What makes the sun also rises a classic

Wonderful, wonderful prose! View all 14 comments. I think there is something cheesey about reviewing an old book, but I felt I had to write something, as I constructed my senior thesis in college with this book as the cornerstone, I have read it at least six times, and I consider The Sun Also Rises to be the Great American Novel.

A renaissance man, a soldier, a fisherman, and a sportswriter, a romantic and an argumentatively direct chauvinist, a conflicted religious agnostic who never aba I think there is something cheesey about reviewing an old book, but I felt I had to write something, as I constructed my senior thesis in college with this book as the cornerstone, I have read it at least six times, and I consider The Sun Also Rises to be the Great American Novel. A renaissance man, a soldier, a fisherman, and a sportswriter, a romantic and an argumentatively direct chauvinist, a conflicted religious agnostic who never abandoned religion and, it could be argued, never wrote about anything but his conflicts with religion , Hemingway was a stereotype red-blooded American like no other great writer.

An argument could be made for Fitzgerald, but the crux of that argument lies in his relationship to Hemingway and his psychotic wife. By the way, I love Fitzgerald. He is just a touch wordy. Unlike other similarly-themed novels, however, the book does not take place in America.

I postulate the Great American Novel must take place somewhere other than America, to reveal the way in which Americans can be defined as such anywhere, and to ephasize said disillusionment. I have other reasons to think thus, but suffice to say for the moment. His best ending was in Old Man and the Sea, but that work at the risk of sounding blasphemous here was slightly too poppy to be his best. Americans exist in relationship to one another.

The country has been built through a competitive spirit- fostered by democracy and that ideal we call "The American Dream".

The backlash of all that is a natural inclination to "Keep up with the Jones'," as it were. Jake Barnes is an observer, separated from the Americans and from the Europeans yet constantly comparing himself, directly or by insinuation, to others. In short, read the damn book. If you don't get it, read it again. It is arguable perhaps, though I doubt it that this book may not be the best ever written, but I do believe no greater has ever been penned.

You want a great trifecta? Follow those up by reading Ecclesiastes 1 and the Revelations of John. Now go to a cocktail party and start a conversation. You're welcome. View all 9 comments. Dec 26, Fergus rated it it was amazing. Doug worked at a nearby swimming pool as a lifeguard, and I was immersed in reading up extensively for my Eng Lit degree.

Larry, across the street from Doug, would share his Yamaha motorbike seat with me in the evenings for long rides, while Doug zipped around closer to home on his Honda 50 scooter. It was a sun-filled summer, perfect for a Hemingway novel in the same vein. I loved it and could relate. Its hero, Jake, was a lot like me. Uncompromisingly straight in orientation, we both fell victim to a private Daemon. And Jake drinks.

Drinks to forget the war injury that has driven a wedge between him and his ladylove Brett. So they usually end up the evenings getting a little happy. Oh, so you say the sun also rises? Dang, missed it again. But you gotta deal with it! And balancing homophobia with the blurred lines of vision afforded by drink always backfires. Happened to me, too, the year after I read this. Always keep one eye open. When he died in the JFK Era there was new hope in the air.

All he felt were his demons. Folks, never make a habit of drowning your demons. For your self pity will then give them strength. View all 8 comments. This phrase sums up the relationship between the narrator and his subject, Mr. Cohn quite perfectly. He shows the Robert's glory was pretty mediocre "middleweight" and a long time ago "once" and not actual.

It also shows the pretentiousness of the character through the association with Princeton. It is almost the prototypical Hemmingway prose as well being dry and direct and to the point.

The reference to boxing which is a violent, masculine sport, gives us an inkling of the bull fighting that will become the center of this early 20th century masterpiece. The relationship between Jake and Brett is an old one of disappointment and resignation, Brett always doomed to make poor decisions and Jake always doomed to clean up the messes she leaves behind. The great irony I find in Hemingway is that he uses a very direct language with a limited vocabulary and repetition, and yet there is an incredible subtlety here.

