A review by storyorc
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The first half is ugly people behaving either boringly or badly but in a way that makes you recoil rather than lean in to see the mess. How much of that is necessary to make the bull-fighting section as gripping as it was, I'm not sure. Hemmingway's short stories and novellas are so tight, you feel he must have been able to make us suffer less to get to the part where suddenly the pages are flying past.

I understand from researching the title and Hemmingway's comments on the book that it's intended to show that the Lost Generation is not so lost but I struggle to see it. Our main character endures but seemingly only to be taken advantage of again and again by worse people of better breeding. Perhaps that willingness to hope and work hard (when not spending so much on holiday it makes you cringe) is a virtue in itself. However, even if you consider it hopeless, as I'm tempted to, it's a fantastic portrayal of that downtrodden acceptance of an imperfect life. Very much about settling and accepting a bad lot;  perhaps that's why it wasn't set in America.

If nothing else, it's academically fascinating to watch Hemmingway pile on the weight of unsaid things atop his sparse and simple prose. Occasionally, a character does admit what they actually think about their grotesque little love polygon but the story is at its most tense when they're sat around talking about anything else. I didn't appreciate how there was an elephant behind the elephant in the room until this passage came after a simple dinner with friends: 
It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening.
Reading the book with the shadow of the war in mind might yield richer results.

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