jeremie's reviews
98 reviews

i swore off hemingway after reading the sun also rises and not connecting with it at all and deciding that he just wasn’t for me, which was such a damn shame because i love american authors and j. d. salinger, one of my favourites of all time, cites him as one of his main inspirations. the hard-boiled style is something i thought i’d be so moved by and yet i felt nothing. 

then i read j. d. salinger’s ‘franny and zooey’ which includes the line “i see me dead in the rain” (genuinely a perfect line. i cannot imagine it any more concise or any more beautiful) and he claimed it was from a farewell to arms, and i immediately put the book down and walked to my local bookstore and got it. i was so moved by that one sentence i knew that i just needed to see it in context, even if the rest of the book was lousy.

it wasn’t. it was actually so lovely it’s making me want to reread the sun also rises because surely i was just stupid or something when i read that one?! at first i thought that maybe a farewell to arms was just better, and perhaps my fascination with war was making it more appealing to me, but then in my philosophy class my friend took it and started reading it and absolutely hated it LOL (though admittedly she did start from page 150 which must’ve made for a confusing reading experience) so i guess you just have to be in a certain state of mind for hemingway to click. and click he did! god, this was gorgeous. i want to read everything he’s ever written now.

i mean… come on:

‘“All right. I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.’

‘No.’

‘And sometimes I see you dead in it.’

[…]

She was crying. I comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining.”

the entirety of chapter 41 is some of the most heartbreaking shit ever written. you can tell hemingway rewrote it 29 times. i haven’t teared up over a book since s. e. hinton’s the outsiders. that final line gave me chills. just phenomenal

i’ve read some people say that the second half of this book is much duller and worse than the first half, and I could not agree less! second half is absolutely wonderful, brimming with enchanting prose and the modernist touches woolf is known for. first half is still good, but definitely overshadowed by the aforementioned. 

“(for it is a curious fact that though human beings have such imperfect means of communication, that they can only say ‘good to eat’ when they mean ‘beautiful’ and the other way about, they will yet endure ridicule and misunderstanding rather than keep any experience to themselves.)”

“…it is not articles by Nick Greene on John Donne nor eight-hour bills nor covenants nor factory acts that matter; it’s something useless, sudden, violent; something that costs a life; red, blue, purple; a spirit; a splash; like those hyacinths (she was passing a fine bed of them); free from taint, dependence, soilure of humanity or care for one’s kind; something rash, ridiculous, like my hyacinth, husband I mean, Bonthrop: that’s what it is — a toy boat on the Serpentine, ecstasy — it’s ecstasy that matters.”

this is probably the best book ever written holy fuck i want to reread this over and over and over. not a single word wasted. genuinely an untouchable masterpiece. everyone should read this.  can’t express my adoration for this in words

thank you jem for recommending me this book i adore you. “and the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea” is going to haunt me until i die probably

the parts of this book told from quentin’s perspective are just extraordinary. faulkner does things with language in that section that i can’t even begin to explain to you. even the simplest lines become so heartbreaking.

these are some excerpts that have continually stuck with me after i’ve read this

“There was something terrible in me sometimes at night I could see it grinning at me I could see it through them grinning at me through their faces it’s gone now and I’m sick”
every italicised run-on line in this goddamn book devastated me in one way or another.

“A quarter-hour yet. And then I’ll not be. The peacefullest words. Peacefullest words.”

honestly everything to do with the time motif just absolutely floored me. quentin breaking his watch at the beginning of his chapter, christ!! even that little exchange between caddy and quentin of “what time is it / i don’t know” only faulkner can make a simple line like that hurt so much

the whole second section was by far my favourite part of this novel, but the other three sections definitely also have their moments of ingenuity. just fantastic. now i need to harass every bookstore in a 100km radius to ask if they have absalom absalom in stock LOL

surprisingly accessible!! but i'd suggest having at least some knowledge of the platonic Forms before reading this, since he just kind of assumes the reader already knows of them and doesn't describe them very well here. the practical implementation of this illusive ideal State became a bit grating to read at times (i really don't care how long they should practice arithmetic for. and i don't care whether or not they should be taught astronomy. just give me more cave allegories please) but overall this was a very fun read! easy enough that no reading guide is required which is always a welcome surprise for classics written before the common era

“It wasn’t on a balance. I told them that if they wanted it to tote and ride on a balance, they would have to—“

“But nothing is so strange when one is in love as the complete indifference of other people.”