When I first read The Sun Also Rises over fifteen years ago, I was captivated by Hemingway’s writing style and intrigued by his characters and the numerous settings where his novel takes place. A roughly fictionalized biography about his time in Paris and Spain (during post World War I) led me to believe as a young man that everything I read seemed as far away from my life (growing up in the Bronx) just as Saturn was a jillion miles away from Earth. But after I completed reading The Sun Also Rises for a second time, I found myself having a complete opposite reaction. Where I was at first attracted to the story because it represented everything I lacked, I found myself attracted to the story because all the themes Hemingway brought forth resembled aspects of my current life. At the core, The Sun Also Rises deals with a group of thirty-something expatriates struggling to figure out life (or just survive the brutality and ugliness of life), after experiencing the horrors of the Great War, where over 8 million people died in a short period of time. With his keen social observational skills, the result for Hemingway was one of the best books ever written about humanity after World War I, and is still being read almost eighty years after it was first published in 1926.
Hemingway’s novel opens with two quotes. One was from the poet Gertrude Stein, where she dubs her peers the "Lost Generation", a fitting remark considering that Hemingway’s characters seem bitter about the war, eager to wander around aimlessly, seeking adventure, while caught up in their own bubbles of personal tragedy.
Characters
Jake Barnes, Hemingway’s hero, is a WWI veteran, an American writer working for a local paper in Paris. We see the story through his eyes as he describes his friends and colleagues. Jake is unable to fulfill his desire for a woman in the hedonistic environment of the Roaring 20s, partly due to the lost innocence he endured from the horrors of war, as well as from the unidentified wound that he suffered on the battlefield, rending him impotent.
Lady Brett Ashley, is the independent English woman, who exerts great power over the men around her (Jake included), yet she is unable to commit to one man. Her somberness is related to the loss of her lover during the War, which explains why she has difficulty in being alone. Her loss could symbolize the Lost Generation’s search for shattered prewar values, love, and romance.
Robert Cohn, a writer from America and Princeton grad, is the classic outsider. A shy person by nature, his confidence grew as he achieved literary success, but he is driven by his anxiety and desire to fit in with Jake and his crowd, who often criticize him for not being a veteran. Because he is Jewish, Cohn is an easy target for the rest of the group who express their own insecurities and hostilities against him. He is the complete opposite of the typical Hemingway hero: falsely sentimental, maudlin about his emotions, with no honor and truth towards a personal code or any particular person, and completely self-involved.
Main Themes
The Lost Generation is a fancy way to fluff up the hard nosed, irresponsible living of many artists living in Europe after the Great War. Like Hemingway’s characters, the lot of them spent most of their time partying and drinking, and traveling in search of new adventures. The consistent active experience disguises and masks their inner pain and conflict, and the serious need to deal with grave and unattainable philosophical questions: Why did millions of people die, yet I lived? The second opening quote from Hemingway is from the Bible, a passage from Ecclesiastes, and a glimmer of hope that the future generations rediscover themselves.
Masculinity and sexuality are important themes that Hemingway illustrated through the rigorous, violent, yet sexually exciting bullfighting scenes. The mantra of a new hero emerged from Hemingway’s novel (which may or may not have influenced many detective writers who based their main characters after Hemingway’s tragic hero Jake Barnes). He is an adventurous, rough drinker, a man’s man who stays out of trouble, yet he is inherently flawed, incapable of true love, unable to fulfill the needs of the interested female in his life.
Failure to communicate and false friendships seem to plague Hemingway’s characters. When caught up in social relationships centered on partying (from personal experience, I can attest that those are never "real" and "honest" relationships) more often than not conversations that occur are infrequently direct and lack honesty. Although all of them are united in the fact they all share the torment of the horrors of war, they are all unable to convey and share their personal feelings, and when they do, it’s never a serious discussion. Failure to communicate is related to the false friendships that everyone seems to have with one another. Everyone seems unable to form sincere genuine connections with one another. Not only are the characters physically wandering around from place to place, but also so too are their relationships, wandering aimlessly back and forth between people, civil, yet never forming a true bond with one another.
Alcoholism runs rampant throughout his novel. In every scene, someone is drinking (although I would never describe it as a party novel… the alcohol was just part of the society at that time) or the characters are on their way to get a drink, a true indication of escapism. Instead of dealing with their problems, they all drink to forget about their shortcomings. Hemingway displays how excessive drinking can worsen the mental and physical turmoil that every character possesses.
War destroys more lives than those just fighting on the battlefield. I had justified that statement as one of the essay questions from my high school English class. Hemingway accurately depicts the degenerated society of expatriate writers and artists in Paris, lacking morality and cohesion after World War I, slipping in and out of malaise, dislocated from social values, yet fully disgruntled about conventional thinking, but unable to find a healthy and suitable alternative. The Lost Generation… indeed.
The Sun Also Rises is one of the best novel I have read. Hemingway's laconic, no bullshit style, makes for a fast and quick read. He does not waste words, nor your time. Hemingway has influenced me over the years, and for the first time I fully realized the similarities between my experiences and some of his (and his character Jake's), which I hope will inspire me and push me towards writing a truly great piece of fiction.
Here's a bit: "In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in Luxemborg gardens were in bloom. There was a pleasant early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams and people going to work... I passed by the man with the jumping frogs and the man with boxer toys... The man was urging two tourists to buy."
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