As a result of this castration, and his inbred anti-Semitism, he acts as a entremetteur in trying to tempt his erstwhile friend Robert Cohn into infidelity at the beginning of the book when he mentions the girl in Strasbourg in front of his wife, Frances. Tragically, this playing matchmaker later backfires on him when he learns that Brett has spent a weekend in Bayonne with Robert rather than coming to Spain with him.

I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you are should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure.

It is a lot to unpack, but the terse prose brings out all this nervousness in the words themselves. I had forgotten that most of the novel takes place in Paris entre-guerres and recall that the first time I read this 3 decades ago or more, I had never seen much less dreamed of living in Paris. And so it goes. One day before I am too old, I truly want to see a bullfight in Pamplona. Some day…. View 2 comments. And, pardon the pun, this completely blew that out the water!

Why did it take so long for me to get to him again? Just so glad that I did. His spare writing style, which went down a treat with me, is deceptively simple and just so readable that I found it a struggle to put the book down most of the time. I didn't want to leave it's company. I felt right at home within these pages. Wine glass in one hand, book in the other. For some, the heart and highlight of the novel is the bullfighting later on, but for me I just loved the whole darn thing equally, without the need to pick out one particular moment.

So then, Jake and his buddies head off to Spain, to fish, to witness Pamplona's Festival, the bullfighting, sinking bottle after bottle as they restlessly move from bar to bar, cafe to bar, and cafe to cafe. It sounds like parade! With all that sun, booze, and late nights the tension between the characters escalates, and everyone that seeks a connection in some way always ends up alone and disappointed come morning. In a way the the novel produces the effect of a terrible hangover as we move around in circles between the characters as they drink, eat, drink, and drink some more.

Some may bemoan that things do get repetitive, but maybe that's the whole point. This group of wanderers simply don't want the party to end. It's like that melancholic feeling of lapping up the final days of summer knowing it won't be long before the clouds and the rain come along and spoil everything.

Parts reminded me of F. Scott Fitzgerald, so certainly no harm done there, and the love affair of Jake and the lovely, impulsive tease that is Lady Brett Ashley might easily have descended into bathos. It is an erotic attraction which is destined from the start to be frustrated and doomed. Hemingway has such a sure hold on his values that he makes an absorbingly tender narrative out of it.

When Jake and Brett fall in love, and know, with that complete absence of reticence of the war generation, that nothing can be done about it, the thing might well have ended there and then.

But Hemingway shows uncanny skill in prolonging it and delivering it of all its implications. He makes his characters say one thing, convey still another, and when a whole passage of talk has been given, the reader finds himself the richer by a totally unexpected mood, a mood often enough of outrageous familiarity with obscure heartbreaks.

I simply loved it, and was dazzled from start to finish! Feb 04, Stephen M rated it it was ok Recommends it for: Manly men. Shelves: overrated. Sure, there might be a great deal of interesting people moving in and out of your living room, but everyone is so focused on getting plastered drunk on absinthe mind you , that no one cares about anything but what the most superficial impression of a person can yield. Whoo, my attempt at a complement turns into a nasty criticism and my struggle to appreciate Hemingway continues.

The Iceberg Theory. The gist of it is, is that in order to involve the reader as the author should, he must properly convey the depth of human emotion by giving the most minute of details, so that the full depth of a scene is communicated implicitly not explicitly. The theory revolves around the idea that feelings unspoken, are more profound than feelings spoken. How many times can you read a story that gives it all away? It freezes the drama; the characters go stiff.

I am reminded time and time again, that there is a wrong way to take this theory. A few lines earlier we were told that they are in Spain. So Hemingway writes that the nice churches located in Spain are like nice Spanish churches.

Then there are literal chunks of this book that scream look at me! Look how much I researched for this novel! There could be a lot of emotional depth coursing underneath all this banal prose, but it is all lost on me. I know that many people find this book to be their favorite of Hemingway, but without much action, where is the pleasure?

Why do I even care? Heck, even the fishing trip is one of the more exciting parts of this book. This is because the book is set during the Spanish Civil War.

