The Sun Also Rises: The Authorized Edition

My eighth-grade literature teacher was a Hemingway fan. But she faced a problem. She’d already gotten into trouble for assigning “The Lord of the Flies” and “The Day of the Triffids” to our all-boys class. And she loved Hemingway, but she knew he might be problematic. Her solution was to have us read “The Old Man and the Sea,” which had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952 and whose author had won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. How could the principal and parents argue with that?

The author’s name you did not mention in her presence was F. Scott Fitzgerald.

My American literature teacher during my junior year in high school was squarely in Fitzgerald’s camp. Hemingway was not a writer, she sniffed; at best you might consider him a journalist. She was eloquent in her praise of “The Great Gatsby,” but “The Old Man and the Sea” proved you couldn’t trust the judgment of the Pulitzer Prize jurors. And Hemingway wrote about all kinds of unseemly, unmentionable things. She didn’t say anything about Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, which, one might argue, has an unseemly, unmentionable thing at its heart.

I had never read Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” which has at its core an unseemly, unmentionable thing, at least in the 1920s – a man’s impotence due to a war injury. The man is Jake Barnes, who works as a journalist (much like Hemingway did) in Paris. He speaks French and Spanish, in addition to his native American English, and he does what Americans of the Lost Generation do in Paris of the 1920s – visit night clubs and drink a lot. Barnes is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, an Englishwoman in the process of divorce and re-marriage, who also has a string of affairs. Because everyone loves Brett Ashley, everyone forgives her affairs. Even her fiancé.

We suspect, but can’t prove, that Lady Ashley’s affairs have everything to do with the fact that she loves Barnes, but it is a love that can never be consummated. Everyone else becomes a substitute.

Barnes and his circle travel to Spain for the annual running of the bulls and the bullfights. Barnes himself and his friend Bill also go for the trout fishing (Hemingway liked fishing stories). And it is there, in Spain, that the story reaches its crisis, although Hemingway’s famous writing style almost disguises the fact that the story is building toward a crisis. The bullfights are a metaphor, a plot development device, and a symbol for what the story is about. Barnes’ impotence, though barely mentioned, is also a symbol of a man who can’t fully live life and is consigned to living it vicariously through others (I’m not sure if it’s a commentary on journalism or not).

“The Sun Also Rises” is almost a century old (first published in 1926), but it reads almost like a contemporary novel. Hemingway wrote sparingly; he didn’t like many adjectives or adverbs. He also wrote almost stepwise and very matter-of-factly, not unlike the way journalists used to write (“He picked up his glass; he drank from his glass; he put the glass down.”).

It’s significant that, with the exception of Brett Ashley, all of the characters are male, and even Ashley has a male name. This masculine focus has made Hemingway something of a persona non grata in many academic and literary circles today. I was also somewhat surprised at the rather open anti-Semitism that focuses on one character.

“The Sun Also Rises” builds slowly. You don’t realize the grip the story has on you until deep into the narrative. The people are indeed card-carrying members of the Lost Generation. They can’t have what they desire most, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to obtain it.

Upon closing The Sun Also Rises, I felt a neutral, pensive emotion wash over me—a sense that perhaps something had eluded me within the story's layers. Ernest Hemingway's celebrated iceberg theory is on full display, enriching the narrative with subtleties and implications that hint at deeper meanings beneath the surface. The narrative captures the essence of the post-World War I era, reflecting on the lives of those seeking to escape their world's harsh realities. The depiction of a life unburdened by financial constraints offers a window into the pursuits and distractions of the "Lost Generation," a term that resonates through Hemingway's portrayal of his characters' aimless wanderings. The Sun Also Rises is a complex work that leaves the reader grappling with its central themes. It's a lesson in how not to choose and treat friends and an exploration of inner circles and personal integrity. The book's complexity is akin to that of a deeply engaging film, offering a rich tapestry of interactions that challenge the observer to look beyond the surface. The book's ending, where Jake returns to Brett following her summoning, stands out. This moment raises questions about the ideals of masculinity and commitment. Jake's character, though seemingly dull, presents a profound reflection on personal sacrifice and adaptation. It prompts me to consider my life choices if faced with similar limitations. The Sun Also Rises sparked deep contemplation in me, particularly on toxic relationships and the elusiveness of truth, which seems to only surface in moments of inebriation. Jake's travels and his attempts to find peace away from drama prompted profound reflections on my own life and the subtle but significant moments that shape our existence. Inspired by this classic, I am compelled to delve deeper into the world of classic fiction, possibly revisiting The Great Gatsby to compare thematic explorations. Hemingway's work encourages a thoughtful engagement with the text, demanding a careful consideration of its every word and implication. The Sun Also Rises is not a book to be read once and forgotten, but a multifaceted experience that invites multiple readings. Its intricate construction and the masterful subtlety of Hemingway's prose reveal new depths with each revisit, making it a compelling choice for those who enjoy thoughtful engagement with a text.

