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Summary: The Lost Generation loses its Readers
Review: The purpose of The Sun Also Rises is to convey the seemly pointless lives of the Lost Generation. In order to illustrate the disillusionment of Jake, Brett, Cohn, and Bill, Hemingway presents an "anti-hero" novel. It does not follow any
exciting story plot; and at the novel's end, none of the characters have resolved any enduring conflicts or have
gained any acclaim. This technique achieves Hemingways' purpose of characterizing the "Lost Generation," but distances his readers. I read the book for my AP English class; I found it more interesting to analyze The Sun Also Rises than actually read. Many of the book's techniques, such as symbol and Hemingways' terse but descriptive language, are not readilly visibly on a first reading. However, if you didn't enjoy the story the first time around, I wouldn't suggest tackling it again. If you're looking for a book with a Lost Generation plot and an interesting story, turn to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. If you want another Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms is slightly more interesting. But The Old Man and the Sea is, in my opinion, Hemingway's best--and if you don't like it, at least it is short enough that you do not has to spend much time reading it.
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Summary: Intriguing Novel
Review: This is the first Hemingway novel I have read. I both enjoyed it and found it puzzling. I disliked the characters yet also liked them. I enjoyed Hemingway's prose style. Some of the descriptions, the constant moving about from bar to bar, is rather a nuisance in a sense, yet also entirely necessary in that it serves to parallel the overall scheme of the novel. Well worth reading, even if just to admire Hemingway's style. Like another person pointed out, this reads much like an extended short story. The fishing trip is very nice; the best scene, which had me most into the book, was the when the boxer got a few punches in--!
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Summary: Not bad Hemingway
Review: I read this after reading Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure. Unlike many others, I was not forced to read this in school. I later visited Pamplona during the San Fermin festival. The description of Pamplona is good if you remember that nearly 80 years have passed since it was written. According to Palin, this book by Hemingway is solely responsible for the international renown of the feria at Pamplona even though there are similar events in other Spanish towns. The story centers around an expatriate American writer living in Paris and his circle of friends. They travel to Pamplona to attend the festival. I found the novel to be dull. I was able to read it through but I don't consider it a particularly good book. Unlike people in the real world, the characters in The Sun Also Rises don't seem to have to work for a living. It does provide a good description of bullfighting and fishing in Spain's Basque region. While the novel's protagonist spends two weeks in the Pamplona area, I was bored after one day. Hemingway fails to describe the drunken mobs (dressed in vomit-stained whites with a splash of red at neck and waist) roaming the streets, sleeping on benches and vomiting into gutters that I saw.
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Summary: Lost Plot
Review: This was a well detailed plot, another by Ernest Hemmingway. The simplicity shone through and caused the novel to loose some of its romantic charm. Though in theory a romantic novel it is lost in the groups escapdes with different individuals. A truly depressing tale told by Jake, the nararator, is a twist through his strugle to find his masculinity while on his wilderness excursions. To read this book one must have a stout stomach and enjoy the unexpected.
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Summary: Fantastic once it all sets in
Review: Oddly enough, while I was reading "The Sun Also Rises," I wasn't overly impressed. As always, Hemingway's writing is outrageously good; in parts of the novel I almost had to stop and catch my breath in admiration of the work Hemingway produced. Nevertheless, I was growing impatient with the storyline, the characters entering and re-entering the novel, and the large amount of information that seemed irrelevant to any sort of larger theme. I was actually quite disappointed as I finished the book. However, without any planning on my part, the book all began to make sense once I had given my mind time to put the pieces together. I then discovered, much to my initial surprise, that "The Sun Also Rises" is amazing, absolutely incredibly engrossing literature. First of all, credit must be given to Hemingway's unique writing style. The direct, minimal tone of the novel is brilliant; no words are ever used that could be excised from the novel, and this allows Hemingway to say far, far more with a few words than other authors could with far more. Also, the characters are so well defined that they leap off the page. Each and every character in the book, including minor characters, not only ring true but become familiar to the reader as time goes on. And finally, once the book has settled in, the themes and concepts Hemingway had in mind become clear; disillusionment, amorality, and loss of innocence. In sum, "The Sun Also Rises" is not a book that will be immediately enjoyable. You're going to have to put some effort into this to get a lot out of it. Nevertheless, Hemingway rewards the work the book requires by creating one of the most fascinating, insightful, entertaining, and well-written novels I've read in a long time. It may require a lot of effort, but it's worth it.
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Summary: The Sun Also Rises - audio book
Review: Absolutely marvelous. Loved it. The reading was excellent and the book a delight. I have read quite a bit of Hemingway but had always missed this book (DOn't know why). I live in Spain so it was marvelous to hear of bullfighting and the Spain of the 1920s. The characterization is wonderful. It would be intriguing to follow the route the travellers took in their journey from Paris to Pamplona.
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Summary: The writing rises above all!
Review: This was the first Hemingway book I'd ever picked up, and to best review it, I should compare it to another famous book that came out about a year earlier: The Great Gatsby.
No contest.
On the surface both books deal with the rich and spoiled, but there is one thing that seperates the books. And, frankly, it's a very large thing.
