When was the sun also rises set

Spain sucks, except for the bullfighting. Bullfights are swell. Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters. Bulls have no balls.

People who run with the bulls are suckers. Other Random Observations No. Too tight to count. Did you see my nose? After a while, your eyes start to glaze and your attention wanders: you begin to take in the Belle Epogue interior, the cute waiter, the way the afternoon sun casts interesting patterns on the white tablecloth anything that is more interesting than the dull main narrative. Why is everyone so desperately in love with her? They told me that her former husband slept with a gun under his pillow, but who is she really?

And I wish that everyone would stop whining and being glib for a while so that they can tell me more about that wonderful Basque country. But no, they always return to these tedious, unaffecting love triangles.

You guys are the Lost Generation indeed. Aug 22, Matt rated it liked it Shelves: classic-novels. Oh, to have been Ernest Hemingway. Except for the whole shotgun thing. He was a man, back when that meant something. Whatever that means. He had it all: a haunted past; functional alcoholism; a way with words; a way with women; and one hell of a beard. I mean, this was the guy who could measure F.

Scott Fitzgerald's penis without anyone batting an eye. He was just that cool. I love Hemingway. You might have guessed that, but let's make it clear off the bat. For Whom the Bell Tolls is in my top five all-time fave books there's nothing better than a literary novel about blowing up a bridge.

The Old Man and the Sea is a fever dream. A Farewell Arms is one of the most exquisitively depressing things I've ever read. Despite my high expectations, The Sun Also Rises does not "rise" get it? Or maybe I'm an idiot. It's possible. This book is supposedly one of his masterpieces - if not his magnum opus. I thought it was - gulp - kinda boring. Generally, I attempt to avoid using the word "boring" in a review. It's a broad, vague, and diluted descriptor; a subjective one-off that doesn't tell you anything.

Its use is better suited for a bitter 10th grader's five-paragraph theme, turned in on the last day of school after that tenth grader skimmed twenty pages, read the Cliffs Notes version, and stayed up all night typing with two fingers. I try to hold my Goodreads reviews to a slightly higher standard the standard of an 11th grader who is taking summer school classes to get a jump on senior year.

Really, though, that was my impression: boring. Of course, I didn't read this while lapping sangria in Madrid, which I've heard will heighten this novel's overall effect. He was wounded in World War I and is now impotent. He is in love with Ashley, who is a What did they call sluts in the early 20th Century? Because that's sort of what she is, though she has a tender place in her heart for Jake, to whom she keeps returning.

Jake is a journalist, apparently haunted by the war, and he spends his time drinking in Paris. There's also a guy named Robert Cohn, a former boxer, who's also in love with Ashley. Bill and Mike also hang around; Mike was originally in a relationship with Ashley, before he lost her to Cohn, who in turn loses her to a Spanish bullfighter.

The plot, as it is, involves a bunch of drinking in Paris. Jake drinks a lot, stumbles home, then drinks some more before falling asleep. The drinking and stumbling home reminds me of my own life, which is worth at least one star. Jake eventually takes the train to Spain to do some fishing. Hemingway describes the scene in excruciating detail and you really get a feel for the place: Then the road came over the crest, flattened out, and went into a forest.

It was a forest of cork oaks, and the sun came through the trees in patches, and there were cattle grazing back in the trees. We went through the forest and the road came out and turned along a rise of land, and out ahead of us was a rolling green plain, with dark mountains beyond it. These were not like the brown, heat-baked mountains we had left behind. These were wooded and there were clouds coming down from them. The green plain stretched off.

It was cut by fences and the white of the road showed through the trunks of a double line of trees that crossed the plain towards the north. The book goes on in this manner, for some time. It's as though Hemingway has turned into an eloquent Garmin device. Step by step. The walk to the creek.

The heat of the sun. The taste of the wine. It is all very vivid, and beautifully written, but really, it didn't go anywhere. It seemed like filler. Something to break up the constant drinking while the drinking breaks up the Spanish travelogue.

The lack of a plot normally wouldn't bother me much, but the book as a whole just wasn't working for me. I didn't care for the characters, who are mostly drunken, indolent, well-off whiners. Also, I was intensely jealous of the characters, who are mostly drunken, indolent, well-off whiners. In other words, aspirational figures.

