Product Description

The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2507 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.com Review
The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.

Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.

But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin

From Library Journal
The publisher is using these two perennial favorites to launch its new Scribner Paperback Fiction line. This edition of Paradise marks the 75th anniversary of the smash 1920 first novel that skyrocketed Fitzgerald to literary stardom at the ripe old age of 23. Several years later, The Sun (1926), Hemingway's own first novel, performed an identical service for him at age 26. The line will eventually include additional titles by these giants as well as works by Edith Wharton, Langston Hughes, and other greats.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Novel by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1926. In England the book's title is Fiesta. Set in the 1920s, the novel deals with a group of aimless expatriates in France and Spain. They are members of the cynical and disillusioned post-World War I Lost Generation, many of whom suffer psychological and physical wounds as a result of the war. Two of the novel's main characters, Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes, typify this generation. Lady Brett drifts through a series of affairs despite her love for Jake, who has been rendered impotent by a war wound. Friendship, stoicism, and natural grace under pressure are offered as the values that matter in an otherwise amoral and often senseless world. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Customer Reviews

Great Writing, View Into A Different Age - Recommended
"The Sun Also Rises" was required reading when I was in school (oh so many years ago) but little of the book stayed with me. On my recent second reading I now recall why this book is considered to be one of the greats.

Hemingway is a master story teller and this book includes some of the best character interaction I have ever read. The locations and plots lines are well handled, as are the insites into the issues and morals of post WWI Europe. What I forgot was how much I disliked almost all of the characters in the story. Every last one is shallow, weak, and flawed in major ways. Hemingway did a great job showing us the human side of his characters and still kept the book interesting.

Truely a master work of fiction - Highly recommended!

Bitter sweet
I'm Jake. Jacob Barnes. American journalist. Living in Paris. I send off my cables. I work hard for a couple of hours. I put the stories in big manila envelopes. And send them out. That brings in the money.

French? I speak French.
Spanish? I speak Spanish.

Don't think I've got it made. I don't. The War did bad things to me. The War wounded me. Physically. Okay, I survived. Some say the wound was worse than dying.

I have a girlfriend. Brett. Brett Ashley. Lady Ashley. She got "Lady" from a past marriage. Everyone loves Brett. She is a remarkably attractive woman. And she loves that everyone -- all the men -- love her.

I love her, and she loves me. Deeply. That's the end of it. We know that I can't consummate anything. Physically I cannot get it on. That's the War wound. We can kiss, and she shivers. But that's it.

"We kissed standing at the door. She pushed me away. We kissed again. 'Oh, don't!' Brett said."

The wound hurts me and the wound hurts her. So, she sleeps around. With all the guys in our group that she is attracted to. And others not in our group. Like the daring young, very young bullfighter later on. And with others she is not attracted to. Like the ex-champion boxer from Princeton, who is a Jew, sometime author, and magazine publisher. The Jew keeps hanging on. She would like to be rid of him. But he keeps hanging on.

Brett does not have independent income. The boys, the men, who love her take care of her. Drinks. Food. Hotel rooms. Sometimes they go on short trips.

All of us do a lot of drinking. A lot of drinking. We drink in the morning. We drink at lunch. We drink in the afternoon. We drink at dinner. We drink in the evening. We drink during the night. All night. We drink. Good stuff.

We all love hanging out. Going out. To the bars. Inside the bars. Outside the bars. At tables. And drinking. We get drunk. Hung over. Feel bad.

And arguing. Fighting even. Sure, and sometimes we hike. We walk through Paris. The Tuileries. By the Seine. Or out in the towns. In the woods. We play some tennis.

In Paris you can see anyone you want. South Americans. Americans. The English.

A bunch of us decide to hire a car and driver to go to Spain for some fishing in the mountains and for the fiesta at Pamplona. Others go by train.

My friend Bill and I ride a crowded bus to the mountains. We sit with many on top of the bus. The riders pass around leather wine-bottles. Lifted high, the wine streams down to your mouth. Good fun. Laughing. Good camaraderie.

We reach the river. We have worms and fishing flies and catch a lot of trout. We hide wine bottles in the cold river. The bottles get very cold.

Back to Pamplona. The others arrive in time for the fiesta. The fiesta explodes. The street is solid with dancers. The fiesta goes on for seven days and nights.

I go to sleep in my room. I wake to a rocket exploding, announcing the release of the bulls from the edge of town. From my balcony the street is empty. Suddenly the street is filled with people running. And the bulls running on the way to the ring. The bulls toss several runners.

In the ring the bullfights begin. The purest and most exciting fighter is Pedro Romero. Everyone sees the bulls goring the picadors' horses and goring the steers brought into the ring. Romero is nineteen. Brett is in her thirties. She has eyes only for him.

In a restaurant in the evening, our group strikes up a conversation with Romero's table. Introductions all around.

Brett confesses she is a goner for Romero.

Later, more about Brett and Romero. And about Brett and myself. About Paris. And Madrid. But . . . not right now.

Maybe 3 1/2 stars
This book has to be considered in the time it was written to appreciate it. Some books are timeless--theme, characters, etc.--and others are best viewed in the year they were published. I think this is one of those books. For 1926, this would have been quite daring as a response to WWI, especially considering it was a new kind of war.

The novel doesn't really make explicit assertions or come to any definitive conclusions; it's more like holding a mirror up to society: this is what is going on. I liked the dialogue and found some of the banter funny, and I did not find all of the characters completely hopeless. These stories work best as a series of short stories (Fitzgerald, Yates are good examples), which are more like a set of snapshots. This book does read like a short story in parts, especially Part I, and it is a quick read.

I often see it on the Top 100 Novels lists, which is why I read it. I think many times the distinction is not made between most influential books, on which this title would definitely fall and best written books, on which I wouldn't place this title.