me, you're a writer interested in studying Hemingway's style in greater depth. Like me, you may find the ending to be satisfying, in that it's thought-provoking, perhaps a suitable reward for the attention you paid over long passages leading up to it. But unless you find something else to enjoy or at least be interested in along the way, you're likely to give up and declare this book to be terribly boring.

If you want to try some Hemingway, I recommend reading a short story first to see if his style appeals to you. show less