Really, though, I just wanted more out of this book. Hemingway's other works have burrowed deep into my consciousness, so that I find myself referring back to them time and again. The Sun Also Rises did not achieve this feat. Eventually, Jake's merry band of drunkards go to Pamplona to watch the bullfights.

There is drinking. Passing out. I actually got a contact drunk from reading this book. I imagine that sex also occurred, somewhere in the midst of the drinking and the bulls and the overflowing testosterone, but Hemingway is discrete.

There are some good things, here. As I mentioned earlier, Hemingway is a master of description. His prose is deceptively simple; his declarations actually do a great deal to put you there, into the scene, with immediacy. The book also features one of Hemingway's most famous quotes: "Nobody lives life all the way up, except bullfighters. The best part of the book is the last lines, uttered by Jake Barnes: "Isn't it pretty to think so. As for me, I am anxiously awaiting the moment when, after a night of hard drinking, I can use this line on someone who has just uttered an inane comment.

Alas, I'm still waiting for that moment. And that gives me all the excuse I need to keep sidling up to the bar, ordering a whiskey straight with a whiskey back, and chatting up the people around me in the hopes that one of the drunks I meet will also be a Hemingway fan. View all 29 comments. Aug 22, Tra-Kay rated it it was ok Shelves: fiction. If I were Hemingway's English teacher or anyone's any kind of teacher I'd say, "This reads more like a screenplay than a novel.

Where are your descriptions, where is the emotion?? While the characters are wittily funny from time to time, the whole thing doesn't hold a candle to, I don't know, Seinfeld. Without being told, "Ah yes, this is about the true character of America!

Speaking of, how was this about America? It was more about America's elite. Most Americans in weren't hanging out in France and Spain, moaning about their lives. They were hanging out in America, trying to make it. You know, without dying. Pretentious, with poor descriptions and transparent characters I can give a character a subtle injury too and have it pain him, does that make me amazing? I'd rather read a newspaper. View all 68 comments. Aug 26, Alex rated it it was amazing Shelves: , novel-a-biography , rth-lifetime , dick-lit , favorite-reviews.

View all 17 comments. Jun 06, Amanda rated it it was amazing Shelves: blog , kick-ass. This may be my favorite book of all time. At any rate, it's definitely on the top ten list and by far my favorite Hemingway and I do love some Hemingway.

Is she a bitch? Sure, but I don't think she ever intentionally sets out to hurt anyone. And it might be argued that she has reason to be one: her first true love dies in the war from dysentery not exactly the most noble of deaths and she's physically threatened by Lord Ashley, forced to This may be my favorite book of all time.

And it might be argued that she has reason to be one: her first true love dies in the war from dysentery not exactly the most noble of deaths and she's physically threatened by Lord Ashley, forced to sleep on the floor beside him and his loaded gun and let's clarify that,no, that's not a euphemism, just in case you're a perv. Then we have the one man who might make her happy, Jake Barnes. Poor, poor Jake, who doesn't have a gun, let alone a loaded one yup, that's a euphemism--snicker away.

I think Brett is one of the most tragic figures in American literature. Disillusioned by the war and how it irrevocably changed her life, she tries to fill the void with alcohol and sex--and destroys herself in the process. However, upon rereading the novel, I realized how eclipsed Jake had been by Brett during my first reading. I also realized how I had misinterpreted him during my first reading. I thought Jake was as lost as the rest of the "Lost Generation," but I now believe that he is the only one who is not lost with the exception of Bill Gorton, whose line "The road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs" may be my favorite in the book.

If there's anyone with reason to give up on life, it's Jake. Does he pine for Brett? Does he come to hate Cohn for his affair with Brett? Does he get over Brett and realize that, even if properly equipped for a sexual relationship, a relationship with her would end as tragically as all of her other conquests? After all, Brett is Circe, according to Cohn, and anyone lured into her bed will lose their manhood. The success of the relationship between Brett and Jake hinges on the fact that Jake literally has nothing to lose in this respect.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder May 29, J. Sutton rated it it was amazing. My feelings haven't changed since my last re-read of The Sun Also Rises my earlier review is below.