Like not even for a few pages. I started to loath her so much, that I started to wonder is this the point? And I have to maintain my rule of thumb that anything written before containing flagrant sexism or racism must be given a cultural pass. But I must take the fact that there is a racial slur on every other page of this book with a grain of salt.

As I read this review over, it really seems like I hated this book. Well I did. But there were parts that were great. I am willing to admit, at any time, that Hemingway is just not for me.

I am always open to having my mind changed. That is what I love about this site. So please, make your case for the Papa! Bring it on! Because I want to love Hemingway. I really do. Goodreads wouldn't let me post my real recommendation. It should say "I would recommend to: Men who enjoy their women like their bull-fights, wild, violent and leaving a gaping hole where your heart used to be" View all 35 comments.

Jul 30, Lyn rated it it was amazing. I was assigned this as a junior in college, our English professor told us to read it and to be prepared to talk next week. The next class was spent on students describing their thoughts about the novel and what we thought it meant.

With a smug smile and somewhat of a condescending air, the instructor stepped form his podium and said something to the effect that readers had been missing the point for decades. This was my first experience with an unreliable narrator. Literature would never be the same again.

Complex and told on many levels, this also contains some of the most archetypal characters in all of modern literature, highlighted by the inimitable Lady Brett. View all 5 comments. Occasionally, I find a book from my early days on Goodreads when I only did star ratings and I like to go back and revisit it with a review.

This month we are reading The Sun Also Rises for one of my book clubs, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. I previously gave it 3 stars but, upon reflection, I am thinking I might push it closer to 4 stars. So, maybe 3. While I cannot say I enjoyed my experience with this book as much Occasionally, I find a book from my early days on Goodreads when I only did star ratings and I like to go back and revisit it with a review.

While I cannot say I enjoyed my experience with this book as much as I did with some other Hemingway, I am very glad I read this one. Whether you end up liking it or not I truly believe it is one of the essential Hemingway novels to read; both style and content.

After reading The Sun Also Rises, I read The Paris Wife , which is a historical fiction novel with a lot of non-fictional references in it, and realized just how autobiographical this book was. Also, this book is one of the quintessential novels of the Lost Generation. Scott Fitzgerald, T. Eliot, and others I must admit I had to go to Wikipedia to make to sure I had this list of authors correct!

While I was reading more about the Last Generation I realized how much the narrative of this book represented the mentality and artistic representation of that group. It has so much to offer beyond just being a novel and it just might send you down a rabbit hole looking for other books from and information about this era.

View all 10 comments. Jul 07, Meredith Holley rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: people on vacation. Shelves: reviewed , classic-or-cannonical , good-beach-reads , favorites. Like absence. Coming back from vacation has that feeling of loss because all of the friendships resolve into something real, whatever that may be. I think it got into my blood from reading it again and again at impressionable ages. Not a gentle comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. I love getting away for a fiesta and the bonds and prejudices that come from being with people on vacation.

I hate returning. Returning from vacation makes me really angry. I was so pleased to end the book and see the fiesta disintegrate, just as my own vacation did.

I should probably tell you about how much I love the men in this book. And I love the women here, too, even though I cannot imagine a woman ever seeing herself or seeing another woman the way Hemingway writes her. She is always sort of framed and hanging in the entryway of the story so that as people are coming and going they see her and comment on her beauty and tragedy.

I know that A Farewell to Arms is really his Romeo and Juliet and I love that book as much, even though it is more pristine and not as good a friend.

They are all in love and all fighting. The love is idealized, like maybe all love is, but like the story is not. He tells you about those pockets of comfort in life, but he also tells about what is on either side of them. I guess I am talking around what I love about the men. I had forgotten in rereading this that there is the hovering analogy of the bulls and steers throughout the book.

It is so beautifully done, without being vulgar and literal. I love that all of the emotion among the men — the respect and pity and friendship and jealousy and silent understanding — is there and tangible, but no one talks down to me about it or ruins it by bragging and explaining.

