The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century
The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.
Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.
But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Great Writing, View Into A Different Age - Recommended:
"The Sun Also Rises" was required reading when I was in school (oh so many years ago) but little of the book stayed with me. On my recent second reading I now recall why this book is considered to be one of the greats. Hemingway is a master story teller and this book includes some of the best character interaction I have ever read. The locations and plots lines are well handled, as are the insites into the issues and morals of post WWI Europe. What I forgot was how much I disliked almost all of the... more info
Bitter sweet:
I'm Jake. Jacob Barnes. American journalist. Living in Paris. I send off my cables. I work hard for a couple of hours. I put the stories in big manila envelopes. And send them out. That brings in the money. French? I speak French.
Spanish? I speak Spanish. Don't think I've got it made. I don't. The War did bad things to me. The War wounded me. Physically. Okay, I survived. Some say the wound was worse than dying. I have a girlfriend. Brett. Brett Ashley. Lady Ashley. She got "Lady"... more info
Maybe 3 1/2 stars:
This book has to be considered in the time it was written to appreciate it. Some books are timeless--theme, characters, etc.--and others are best viewed in the year they were published. I think this is one of those books. For 1926, this would have been quite daring as a response to WWI, especially considering it was a new kind of war. The novel doesn't really make explicit assertions or come to any definitive conclusions; it's more like holding a mirror up to society: this is what is going on. I liked... more info
Out of respect:
The Margin
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway the second time around was a disappointment. The first reading, many years ago, was a disappointment too but I chalked that opinion up to immaturity on my part. What do I chalk it up to now? I don't know. Anyway, I have to say I'm not the least bit impressed. I'm going to press on though, hoping to grasp why the New York Times said, "...a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard athletic prose...magnificent." I went to the local library today and checked out... more info
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