I'm still amazed at how fully the characters come alive on the page! I don't think The Sun Also Rises is for everyone; however, nearly from beginning to end, I'm engaged in the story. First, it is dec My feelings haven't changed since my last re-read of The Sun Also Rises my earlier review is below.

First, it is deceptively easy to fall into with its short sentences and simple language. Nothing is forced. However, it is the mood Hemingway creates in this novel which really engages me. Perhaps that says as much about me as it does about the novel. The Sun Also Rises is not a feel-good book, but it allows you to re-evaluate people as social animals who constantly struggle and fail and maybe once in a while succeed in forging meaningful relationships.

In some ways, the carefree expat life of the characters seems idyllic; however, Hemingway also makes you feel that slipping into this existence even with its charms might make you want to spit at the world. The Sun Also Rises captures a historical moment, perhaps not just of the lost generation, but also of future generations uncertain of their place in the world.

View all 12 comments. Sep 23, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: united-states , historical , 20th-century , classics , literature , academic , fiction , culture , spain. An early and enduring modernist novel. The Sun Also Rises, the brilliant novel, which established Ernest as a great, and stylish writer, and one of the most prominent novelists of his time. The pleasant and sad story of a few Americans, and a young Englishman, displaced from their homeland, living in Paris, and going on a tour of "Pamplona" in Spain, this novel is also have been a fateful one in the formation of Hemingway's unique style.

IMHO, this is one of the essential books of life. It never fails. It possesses—for the right reader—an enormity of narrative pleasure and it grips from the very first line. Some notes. The queers, with whom Brett arrives at the club, have working penises and choose not to use them on her.

To a man made impotent by war, a young man in love with her, their preference must seem like a kind of madness. That is, indifferent to female sexuality. Then in an open car up the dusty roads to the plateau and Pamplona. The fishing sequences on the Irati River are beautifully spartan. Then after five days the fishermen are back in Pamplona. Mike and Brett are about to complete the five-some.

Jake is through with her and he knows it. They all go to watch the bulls arrive at the ring. This usually ends with most of the steers being gored. He rounds on Cohn. Though it seems to me a key part of the novel in this sense: Jake, after a painful meeting with Brett back in Paris, after which he wept, seems for the moment to have let her go.

But then it occurs to the reader how much pain this appearance of non-interest in Brett is causing Jake, even though the subject is never openly alluded to. Hemingway was a master of cutting things out—of not talking about the elephant in the room. Instantly the peasants worship Brett like some kind of Madonna.

They usher her and the others into a wine shop. These are among the most heartwarming moments in the book for our five adventurers are treated like nobility and the author captures the wonderful manners of the local people. The description is spare yet rich in atmospherics. The end is a knockout. Jake is held in odium because he has allowed the bullfight to be compromised.

Whereas before, Jake and the hotel owner, Montoya, saw each other as fellow aficionados, now Jake is seen as a disappointment, to say the least, if not a corrupter of the fight.

Please read it. View all 23 comments. I've read this book every year since , and it is never the same book. Like so many things in this world, The Sun Also Rises improves with age and attention. Some readings I find myself in love with Lady Brett Ashley. Then I am firmly in Jake Barnes' camp, feeling his pain and wondering how he stays sane with all that happens around him.

Another time I can't help but feel that Robert Cohn is getting a shitty deal and find his behavior not only understandable but restrained. Or I am with Mike a I've read this book every year since , and it is never the same book.

Or I am with Mike and Bill and Romero on the periphery where the hurricane made by Brett and Jake and Robert destroys spirits or fun or nothing which is decidedly something. And then I am against them all as though they were my sworn enemies or my family.

I feel it was written for me. And sometimes feel it was written by me I surely wish it was. Hemingway's language, his characterizations, his love for all the people he writes about no matter how unsavory they may be , his love of women and men, his empathy with the pain people feel in life and love, his touch with locale, his integration of sport as metaphor and setting, his getting everything just right with nothing out of place and nothing superfluous, all of this makes The Sun Also Rises his most important novel.

It is the Hemingway short story writ large. It is the book he should be remembered for but isn't. I often wonder why that is, and the conclusion I come to is this: The Sun Also Rises is too real, too true, too painful for the average reader to stomach.

