T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition on + 273 more book reviews
I haven't read a Hemingway novel since I-don't-know-when, but there have been a proliferation of revised and enhanced versions published in the last ten years or so, and I've been meaning to get back to a few of them, which often, as in the case, include deleted passages, handwritten notes, chapter drafts and drawings and photos of the handwritten manuscripts, much of the material herein derived from the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library.
The back dust cover flap states that "Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time," but I leave it to the reader to judge whether that's a positive or a negative: his staccato -like style, with the cadence of an old-fashioned typewriter, is abrasive to some, but refreshingly genuine and honest to others. It certainly works here: as with several of his other novels, the overall theme is that of futility, and the writing style certainly enhances that element. Where English prose of the late eighteenth and early twentieth century was often effusive and thick with description, Hemingway's journalistic style is all about the cold, hard facts, and seemingly little else. His (sometime-) good friend Gertrude Stein referred to him and other luminaries of the day as The Lost Generation, survivors of an apocalypse which swept away in a period of five years nearly an entire generation of young men, in response to a passage from Ecclesiasties, which reads in part: "vanity of vanities; all is vanity... one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever... The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose..."
The Sun Also Rises was published not long after the end of the Great War, in 1926, when many British and Americans had migrated to Paris, seemingly trying to make sense of their lives after surviving something unlivable. As with many of Hemingway's other books, it's partly an autobiography, the basis for which was a trip to Pamplona to watch the annual Festival of San Fermin and the now-world-famous running of the bulls. It's now often considered his greatest work, highlighting the cafe society which characterized the social interaction of the day. The premise of the story is a curious one, considering Hemingway's reputation: it follows the main character, Jake Barnes, who is in love with a floozy, but is thwarted in his pursuit of her, as a war wound has seemingly rendered him impotent. Several of the other characters fare little better, including Robert Cohn, who has likewise had a tryst with her, but whom she has left for another man, soon to be a third, when she randomly hooks up with a 1year-old bullfighter.
The Lost Generation, in the aftermath of the Great War, was indeed comprised of the remnant of survivors of that great conflagration, which is manifest in their residual trauma, including self-medication with imitation absinthe and every other intoxicating substance under the sun. Nothing happens without alcohol; it's the one constant in the book, perhaps along with the incessant arguing and interpersonal conflict among the characters. Another primary theme is the post-traumatic-stress-induced hedonism, along with a healthy dose of apathy, which renders all the characters shiftless, aimless wandering, trying to find the lost parts of themselves, as often happens following a catastrophic event, when all caution and sometimes decency is thrown to the wind. The characters engage in constant instant gratification, as nothing else matters; they have received no direction or guidance on how to deal with those events, and, as the story ends with Brett deciding to return to one of the shiftless characters she has previously abandoned, it appears that there is indeed nothing new under the sun: all remain disillusioned, apathetic, and irredeemable. Hemingway's work is perplexing, however, as it also juxtaposes the generational abandon with the literary proliferation of great works which were produced along with it.
---------NOTABLE PASSAGES---------
About Hemingway, by John Aldridge, "The words he put down seemed to us to have been carve from the living stone of life."
Going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that.
She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.
It felt comfortable to be in a country where it is so simple to make people happy.
[France] is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you have only to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me back. I would dine there again some time and he would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France.
The back dust cover flap states that "Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time," but I leave it to the reader to judge whether that's a positive or a negative: his staccato -like style, with the cadence of an old-fashioned typewriter, is abrasive to some, but refreshingly genuine and honest to others. It certainly works here: as with several of his other novels, the overall theme is that of futility, and the writing style certainly enhances that element. Where English prose of the late eighteenth and early twentieth century was often effusive and thick with description, Hemingway's journalistic style is all about the cold, hard facts, and seemingly little else. His (sometime-) good friend Gertrude Stein referred to him and other luminaries of the day as The Lost Generation, survivors of an apocalypse which swept away in a period of five years nearly an entire generation of young men, in response to a passage from Ecclesiasties, which reads in part: "vanity of vanities; all is vanity... one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever... The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose..."
The Sun Also Rises was published not long after the end of the Great War, in 1926, when many British and Americans had migrated to Paris, seemingly trying to make sense of their lives after surviving something unlivable. As with many of Hemingway's other books, it's partly an autobiography, the basis for which was a trip to Pamplona to watch the annual Festival of San Fermin and the now-world-famous running of the bulls. It's now often considered his greatest work, highlighting the cafe society which characterized the social interaction of the day. The premise of the story is a curious one, considering Hemingway's reputation: it follows the main character, Jake Barnes, who is in love with a floozy, but is thwarted in his pursuit of her, as a war wound has seemingly rendered him impotent. Several of the other characters fare little better, including Robert Cohn, who has likewise had a tryst with her, but whom she has left for another man, soon to be a third, when she randomly hooks up with a 1year-old bullfighter.
The Lost Generation, in the aftermath of the Great War, was indeed comprised of the remnant of survivors of that great conflagration, which is manifest in their residual trauma, including self-medication with imitation absinthe and every other intoxicating substance under the sun. Nothing happens without alcohol; it's the one constant in the book, perhaps along with the incessant arguing and interpersonal conflict among the characters. Another primary theme is the post-traumatic-stress-induced hedonism, along with a healthy dose of apathy, which renders all the characters shiftless, aimless wandering, trying to find the lost parts of themselves, as often happens following a catastrophic event, when all caution and sometimes decency is thrown to the wind. The characters engage in constant instant gratification, as nothing else matters; they have received no direction or guidance on how to deal with those events, and, as the story ends with Brett deciding to return to one of the shiftless characters she has previously abandoned, it appears that there is indeed nothing new under the sun: all remain disillusioned, apathetic, and irredeemable. Hemingway's work is perplexing, however, as it also juxtaposes the generational abandon with the literary proliferation of great works which were produced along with it.
---------NOTABLE PASSAGES---------
About Hemingway, by John Aldridge, "The words he put down seemed to us to have been carve from the living stone of life."
Going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that.
She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.
It felt comfortable to be in a country where it is so simple to make people happy.
[France] is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you have only to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me back. I would dine there again some time and he would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France.
