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Hemingway's first bestselling novel, it is the story of a group of 'Lost Generation' Americans and Brits in the 1920s on a sojourn from Paris to Pamploma, Spain. The novel poignantly details their life as expatriates on Paris' Left Bank, and conveys the brutality of bullfighting in Spain. The novel established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists of all time.
— New York World
"An absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heart-breaking narrative...It is a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard athletic prose...magnificent."
— The New York Times
Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. As part of the expatriate community in 1920s Paris, the former journalist and World War I ambulance driver began a career that led to international fame. Hemingway was an aficionado of bullfighting and big-game hunting, and his main protagonists were always men and women of courage and conviction who suffered unseen scars, both physical and emotional. He covered the Spanish Civil War, portraying it in the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he also covered World War II. His classic novella The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He died in 1961.
During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises (1926). Equally successful was A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an American ambulance officer's disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the story of an old fisherman's journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat.
Hemingway -- himself a great sportsman -- liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters - tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this confrontation lose hope and faith. His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories, some of which are collected in Men Without Women (1927) and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961.
© The Nobel Foundation 1954.
Chapter One
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him, although, being very shy and a thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in the gym. He was Spider Kelly's star pupil. Spider Kelly taught all his young gentlemen to box like featherweights, no matter whether they weighed one hundred and five or two hundred and five pounds. But it seemed to fit Cohn. He was really very fast. He was so good that Spider promptly overmatched him and got his nose permanently flattened. This increased Cohn's distaste for boxing, but it gave him a certain satisfaction of some strange sort, and it certainly improved his nose. In his last year at Princeton he read too much and took to wearing spectacles. I never met any one of his class who remembered him. They did not even remember that he was middleweight boxing champion.
I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together, and I always had a suspicion that perhaps Robert Cohn had never been middleweight boxing champion, and that perhaps a horse had stepped on his face, or that maybe his mother had been frightened or seen something, or that he had, maybe, bumped into something as a young child, but I finally had somebody verify the story from Spider Kelly. Spider Kelly not only remembered Cohn. He had often wondered what had become of him.
Robert Cohn was a member, through his father, of one of the richest Jewish families in New York, and through his mother of one of the oldest. At the military school where he prepped for Princeton, and played a very good end on the football team, no one had made him race-conscious. No one had ever made him feel he was a Jew, and hence any different from anybody else, until he went to Princeton. He was a nice boy, a friendly boy, and very shy, and it made him bitter. He took it out in boxing, and he came out of Princeton with painful self-consciousness and the flattened nose, and was married by the first girl who was nice to him. He was married five years, had three children, lost most of the fifty thousand dollars his father left him, the balance of the estate having gone to his mother, hardened into a rather unattractive mould under domestic unhappiness with a rich wife; and just when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him and went off with a miniature-painter. As he had been thinking for months about leaving his wife and had not done it because it would be too cruel to deprive her of himself, her departure was a very healthful shock.
The divorce was arranged and Robert Cohn went out to the Coast. In California he fell among literary people and, as he still had a little of the fifty thousand left, in a short time he was backing a review of the Arts. The review commenced publication in Carmel, California, and finished in Provincetown, Massachusetts. By that time Cohn, who had been regarded purely as an angel, and whose name had appeared on the editorial page merely as a member of the advisory board, had become the sole editor. It was his money and he discovered he liked the authority of editing. He was sorry when the magazine became too expensive and he had to give it up.
By that time, though, he had other things to worry about. He had been taken in hand by a lady who hoped to rise with the magazine. She was very forceful, and Cohn never had a chance of not being taken in hand. 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 dined at l'Avenue's and afterward went to the Café de Versailles for coffee. 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. "I know a girl in Strasbourg who can show us the town," I said.
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."
I was kicked again under the table and, looking, saw Frances, Robert's lady, her chin lifting and her face hardening.
"Hell," I said, "why go to Strasbourg? We could go up to Bruges, or to the Ardennes."
Cohn looked relieved. 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. "For God's sake," he said, "why did you say that about that girl in Strasbourg for? Didn't you see Frances?"
"No, why should I? If I know an American girl that lives in Strasbourg what the hell is it to Frances?"
"It doesn't make any difference. Any girl. I couldn't go, that would be all."
"Don't be silly."
"You don't know Frances. Any girl at all. Didn't you see the way she looked?"
"Oh, well," I said, "let's go to Senlis."
"Don't get sore."
"I'm not sore. Senlis is a good place and we can stay at the Grand Cerf and take a hike in the woods and come home."