And many who can are predisposed to hate Hemingway. A terrible shame that so many miss something so achingly beautiful. This section is significant for its difference from the rest of the novel—the purity of the landscape, combined with their escape from the other characters, makes the fishing trip an exhilarating experience for both men. But they soon move on to Pamplona, a small city famous for its bull-fights, where they meet up with the rest of the gang for the fiesta of San Fermin.

When the fiesta really gets going, with its continual drunkenness and sense of lawlessness, the setting takes on an almost nightmarish quality. Finally, after a brief stop to recover by the seaside at San Sebastian, Jake is drawn back into the nightmare urban space of Madrid, where he goes to comfort Brett after she ends her relationship with Romero.

Along with Youth was destined to peter out after 27 pages. Little did he know that, at that moment, in June , all of the elements were falling into place at last; he was just one fateful event away from getting the material he so desperately needed to join the novel club. More immediately on the horizon, though, was the month of July, which for Hemingway meant an annual trip to Pamplona, Spain, to take part in the San Fermin bullfighting festival.

The bulls had become an obsession over the last few years. He had gone to the Pamplona fiesta twice before. Pamplona still felt as pure and insular as it had the summer before, untainted by Americans and other tourists. No one else had discovered it. It was vintage Hemingway. It was a happy time. The Pamplona entourage. The Hemingway crew started each sweltering day by slugging black coffee; they then moved on to Pernod.

They lost one another in the bacchanal and found one another again—sometimes not until the following day. Every night, the drinking continued until the sun came up or you passed out, whichever came first. Hemingway goaded his friends into the bullring for amateur fights.

Their feats in the ring earned Stewart a few broken ribs and some breathless coverage in newspapers back home. Hemingway now started rounding up a new fiesta entourage for the excursion.

Stewart agreed to make a return appearance. Peggy Guggenheim was his cousin. Loeb met Hemingway at a party in and became one of his tennis friends and most ardent supporters. By June , however, Loeb was keeping a secret from his friend: he was having an illicit affair with a British expat named Lady Duff Twysden.

A simple jersey sweater and tweed skirt completed the ensemble. Her strong, spare features were devoid of makeup. All in all, it seemed a fairly chaste presentation, almost masculine, yet she was arresting and sexy.

Loeb was merely the latest man intrigued by the charms of Lady Duff: she had been captivating men throughout the Quarter. She played her cards so well. Though a notoriously hard drinker, she handled her liquor admirably for such a fashionably gaunt creature. She was gregarious—one of the boys—but also exuded an air of unattainability, a necessary attribute for any successful siren.

Men followed Lady Duff wherever she went—including Hemingway. After that, Hemingway was seen for weeks on end in Montmartre, buying drinks for both her and her official paramour, Patrick Guthrie, a dissipated thirtysomething Briton who subsisted on checks from his rich mother back in Scotland.

Sometimes Hadley joined these excursions with Lady Duff, but they were not happy outings for her. She often burst into tears, and Hemingway would prevail upon McAlmon or their friend Josephine Brooks to take his wife home while he stayed out drinking with Lady Duff. Loeb was dumbfounded. Why on earth had Hemingway pledged good behavior? Was he sleeping with Duff now as well? Hemingway had, in any case, learned about her liaison with Loeb.

Their secret had been working its way through the Left Bank gossip mill. When a mutual friend told Hemingway the news, he had been furious. The upcoming Pamplona trip was starting to look like a powder keg. Yet no one backed out. Hemingway, Loeb, and Lady Duff all put on their best poker faces. He even pledged to escort her and Guthrie to Pamplona. In the meantime, Hemingway and Hadley dispatched their month-old son, Bumby, to Brittany with his nanny, packed their bags, and left Paris, heading to a quiet, remote Basque village in the Pyrenees called Burguete to kick off the Pamplona holiday with a week of trout fishing.

But the trout were in no position to oblige them. A logging company had destroyed the local pools, broken down dams, and run logs down the river. Hemingway was in despair over the sight. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and T.

While the novel was set in the mids, the film adaptation sets the story in Both novel and film depict a group of disillusioned young adults who cope with their losses dealt through World War I by drinking, traveling, and otherwise leading hedonistic lifestyles.