There is no point to reading Hemingway, particularly The Sun Also Rises, if you are looking merely for entertainment. The entire book is a denouncement of people who seek only entertainment and purposefully tries to exclude you from enjoying the book. Just don't read it if you read only for entertainment - you're already part of the Lost Generation, if that's what you're doing because, while you can deny it, that's you he is trying to capture in those dissolute spectators of the bullfight. They don't fight, they drink. In your case, reading is the same as drinking - a way to escape and be entertained. Hemingway and the proprietor of the bullfighter's hotel don't want you there. Go home. You're ruining it, he says.

Hemingway saw that people were not, as he had been taught as a child, becoming more and more capable of enjoying and producing peace and beauty. This was only true if you kept your head in the sand and tried to live in the suburbs. Hemingway's father had not yet shot himself, but his wife's father had - and he knew that, even in Midwestern America, the truth of life's very harsh realities could creep in. He adores the Spanish for maintaining a culture that permits the age old practice of tauromachia, bullfighting. It keeps people's heads on straight. It does not allow them to be ostriches. It is only natural that young Americans, raised to believe that the world is mostly entertainment and mostly constructed for their own enjoyment, would be drawn to a grittier cultural event - even if only briefly. The truly alive, though, become aficionados (in the Spanish sense) of the fights. They open their eyes to everything, particularly the specter of their own death.

Is it possible to enjoy contemplating death? One's own death? If you don't think it's possible, then this book is probably not for you. It is nothing like a horror story, it is not fake death made momentarily into an adrenalin rush, from which you can hide your face (you can hide your face while at the bullfights; you cannot hide from death itself).

Hemingway was born in 1899, just 4 years after certain historians had proclaimed the Closing of the American West (meaning: subduing of the last of the hunter-gatherer tribes and the complete expansion of "traditional American values" into the entire North American continent. He was raised with notions similar to what parents seem to want for their kids today, ideas about family life going well, everyone being happy, no drinking problems, no one acting out sexually, everyone gender-normal, and so on. Yet, he knew it wasn't so. He knew that humans are humans and there was nothing new under the sun.

Only men were sent into combat, young men with ideals in the case of World War I. Hemingway wants to capture the "Riau Riau" mindset that allows men, in a trancelike state, to rise up out of the trenches and charge forward while either being blown to bits or having other people's bits end up on your body (as happened to him). We are not going to live forever, are we? So why die as cowards? Die as a hero!

We don't push the heroism meme as much as it was pushed prior to World War I or World War II. We sort of gave up on that - perhaps in the 60's. Hemingway was part of the extinction of this kind of hero. Oh, people still invent games for themselves in which they travel, play sports, climb mountains, run marathons and so on, to still be "heroes" but without killing anything. We don't want heroism associated with killing or dying for a cause and yet, in all of human history, there it is still. People in Kiev (right or wrong) deciding to advance against the police and getting themselves shot - with others watching. People finding that even a shot to the leg isn't a good thing, and doesn't feel as heroic as it felt just a few minutes earlier, while preparing to advance on the enemy. People love having enemies, but the fact that for most 21st century American (and other Anglophone) readers, the "enemies" are now either things like evil corporations or the other people's rugby team, makes the world rather different.

In Hemingway's time, a huge war had just been fought, with people (much like oneself, by the way) as the real and true enemy. Germans had been part of the European community, just across the border from France, and now they were the enemy. Russia, once an ally, got itself a separate peace (and saved a bunch of Russians from being killed). Real people were killing real people with greater efficiency than ever before. But why?

Because people, men in particular, are designed this way. They get into groups, worked up into various frenzies, and stuff happens. Cultures that can channel the "stuff" into the bullring, well, perhaps that's a partial solution. Perhaps not (Hemingway will consider that in For Whom the Bell Tolls). Perhaps the bullring is merely a way of keeping people perpetually ready to rise up in violence and die for a cause. Maybe that's what all sports do (the ones that are true sports, Hemingway might say - he hated tennis).

If you are reading this book cold, you will probably have the reactions of many others (see the 3 star and lower reviews). I strongly suggest you read two volumes of Michael Reynolds's biography of Hemingway (the first two: Young Hemingway and the Paris Years). Read Paul Fussell's The Great War in Modern Memory before reading The Sun Also Rises. Don't just watch war movies, you will turn yourself into the very kind of reader that Hemingway is scathingly trying to insult.