Talent. Skill. Hemingway had an enormous amount of it, and Fitzgerald a bit less. Fitzgerald is like one of those radio stations that plays classical music. Boring as ... to most of us, but for a few cultured ones his prose soars and lifts the spirit. Hemingway, on the other hand, writes with a deceptive simplicity. Short, powerful sentences that seem to draw you deeper and deeper into the story or novel.
I cared about the people in The Sun Also Rises. And the description of their fishing trip is worth the price of admission in and of itself. Give Hemingway a shot. After all, he only wrote 6 novels while he was alive--not counting the 4 published after he died--and 4 of them are considered all time classics. Pretty good percentage, wouldn't you say... Sean
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Summary: A Classic (obviously)
Review: I was fascinated with the characters and settings of this book. I looked forward to seeing what the "lost generation" was doing every time I picked the book up. It's a romantic (dysfunctional romantic), tough, insightful book which shows how a specific generation lived in Paris during this time. Hemingway has such a way of painting a picture, that I could vividly picture them at the cafes in Paris, fishing in the mountains, and watching the bull fights in Spain. On top of the pictures he paints, I had insights/emotions into the characters. If there was anxiety between them, I felt it; if there was love and jealousy between them, those emotions were conveyed. It was amazing and I definitely want to read the book again, because I don't think I even began to grasp everything possible in this novel. And the amazing part is that the writing is so simplistic and minimal. Obviously I recommend this book.
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Summary: Excellent - A classic!
Review: "The Sun Also Rises" was first published in 1926, and it was the novel that launched the career of young Hemingway. An amazing career that should include winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, and earn the praise as one of the greatest American writers ever. "The Sun Also Rises" was my third novel by Hemingway, (the two other being "For whom the Bell tolls" and "The old man and the sea"). After reading some of the reviews here, I find that either you love this novel (and Hemingway) or you don't. But even if you don't particularly care for Hemingway, I think there are things in "The Sun Also Rises" that you could enjoy, be it bull fights or Paris in the 20'ies. I have to confess that I only started reading Hemingway last year, yet he's become one of my very favorite authors. I love his spare, almost brutally economic writing style. Hemingway uses such a simple language, yet one feels it as the richest ever. The setting of "The Sun Also Rises" is in Paris in the 1920'ies. A bunch of rich kids, American and British expatriates, ("the lost generation") who fought in WWI, are now doing little but strolling around the streets of Paris, looking for a nice restaurant to eat and drink, or attending the "occasional" party. If they are not clubbing/partying, they are traveling around. What a nice life! Hemingway lived for many years in Paris and also spent much time in Pamplona, Spain, which of course has contributed to the spot-on accurate, realistic account both geographically, and also from the life of expatriates and social events happening. This is a classic masterpiece, ready to be re-read anytime!
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Summary: Hemingway's Europe
Review: No other American has written better about what it is like to be an American in Europe. Hemingway seemed to belong there. The Paris memoir A Moveable Feast is a beautiful account of those early days when Hemingway was writing his early stories. The Sun Also Rises is something quite different. Not a memoir but a novel. And a great one. Great not just because it describes 1920's Paris, which is no doubt part of it's appeal, but because it describes Americans living abroad in the aftermath of WWI. Though it does not specifically address the war, the style of life and attitude that these characters exemplify make them members of what Gertrude Stein called "the lost generation". That phrase defined a generation and Hemingway's book was the best comment on that phrase and his generation. The American characters of Sun Also Rises all have their reasons for being in Europe. Part of the reason is that WWI disrupted all the old notions and fabric of society and Hemingway underlines this by showing them all in a state of aimless drift. With Jake Barnes Hemingway shows an American who understands Europeans and is at home in their company. He is a new kind of consciousness, not a representative one, but one that seems to have an understanding of life that other Americans do not. Jake's unique understanding has led him to the formulation of a code(expatriots code) which is not altogether explained but one which allows him to be at home in all cultures and deal with trying situations very well(most of the time). But Jake too is wounded. Jakes presence attracts an unusual group of friends and hangers on(some American, some European). Those who understand the code get along well with Jake and those who do not find themselves in conflict with him. Hemingway's A Sun Also Rises stands in interesting contrast to Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. While Fitzgerald goes for a mythic rendering of American life , Hemingway describes a new kind of ground that only he occupies. Hemingway brings an understanding to things which is not specifically American but his own hard won ground. Fiction writing one imagines was his way of defining that ground. "You must get to know the values," as the Count says. Each character presents an almost separate plot line. The book begins with Cohn's story but several other stories intertwine along the way as new characters arrive on the scene. Jake is the center around which all the action revolves. Although an awful lot of action revolves around Brett as well. Every one has their turn with Brett. The sad thing is that the two who should be together are Jake and Brett and yet they can't be. And that seems to be the overall feeling and theme of the book and perhaps the deepest interpretation of the oft used phrase "lost generation". The war seems to have cheated a whole generation out of its innocence, and with that it's ability to love, perhaps. The bullfight segment which is very exciting is a kind of moment when all the characters try to in their own way fill their lives with something. If you want a happier book about Paris read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast instead.
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