The Sun Also Rises
by: Ernest Hemingway
| Biography | Review | Summary |
| Links | Recommendations | Purchase |
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), born in Oak
Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas
City at the age of seventeen. Before the United States entered the First World
War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the
front, he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent
considerable time in hospitals. After his return to the United States, he became
a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers and was soon sent back to Europe
to cover such events as the Greek Revolution.
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 Sun Also Rises opens with the narrator, Jake Barnes, giving a brief biographical sketch of his friend, Robert Cohn. Jake is a veteran of World War I who now works as a journalist in Paris. Cohn is also an American expatriate, although not a war veteran. He is a rich Jewish writer who lives in Paris with his forceful and controlling girlfriend, Frances Clyne. Cohn has become restless of late, and he comes to Jake's office one afternoon to try to convince Jake to go with him to South America. Jake refuses, and he takes pains to get rid of Cohn. That night at a dance club, Jake runs into Lady Brett Ashley, a divorced socialite and the love of Jake's life. Brett is a free-spirited and independent woman, but she can be very selfish at times. She and Jake met in England during World War I, when Brett treated Jake for a war wound. During Jake and Brett's conversation, it is subtly implied that Jake's injury rendered him impotent. Although Brett loves Jake, she hints that she is unwilling to give up sex, and that for this reason she will not commit to a relationship with him.
The next morning, Jake and Cohn have lunch. Cohn is quite taken with Brett, and he gets angry when Jake tells him that Brett plans to marry Mike Campbell, a heavy-drinking Scottish war veteran. That afternoon, Brett stands Jake up. That night, however, she arrives unexpectedly at his apartment with Count Mippipopolous, a rich Greek expatriate. After sending the count out for champagne, Brett tells Jake that she is leaving for San Sebastian, in Spain, saying it will be easier on both of them to be apart.
Several weeks later, while Brett and Cohn are both traveling outside of Paris, one of Jake's friends, a fellow American war veteran named Bill Gorton, arrives in Paris. Bill and Jake make plans to leave for Spain to do some fishing and later attend the fiesta at Pamplona. Jake makes plans to meet Cohn on the way to Pamplona. Jake runs into Brett, who has returned from San Sebastian; with her is Mike, her fiancé. They ask if they may join Jake in Spain, and he politely responds that they may. When Mike leaves for a moment, Brett reveals to Jake that she and Cohn were in San Sebastian together.
Bill and Jake take a train from Paris to Bayonne, in the south of France, where they meet Cohn. The three men travel together into Spain, to Pamplona. They plan on meeting Brett and Mike that night, but the couple does not show up. Bill and Jake decide to leave for a small town called Burguete to fish, but Cohn chooses to stay and wait for Brett. Bill and Jake travel to the Spanish countryside and check into a small, rural inn. They spend five pleasant days fishing, drinking, and playing cards. Eventually, Jake receives a letter from Mike. He writes that he and Brett will be arriving in Pamplona shortly. Jake and Bill leave on a bus that afternoon to meet the couple. After arriving in Pamplona, Jake and Bill check into a hotel owned by Montoya, a Spanish bullfighting expert who likes Jake for his earnest interest in the sport. Jake and Bill meet up with Brett, Mike, and Cohn, and the whole group goes to watch the bulls being unloaded in preparation for the bullfights during the fiesta. Mike mocks Cohn harshly for following Brett around when he is not wanted.
To discover the rest of this amazing Hemingway novel, read THE SUN ALSO RISES.
This book is a typical Hemingway novel. The Sun Also Rises is one of my favorites by Hemingway. It can be taught in several different aspects and with several different approaches. It also makes a "good summery day, sitting outside in the park" read. I would definitely recommend this book to my friends and family. The pain Hemingway presents in this novel, the pain of rejection, is present in everyone's life, and so it makes the book easy to identify with.
People who enjoyed The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway also liked:
If you would like to buy The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, click here .