"Good, that will be fine."
"Well, I'll see you to-morrow at the courts," I said.
"Good-night, Jake," he said, and started back to the café.
"You forgot to get your paper," I said.
"That's so." He walked with me up to the kiosque at the corner. "You are not sore, are you, Jake?" He turned with the paper in his hand.
"No, why should I be?"
"See you at tennis," he said. I watched him walk back to the café holding his paper. I rather liked him and evidently she led him quite a life.
Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner's Sons
Copyright renewed © 1954 by Ernest Hemingway
Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton. There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him, although, being very shy and a thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in the gym. He was Spider Kelly's star pupil. Spider Kelly taught all his young gentlemen to box like featherweights, no matter whether they weighed one hundred and five or two hundred and five pounds. But it seemed to fit Cohn. He was really very fast. He was so good that Spider promptly overmatched him and got his nose permanently flattened. This increased Cohn's distaste for boxing, but it gave him a certain satisfaction of some strange sort, and it certainly improved his nose. In his last year at Princeton he read too much and took to wearing spectacles. I never met any one of his class who remembered him. They did not even remember that he was middleweight boxing champion.
I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together, and I always had a suspicion that perhaps Robert Cohn had never been middleweight boxing champion, and that perhaps a horse had stepped on his face, or that maybe his mother had been frightened or seen something, or that he had, maybe, bumped into something as a young child, but I finally had somebody verify the story from Spider Kelly. Spider Kelly not only remembered Cohn. He had often wondered what had become of him.
Robert Cohn was a member, through his father, of one of the richest Jewish families in New York, and through his mother of one of the oldest. At the military school where he prepped for Princeton, and played a very good end on the football team, no one had made him race-conscious. No one had ever made him feel he was a Jew, and hence any different from anybody else, until he went to Princeton. He was a nice boy, a friendly boy, and very shy, and it made him bitter. He took it out in boxing, and he came out of Princeton with painful self-consciousness and the flattened nose, and was married by the first girl who was nice to him. He was married five years, had three children, lost most of the fifty thousand dollars his father left him, the balance of the estate having gone to his mother, hardened into a rather unattractive mould under domestic unhappiness with a rich wife; and just when he had made up his mind to leave his wife she left him and went off with a miniature-painter. As he had been thinking for months about leaving his wife and had not done it because it would be too cruel to deprive her of himself, her departure was a very healthful shock.
The divorce was arranged and Robert Cohn went out to the Coast. In California he fell among literary people and, as he still had a little of the fifty thousand left, in a short time he was backing a review of the Arts. The review commenced publication in Carmel, California, and finished in Provincetown, Massachusetts. By that time Cohn, who had been regarded purely as an angel, and whose name had appeared on the editorial page merely as a member of the advisory board, had become the sole editor. It was his money and he discovered he liked the authority of editing. He was sorry when the magazine became too expensive and he had to give it up.
By that time, though, he had other things to worry about. He had been taken in hand by a lady who hoped to rise with the magazine. She was very forceful, and Cohn never had a chance of not being taken in hand. 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 dined at l'Avenue's and afterward went to the Café de Versailles for coffee. 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. "I know a girl in Strasbourg who can show us the town," I said.
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."
I was kicked again under the table and, looking, saw Frances, Robert's lady, her chin lifting and her face hardening.
"Hell," I said, "why go to Strasbourg? We could go up to Bruges, or to the Ardennes."
Cohn looked relieved. 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. "For God's sake," he said, "why did you say that about that girl in Strasbourg for? Didn't you see Frances?"
"No, why should I? If I know an American girl that lives in Strasbourg what the hell is it to Frances?"
"It doesn't make any difference. Any girl. I couldn't go, that would be all."
"Don't be silly."
"You don't know Frances. Any girl at all. Didn't you see the way she looked?"
"Oh, well," I said, "let's go to Senlis."
"Don't get sore."
"I'm not sore. Senlis is a good place and we can stay at the Grand Cerf and take a hike in the woods and come home."
"Good, that will be fine."
"Well, I'll see you to-morrow at the courts," I said.
"Good-night, Jake," he said, and started back to the café.
"You forgot to get your paper," I said.
"That's so." He walked with me up to the kiosque at the corner. "You are not sore, are you, Jake?" He turned with the paper in his hand.
"No, why should I be?"
"See you at tennis," he said. I watched him walk back to the café holding his paper. I rather liked him and evidently she led him quite a life.
Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner's Sons
Copyright renewed © 1954 by Ernest Hemingway
Reading Group Guide for The Sun Also Rises
Introduction
Ernest Hemingway was born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. After graduation from high school, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked briefly for the Kansas City Star. Failing to qualify for the United States Army because of poor eyesight, he enlisted with the American Red Cross to drive ambulances in Italy. He was severely wounded on the Austrian front on July 9, 1918. Following recuperation in a Milan hospital, he returned home and became a freelance writer for the Toronto Star.
In December of 1921, he sailed to France and joined an expatriate community of writers and artists in Paris while continuing to write for the Toronto Star. There his fiction career began in "little magazines" and small presses and led to a volume of short stories, In Our Time (1925). His novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) established Hemingway as the most important and influential fiction writer of his generation. His later collections of short stories and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) affirmed his extraordinary career while his highly publicized life gave him unrivaled celebrity as a literary figure.
Hemingway became an authority on the subjects of his art: trout fishing, bullfighting, big-game hunting, and deep-sea fishing, and the cultures of the regions in which he set his work — France, Italy, Spain, Cuba, and Africa.
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) earned him the Pulitzer Prize and was instrumental in his being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954. Hemingway died in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961.
Description
Jake Barnes, an American newspaperman emasculated by a wound suffered in Italy during World War I, is living and working in Paris in the expatriate community. He takes friends Bill Gorton, Lady Brett Ashley (whom Jake loves), her fiancé, Mike Campbell, and Robert Cohn (also in love with Brett) to Spain for trout fishing and bullfighting during the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona. Tensions mount among Campbell, Cohn, and Barnes over Brett and intensify as she falls in love with Pedro Romero, a nineteen-year-old bullfighter. At the end of the festival, Brett leaves with Romero, Bill returns to Paris, Mike goes to St. Jean de Luz, and Jake goes to San Sebastian for a respite soon ended when he receives a telegram from Brett. Jake goes immediately to her aid in Madrid, where he finds her momentarily remorseful and evading truth about Romero and her relationship with Jake.
Discussion Questions
1. When Jake Barnes rebuffs the prostitute Georgette because he is "sick," she says, "Everybody's sick. I'm sick, too" (p.23). Is Georgette's observation an appropriate description of the people in the novel? Why is Jake's emasculating wound such an effective symbol?
2. When Jake and Bill walk during the Paris evening looking at Notre Dame, watching young lovers, and savoring cooking smells, Jake asks whether Bill would like a drink. Why does Bill respond, "No...I don't need it" (p. 83)? Why does Jake say that for Cohn the Bayonne cathedral was "a very good example of something or other" (p. 96)?
3. Is Jake and Bill's fishing trip to Burguete relevant to the epigraph from Ecclesiastes? How do their conversations in Burguete differ from those they have back in Pamplona? How do Robert's, Mike's, and Brett's absences from the fishing trip set them apart from Jake and Bill? Why is the Englishman Harris included in the Burguete scene?
4. How would you describe Jake Barnes's relationship with Brett? Does he love her; understand her? Is his view of Brett constant? How does he see her at the close of the novel? What does he mean when he says, "Isn't it pretty to think so," when Brett tells him that they "could have had such a damned good time together" (p. 251)?
5. If Hemingway's novel is about "the lost generation," do we conclude that all five of the persons who have gone to Pamplona are lost? Is there evidence that moral or spiritual cleansing ever takes place in the novel?
After Reading the Novel
It would be difficult to overstate the remarkable influence of The Sun Also Rises upon its millions of readers. Not only did Hemingway's novel influence our prose and our conduct, it introduced Paris and Pamplona to many of us and made them so real that when we visit them, we feel as if we are returning for a closer look rather than seeing them for the first time. Several guides to Hemingway's Paris, complete with maps, photographs, and walking tours are in print which would provide your group with an opportunity to follow Jake Barnes's footsteps down the little side street Rue Delambre at the intersection of the Boulevard Raspail and Montparnasse to the Dingo Bar, where Jake and Brett had drinks, and Ernest Hemingway met Scott Fitzgerald for the first time in the spring of 1925. Guidebooks will also lead you through narrow streets of Pamplona where the bulls run and along Paseo Hemingway to the bullring, where a bust of the famous writer stands, bearing a statement of gratitude to him from the people of Spain.