Anyway, I have always been partial to Benvolio, and I think Bill is a sort of Benvolio character here, even though you will maybe say he is a Mercutio because of all of his chatter and utilizing. Maybe Jake is my Benvolio. Of course, Cohn must be Romeo.

I love being told about all of them. The love stories here are so much the opposite of love stories that I am thinking about calling this book an anti-romance. Maybe I am wrong, though. The Valentines Day sense. For a while now, I have been looking for what I find to be truly romantic in stories. By that I mean, what I find to actually sell me on the idea of love.

Maybe that exists. What he writes about, though, is beautiful and interesting, and it exists to me. I have read this book more times than any other, and even though it is different to me each time, and I see something new, it is always a friend. I am happy keeping it to myself. I mostly wanted to tell you about how I love vacations and hate coming back from them, and how it is always just like in the book.

I also wanted to tell you about how Chapter 12 is probably my favorite writing that exists, and how I love the rain and I love it when Hemingway writes about the rain. I think Hemingway understood a lot of things differently than I do, but he talks about them so perfectly.

View all 85 comments. Jul 23, Arah-Lynda rated it did not like it Shelves: i-said. While I was reading this I thought time and again about a quote from another book. This one: Mrs. In life people are not conscious of these special moments that novelists build their whole structures on. That is most people are not. That surely has nothing to do with the story but you can not tell until you finish it because none of the significant things are going to have any literary signs marking them.

You have to figure them out for yourself. It is not what they had hoped or expected from me. Gertrude Stein once told me that remarks are not literature. All right, let it go at that. Only this time all the remarks are going in and if it is not literature who claimed it was anyway. When the nineteen-year-old Hemingway returned home in , his parents did not understand the psychological trauma he had suffered during the war, and they pestered him to get a job or go to college.

Hemingway eventually began working for the Toronto Star Weekly. He married his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in His novel The Sun Also Rises, published in , established him as one of the preeminent writers of his day. The Sun Also Rises portrays the lives of the members of the so-called Lost Generation, the group of men and women whose early adulthood was consumed by World War I.

This horrific conflict, referred to as the Great War, set new standards for death and immorality in war. Without these long-held notions to rely on, members of the generation that fought and worked in the war suffered great moral and psychological aimlessness. Although the characters rarely mention the war directly, its effects haunt everything they do and say.

Also he was sure that he loved her. When this lady saw that the magazine was not going to rise, she became a little disgusted with Cohn and decided that she might as well get what there was to get while there was still something available, so she urged that they go to Europe, where Cohn could write. They came to Europe, where the lady had been educated, and stayed three years.

During these three years, the first spent in travel, the last two in Paris, Robert Cohn had two friends, Braddocks and myself. Braddocks was his literary friend.

I was his tennis friend. The lady who had him, her name was Frances, found toward the end of the second year that her looks were going, and her attitude toward Robert changed from one of careless possession and exploitation to the absolute determination that he should marry her. During this time Robert's mother had settled an allowance on him, about three hundred dollars a month. During two years and a half I do not believe that Robert Cohn looked at another woman.

He was fairly happy, except that, like many people living in Europe, he would rather have been in America, and he had discovered writing. He wrote a novel, and it was not really such a bad novel as the critics later called it, although it was a very poor novel. He read many books, played bridge, played tennis, and boxed at a local gymnasium. I first became aware of his lady's attitude toward him one night after the three of us had dined together. We had several fines after the coffee, and I said I must be going.

Cohn had been talking about the two of us going off somewhere on a weekend trip. He wanted to get out of town and get in a good walk. I suggested we fly to Strasbourg and walk up to Saint Odile, or somewhere or other in Alsace.

Somebody kicked me under the table. I thought it was accidental and went on: "She's been there two years and knows everything there is to know about the town. She's a swell girl. We could go up to Bruges, or to the Ardennes. I was not kicked again. I said good-night and went out. Cohn said he wanted to buy a paper and would walk to the corner with me.