The Sun Also Rises: The Authorized Edition

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.

This is one of the great books of the Twentieth Century, but the at times disappointing reading by Hurt causes me to deduct one star. Hurt is too intrusive as a reader. He hams up the part of Michael Campbell with a thick and drunken Scottish accent. His reading makes a likeable character like Jake's buddy Bill seem like an oaf. His impression of Lady Ashley leaves one wondering why Jake or anyone else would even bother with her. Actors, of course, are supposed to interpret the work, but a lighter hand is necessary when reading a book as opposed to acting out a play. Moreover, Hurt's interpretation is unjustifiably negative. Yes, Hemingway is writing about the post-World-War-I "Lost Generation" and, yes, Jake hangs with a bunch of alcoholic wretches, but Hurt's interpretation is a bit too cartoon-like. There is more subtlety to these characters than Hurt is willing to acknowledge. As for Hemingway's book, it's worth reading and re-reading. And this audiobook has allowed me to re-read the book easily at a later stage in life. In some ways the book does not age well. Robert Cohn is a central character, and the rank anti-semitism of the author as well as his characters is inexcusable. Cohn's "Jewishness" is totally gratuitous. Hemingway could have sketched this character without this cheap and mean-spirited use of the easy prejudices that so pervaded his time. Yes, we have to give Hemingway some slack and not judge him by modern standards; but not everyone was an anti-semite back then and a better man would have overcome this social prejudice. On the other hand, the book is extraordinary for the muscularity of its prose. The story is told largely through dialogue and spare descriptions. It is a riveting style that draws the reader into the book and requires the reader to make many of the essential judgments about the various characters. I can't agree with those reviewers who are left unmoved by the story. The story is quite interesting and fast moving. And it touches on the elemental themes of how to define a moral code in a lost world. Also striking is Hemingway's struggle with how to define masculinity in such a world. Jake seems to strike the best balance between assertiveness and empathy, but lacks the physical abilities. Cohn has the physical gifts but none of the emotional ones. The other characters seem to suffer from various self-destructive impulses, which seems to be a common outlet for the the masculine impulse. Perhaps the best masculine role model is the bullfighter, Romero, but there are hints that even he is prone to corruption and self-destructiveness. I recommend the book, but see if there is an older, better reading somewhere.

Why did I choose to read this book? I am a bullfighting “aficionado” (follower, enthusiast, fan, lover…what have you) and as such I always knew about Hemingway’s interaction with the “fiesta” during Pamplona’s celebrated San Fermín. I wanted to experience bullfighting in a literary context by the hand of one the greatest writers of the 20th century. But there was another reason… Last year I met a rather enthusiastic group of Americans in Madrid’s bullfighting arena -Las Ventas- that was eager to experience first-hand and for the first time the intensity and poetic reality of the bullfighting ritual (corrida de toros, untranslatable as Hemingway explains in the book). At some point they began to flood me with questions about what was going on and what was all about -it is a rather complex, ritualised and structured event full of symbolism and many things going on the same time- and I discovered that I was quite resourceless when trying to explain a bullfight in English. I just couldn’t find the words and expressions. I actually had never even thought about bullfighting in English. I did what I could for the bull-tourists although I could tell from their odd faces that I wasn’t succeeding and what I was saying made little sense. After this happened I finally decided to read the book as soon as I could to experience bullfighting as I never had before; in English. I really enjoyed the read and Hemingway did a brilliant job –wasn’t surprised- putting to words the essence of bullfighting.

Des phrases courtes, de l'amour, un sujet controversé et polémique (la corrida), on retrouve ici en anglais ce qu'on avait commencé de découvrir dans Le Vieil Homme et La Mer (The Old Man and the Sea) et on devine ce que renferme Mort Dans l'Après-Midi (Death in the Afternoon). Un adjectif pour qualifier ce roman qui ne se veut pourtant pas policier: palpitant (notamment les descriptions de voyage en train entre France et Espagne).

I have some problems to find a cheaper edition of this masterpiece. This novel is art, life and passion. ITA: Non riuscivo a trovare l'edizione in lingua originale di questo capolavoro, ma finalmente ce l'ho fatto. Il libro non credo necessiti spiegazioni: se non l'avete letto, compratelo. Soprattutto se avete fatto viaggi recenti tra Parigi e Pamplona

Truly Hemingway. A very good read.

A great book, probably one of my all time favourites.