Reading Group Guide for The Sun Also Rises
Introduction
Ernest Hemingway was born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. After graduation from high school, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked briefly for the Kansas City Star. Failing to qualify for the United States Army because of poor eyesight, he enlisted with the American Red Cross to drive ambulances in Italy. He was severely wounded on the Austrian front on July 9, 1918. Following recuperation in a Milan hospital, he returned home and became a freelance writer for the Toronto Star.
In December of 1921, he sailed to France and joined an expatriate community of writers and artists in Paris while continuing to write for the Toronto Star. There his fiction career began in "little magazines" and small presses and led to a volume of short stories, In Our Time (1925). His novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) established Hemingway as the most important and influential fiction writer of his generation. His later collections of short stories and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) affirmed his extraordinary career while his highly publicized life gave him unrivaled celebrity as a literary figure.
Hemingway became an authority on the subjects of his art: trout fishing, bullfighting, big-game hunting, and deep-sea fishing, and the cultures of the regions in which he set his work -- France, Italy, Spain, Cuba, and Africa.
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) earned him the Pulitzer Prize and was instrumental in his being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954. Hemingway died in Ketchum, Idaho, onJuly 2, 1961.
Description
Jake Barnes, an American newspaperman emasculated by a wound suffered in Italy during World War I, is living and working in Paris in the expatriate community. He takes friends Bill Gorton, Lady Brett Ashley (whom Jake loves), her fiancé, Mike Campbell, and Robert Cohn (also in love with Brett) to Spain for trout fishing and bullfighting during the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona. Tensions mount among Campbell, Cohn, and Barnes over Brett and intensify as she falls in love with Pedro Romero, a nineteen-year-old bullfighter. At the end of the festival, Brett leaves with Romero, Bill returns to Paris, Mike goes to St. Jean de Luz, and Jake goes to San Sebastian for a respite soon ended when he receives a telegram from Brett. Jake goes immediately to her aid in Madrid, where he finds her momentarily remorseful and evading truth about Romero and her relationship with Jake.
Discussion Questions
1. When Jake Barnes rebuffs the prostitute Georgette because he is "sick," she says, "Everybody's sick. I'm sick, too" (p.23). Is Georgette's observation an appropriate description of the people in the novel? Why is Jake's emasculating wound such an effective symbol?
2. When Jake and Bill walk during the Paris evening looking at Notre Dame, watching young lovers, and savoring cooking smells, Jake asks whether Bill would like a drink. Why does Bill respond, "No...I don't need it" (p. 83)? Why does Jake say that for Cohn the Bayonne cathedral was "a very good example of something or other" (p. 96)?
3. Is Jake and Bill's fishing trip to Burguete relevant to the epigraph from Ecclesiastes? How do their conversations in Burguete differ from those they have back in Pamplona? How do Robert's, Mike's, and Brett's absences from the fishing trip set them apart from Jake and Bill? Why is the Englishman Harris included in the Burguete scene?
4. How would you describe Jake Barnes's relationship with Brett? Does he love her; understand her? Is his view of Brett constant? How does he see her at the close of the novel? What does he mean when he says, "Isn't it pretty to think so," when Brett tells him that they "could have had such a damned good time together" (p. 251)?
5. If Hemingway's novel is about "the lost generation," do we conclude that all five of the persons who have gone to Pamplona are lost? Is there evidence that moral or spiritual cleansing ever takes place in the novel?
After Reading the Novel
It would be difficult to overstate the remarkable influence of The Sun Also Rises upon its millions of readers. Not only did Hemingway's novel influence our prose and our conduct, it introduced Paris and Pamplona to many of us and made them so real that when we visit them, we feel as if we are returning for a closer look rather than seeing them for the first time. Several guides to Hemingway's Paris, complete with maps, photographs, and walking tours are in print which would provide your group with an opportunity to follow Jake Barnes's footsteps down the little side street Rue Delambre at the intersection of the Boulevard Raspail and Montparnasse to the Dingo Bar, where Jake and Brett had drinks, and Ernest Hemingway met Scott Fitzgerald for the first time in the spring of 1925. Guidebooks will also lead you through narrow streets of Pamplona where the bulls run and along Paseo Hemingway to the bullring, where a bust of the famous writer stands, bearing a statement of gratitude to him from the people of Spain.
timtimtim
Posted February 3, 2010
What I like most about Hemingway, is his pacing. I'm not one who thinks that how fast one can turn the pages necessarily equates to the quality of the writing. I find for me to really enjoy Hemingway, I have to read some parts even slower than I typically would, so that the writing really soaks in, and leaves a lasting impression. A few passages that come to mind that I happily waded through, was the bus trek through the mountains and when Jake goes into great detail describing bull fighting.
