The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is a novel that follows a group of expatriates living in Paris and traveling to Spain. The story revolves around themes of love, friendship, post-war trauma, and the search for meaning in a seemingly aimless existence. The writing style is characterized by simple yet powerful phrasing, sparse dialogue, and an understated tone that conveys the characters' emotions and struggles.
The novel explores the complex relationships between the characters, particularly focusing on the central figure of Lady Brett Ashley and her entanglements with various men in the group. Set against the backdrop of the post-World War I era, the book delves into themes of impotence, unrequited love, and the disillusionment of the Lost Generation. Hemingway's portrayal of bullfighting, drinking culture, and the expatriate lifestyle adds depth to the narrative, highlighting the characters' internal conflicts and external experiences.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for The Sun Also Rises include references to anti-Semitism, misogyny, heavy drinking, and the discussion of sexual trauma.
Has Romance?
The romance in The Sun Also Rises is significant, primarily centered on the relationship between Jake and Brett, alongside her affairs with other characters.
From The Publisher:
American Journalist Jake Barnes is desperately in love with the beautiful Lady Brett Ashley. She moves seductively through the seemingly glamorous milieu of American and British expats, loving, living and partying in Paris in the 1920's. They're a hedonistic generation, marked by the violence and privations of WW1, in pursuit of adventure.
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Ever restless, Jake and Lady Brett travel together with a disparate group of friends through France to Pamplona in Spain. There they are taken up by the vitality and the spectacle of the famous Fiesta of St Fermin. In a city famous for its bullfighting, Jake is plagued by jealousy and real love seems forever out of reach. The drama of the bullfighting is captured on the page by Hemingway with brutal realism in a remarkable novel that secured his place as an astonishing new writer and a voice for his generation.
Ratings (75)
Incredible (13) | |
Loved It (16) | |
Liked It (19) | |
It Was OK (15) | |
Did Not Like (8) | |
Hated It (4) |
Reader Stats (135):
Read It (77) | |
Want To Read (43) | |
Did Not Finish (4) | |
Not Interested (11) |
2 comment(s)
those people sure have a lot of free time on their hands.
It was such a book about nothing, but it was a surprisingly quick read.
The characters were a bit annoying, but nothing serious. I just don't like to watch drunk people, and here everyone was drunk all the time. Most of the scenes took place when they poured umpteen bottles of alcohol into themselves. Nothing really to writing home about. Just a mediocre records from visits to bars.
The main conflict boils down to the only female character, Brett, who has affairs with all the men that come her way, usually simultaneously. And, of course, all this in front of her always drunk fiancé, who actually doesn't seem to mind. Did I mention that Brett hasn't gotten a divorce from her previous husband yet? Well, as the only female character, Brett is in this story to mess things up. But because all these characters are constantly drunk, it was hard for me to take any of their feelings and thoughts seriously. Including the rarely sober Brett.
Overall, reading this novel is a bit like watching Jersey Shore. It's hard to take it all seriously and care about it. And you look at all of them as big, but very frisky children. You just wait for them to wise up.
Of course, I won't be surprised if this book turns out to have a very deep message and is an exceptionally accurate or interesting portrayal of the society and its problems of the author's time. But as for me, any deeper thought would have to push through the alcohol fumes that all the characters drink first.
What can you read after
The Sun Also Rises?
About the Author:
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in 1899. His father was a doctor and he was the second of six children. Their home was in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.
In 1917 Hemingway joined the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. The following year he volunteered to work as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front, where he was badly wounded but twice decorated for his services. In 1922 he reported on the Greco-Turkish War, then two years later resigned from journalism to devote himself to fiction.
Hemingway's first two published works were Three Stories and Ten Poems and In Our Time but it was the satirical novel The Torrents of Spring that established his name more widely. His international reputation was firmly secured by his next three books: The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women and A Farewell to Arms. He visited Spain during the Civil War and described his experiences in the bestseller For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.
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