Remember, Hemingway was trying to needle and agitate people who may be just like you or me, people who sit at home reading and have not been in the trenches, people who don't go to bullfights. How would he feel about modern audiences, with all the vegans and vegetarians and animal rights people within them? I think he would say that while the ambition is noble, that the understanding of the killing is more important than ever. If you are going to save animals (including people), you must understand human nature and human history. Human nature, on the ground, in all its somewhat eccentric and boring detail, must be at least noticed, and if possible, understood. Even changed.

When I first read The Sun, I deplored what I thought was the glorification of bullfighting and the cult of machismo. I was quite young and did not know much about the world then. I thought I would never read it again. When I read it the second time, I knew a lot more about Hemingway and I had read some of the 5 star reviews here. I realized I'd missed the whole point (and it isn't just about the symbolism - I got that part). Now, reading it again, slowly, a third time (because I am interested in understanding the craft of writing - so much is known about Hemingway's processes, reading it again with that information in mind is quite a new read), I realize that the intense literary criticism brought to bear on Hemingway, as well as his public persona, make this book completely amazing. It is a touchstone for not just one generation, but for almost a century's worth of modern readers. It changed how movies were made, it changed how people talked about reality.

Because once upon a time, people simply ignored the "black sheep" in every family, until they were piled up so high that someone had to notice that there were more black sheep than white sheep. The entire symbology of this black sheep/white sheep business had to be thrown over. Well brought up and well-to-do people were behaving outside of the standards of puritanical Christendom. Oh no. What to do? What to say? There were gay people! And women who liked sex! And people who had affairs! And prostitutes! And alcohol! (Even during prohibition!!!) Did the puritanical beliefs fail to take hold because the people were flawed? Or were the beliefs flawed? Or had anyone ever really believed them?

I think Hemingway leads us down many trails in answering these questions. He keeps his own cards close to his chest (he loved pictures of poker players and throwing dice; he spent money he didn't have on a painting of dice throwing by Masson). He knows that his parents seem to be "true believers" in the middle class, Midwestern ethos (he knows they will disapprove of the characters in the book, as so many readers here still do). He doesn't know, yet, that his father will shoot himself (and that two of his siblings will also be suicides). But he knows there's something amiss with the whole thing and in the end, prefers to slip back in time, and to another culture, to the corridas and the ancient dance with the bull. He knows that near Pamplona, some of the earliest art in the world depicts a human conception of a bull as powerful - but also the entire point of the Hunt. Even Hemingway, though, cannot make the actual bullfighter the protagonist of the novel, even if he intended him to be the Hero. Hemingway is too modern, himself, too much of a spectator to be a bullfighter - or, as he seems to say in The Sun, even a true aficionado.

Without true love for something, we are lost. The entire generation was lost, it had lost the possibility of true love. He thought he loved Hadley, during the period depicted in The Sun and in the period when he was writing it, he became painfully aware that he no longer loved Hadley in the same way - he had another "true love." He did not want to admit, ever, that he had lost the capability of loving truly, which is why he tried to capture the minutiae of how love is born and how it dies. By becoming expert on this subject of love (Lady Brett is certainly loved in many different ways, all of them "true"), Hemingway hopes not to be lost.

Many of his other themes are lost on today's readers, though, because we have all but given up on the notions of masculinity and femininity that Hemingway was steeped in (as was the next generation after him, and the one after that - the ones who fought in World War II; they still had those same notions); we have given up on the touchstone of extreme competition as an inherent value (we give ribbons and trophies to all the kids who "compete" in our suburban children's leagues). Showing people drunk or otherwise intoxicated is a commonplace (Jersey Shores, anyone?) and no one is shocked - in fact, they are apparently amused and entertained. Perhaps that's why that aspect of the book seems relatively boring.

Finally, Hemingway doesn't want you to spectate. He purposefully took out interior monologues, bits about what people were thinking, many of the "explanations" of the action. He had this perverse idea that you, the reader, are supposed to be actively engaged - using your imagination. He was showing you exactly what happened. What did it mean? You are supposed to stop and think about it, imagine it. This book is a great one to read aloud with a significant other or older kids. We don't know a single family, anywhere, who doesn't have some of these people in them. In our neighborhood, there are drug addicts, 12 steppers, homeless people who apparently have wandered away from any sort of family - all kinds of "lost" people. Is your world really that different? If so, it will be changing soon. There is no where on the planet where a thinking person can live and not encounter the problems of death, destruction, unrequited loves and all that Hemingway scrupulously describes.

But it is a literary description, not a self-help book. He provides no answers and he didn't intend to be uplifting.