Don't feel like you need to burn right through the book (unless, I guess if you're reading it for a paper due tomorrow). Hemingway's writing really shines at a slower reading pace than say, compared to a Dan Brown novel.
It's definitely a good read, as long as you are willing to commit to Hemingway's style and pacing. If not, you'll be miserable.
10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 18, 2006
Wow this was definately one of the worst books I've ever read. Despite coming with high reccomendations from two people I really just didn't understand why it was so famous. Little plot, character development, etc. It isn't even one of those books where you finish it confused but appreciate it through reflection
5 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's Great Gatsby. Fun and quirky characters, various city settings, and a great attention to story development keep the narration of this novel flowing. You become a part of these characters' lives, and delve into their various worlds.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I thought The Sun Also Rises was a great book. It was my first Hemingway and I was unsure of how much I would like it. I have heard a lot of things about his books being boring. I think boring is a terrible word people are using. Maybe they mean 'simple'. His writing style is very to the point and very matter of fact. He does not use words he doesn't need to. The story is easy to follow, other than the conversations sometimes can get tricky. I thought it was a beautifully written book that is somewhat easy to relate to. The ending of the book is PERFECT. If you read this for class you may benefit reading it again for leisure.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 20, 2012
During a visit to my school library, the librarian had been discussing the book, “The Sun Also Rises.” The way she described it, it seemed to be something I’d be interested in reading, especially her subtle suggestion that it was about a guy who had some “male issues.” After being introduced to the main character, Jake Barnes, who also makes subtle suggestions, you find that he is impotent, most likely from an injury he sustained during World War I. From what I gathered he and a group of friends are all American Expatriates who tend to Globe Trot. They take many trips and meet up all over the world. One of Jakes closest friends Robert Cohn is the first that he mentions, before the love of his life, Lady Brett Ashley. Robert Cohn is not a war veteran, but a former middle-weight boxing champion at Princeton. Lady Brett Ashley is a very attractive British socialite who met Jake Barnes while treating his war wounds. Although they were quite close and cared about each other, you find that she is unwilling to be with Jake because she cannot have a sexual relationship due to his injury. Instead you are introduced to more of Jake’s war buddies as the story goes along, and find that Lady Brett Ashley is quite a promiscuous woman. She seems to have sex with everyone but Jake Barnes. On a trip to Spain to party and watch bullfights, and Lady Brett Ashley, now married, she finds herself in love with a 19 year old “Star Bullfighter,” who she insists on meeting, and of course has sex with him too. I was actually pretty surprised by this story, since I always thought World War I times had very feminine and innocent women with good morals. I think how loose Lady Brett Ashley is tortures Jake Barnes and adds to his drunkenness makes her a total female version of a womanizer. I ended up feeling really bad for Jake, to see someone you care about being intimate with other men and not you, when you care the most about her. Jake’s problem makes him seem like he has very low self-esteem because he is not a “full man.” At the end of the story, you do know that she cares for Jake, and did imagine how great they could have been together if everything was all right. Overall, I can’t say it was a bad story, but I was disappointed that the book wasn’t as good as the Librarian and back cover summary was. It’s like I was hoping that some miracle would happen and Jake would really get the girl.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 19, 2008
The review of this book should be one of great raving and wonderful words. Hemingway is a classic writer and revered by many and has earned his place in the literary world. For me, this book is very dry and drawn out. It is slow moving and the point of the story is hard to decipher. Jake Barnes is a writer and Lady Brett Ashley is wealthy and goes through her life drinking and with no purpose. The story describes their relationship and lives. The story did not hold my attention and was not one that caused me to stay up all night to finish reading. William Hurt is a good actor but as a reader his inflection did not work for me. I had a difficult time telling which character was which by voice alone. All in all, I am more interested in writers of mystery, crime and science fiction than I am in a classic author.
3 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 9, 2000
Although I enjoyed the ongoing saga of Brett Ashley's love-life, this book was a disappointment to me. Hemingway has never really thrilled my reading taste-buds (even though the only other book of his I've attempted to read is 'The Old Man and the Sea'). 'The Sun Also Rises' is an easy-to-read book with fairly interesting characters and good descriptions, but it seems to have no point. I wouldn't recommend it unless it was the only book within a 50-mile radius and you were really, really bored anyway.
3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This book was recommended to me by my Father-in-law who is a retired English teacher. Hemingway's dialog can be difficult to follow but if you stick with it, it's worth your while. I look forward to reading more of Hemingway work.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 4, 2008
Sparse, sharp dialogue, beautiful countryside and a romantic portrayal of loss frame this sad examination of the lives of young post-war yuppies in the 20¿s. A great tourist feel pervades much of this book, which gives readers a brief, but fun visit to France and a more drawn out familiarity with Pamplona, the city famous for the Running of the Bulls or Encierro. A good read when traveling in France or Spain. Hemingway masterfully puts metaphors from the bull fighting and human sexual escapades in the ring, and creates a sympathetic and miserable few characters in a quality novel. It has a Bogie and Becall feel to it, but that was the era Hemingway created. Romantic locales, romance, tragedy. It¿s all in there. I think many of those movies copied his dialogue anyway. The modern reader would enjoy this book due to the fast-paced action and the irony. There is a lot implied and the characters are drunk through most of the book, but this is tame by today¿s standards. All in all a work of art¿in a pre pop art sort of way-- old school.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 23, 2007
I'm glad to see there were people here who hated this, also. This has got to be one of the most boring things I've ever read. I'm calling it 'dissapointing' instead of 'poor,' because this was a book I was looking forward to, due to the author's reputation. If I was interested in the lives of the vacuuous and self-absorbed, I could just eavesdrop on one of the many conversations I hear here in NYC, on a daily basis.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 2, 2007
I have to agree with my fellow reviewers in saying that this novel genuinely lacked. This is a disappointment. Especially coming from Hemingway. There is little to hold your attention, the character development is null and void, and overall, it's tedious and boring.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 20, 2007
This is the worst book that I've ever finished. Every character has the same manner of speaking, which is also the way it is narrated. Hemingway could not hold John Steinbach's jock strap. What do the characters look like? Horribly written, but now that I see that such an awful book achieves so much acclaim, I have new found confidence that I can write a great novel. OVER over OVER RATED.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 2, 2006
Wow, talk about boring. I still can't understand why people write boring books. They must be very boring people. Do yourself a favor and don't read this book, unless you like reading about someone elses average boring life.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 9, 2005
At first glance of the book, I was excited to read Hemingway's beginning work of literature and a tale about bull fighting! Unfortunately, I am still ambling on in blase Paris with the drunkards, sex-aholics, hard-core partiers, and half-wits that Ernest calls 'characters'. Seriously? No, this book isn't serious enough. There is no plot. There is no revelation and development of character. There is no anything! It is merely a tale of a depressed, dependant fool who finds himself loving already married women and not wanting to go anywhere else but the one place he hates most: lovely Paris. No wonder this time era was forgotten...if everything was like this, who would want to recall memories of such?! Don't waste your time if you don't have to. For those other unfortunate souls like myself whom are required to read this for class, make do with keeping yourself awake through this muck called a 'book'. I highly recommend a pack of chocolate and a strong cup of coffee.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 8, 2005
I believe that reading this book and doing a project on it is the biggest waste of time I have ever come across. There is no plot, no real draw to the book. How can this garbage be called a classic when the average high school student can ramble on for 247 pages and make it more interesting?
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 29, 2003
i reaky interested in this book i need to now moor informations about 'the sun also rises.
1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 8, 2003
I read this book for my 8th grade book report. As i read it, i found it to be extremly boring and i didn't understand it. Later i went on cliff notes about it, and realized that the book's theme was TOTALLY different than what i got out of it. Maybe i just didn't get it because i'm only 13, but for my age and grade level, i wouldn't recommend it.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 1, 2002
This book is the most terrible book i've ever read. There is no plot and i'm sorry i ever read it. It is about four drinks who go around and get drunk. They travel with the parents money and party all day. It is an outdated book which should be burned!!!
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 9, 2001
This book is utter trash. I don't see why Hemingway receives such good reviews. The plot is highly detailed, yet serves no purpose. If you haven't read the book you are lucky, since you haven't wasted your time as I have!!
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 4, 2001
251 pages. the first 180 pages of this book were just meandering with hardly a story to realize and without much to like at all..then the last 70 took off with the story it should have had from the start. However, sorry folks its still a 3 star from any angle of approach. Perhaps if this book had been written by 'John Smith' instead of a name with a ring like 'Hemingway', it would never have lasted throughout the years.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Overview
Hemingway's first bestselling novel, it is the story of a group of 'Lost Generation' Americans and Brits in the 1920s on a sojourn from Paris to Pamploma, Spain. The novel poignantly details their life as expatriates ...