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The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Dreary
Review: This book is an account of several characters that are complete losers. The story never picks up, and the account of people getting drunk continually is uninteresting. Hemmingway makes use of a lot of dialogue that is sometimes hard to follow. The one bright spot of the book is the way that the author reveals the culture and landscape of Spain. He wrote in a way that made the Spanish atmosphere very vivid. I enjoyed Hemmingway's book, Old Man and the Sea much more than this book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Entertaining
Review: The Sun Also Rises is a fast read and features some very beautiful writing by Ernest Hemingway. It is populated by some rather affectless Paris expatriates who decide to visit Pamplona. One, Jake Barnes, is a strong man with an unfortunate wound. Another, Brett Ashley, would like to be Jake Barnes' girlfriend but can't be. They and their friends experience drama and calamity but fortunately have plenty of alcohol at hand to numb themselves with.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Confirms Hemingway as Genius
Review: I am not sure that I can wholly give Hemingway the credit he is due with this work. It amazed me on many levels, which I am positive was his exact intent, consider his now famous Iceberg analogy. His simplistic "terse" narrative on travel, leisure, and Epicurean lifestyle in Europe as expatriates was appealing and unpretentious. Although, the work could have stood alone on social commentary (I think this provided us with a perfect keyhole view of his experiences with Gertrude Stein and the rest of the "Lost Generation" while an expatriate himself after his resultant disillusionment with America after the war) it was a razor sharp character study. He never overplayed people's emotions and reactions with melodrama. His characters were real, jaded, and complicated. Hemingway's first book alone could secure his name as a literary luminary for all time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: hemingway at his best
Review: hemingway's clear, concise, staccato writing style make this a quick and enjoyable read.

the story of a number of expatriots who drink, travel, fish, and copulate--pretty much in that order--starts in paris and finishes in madrid, spain with a long stop at the fiesta at pamploma and the infamous running with the bulls. the female charcter, brett, is way ahead of her time. she like all the characters feels the frustration of an unfulfilled life. the following exchange between herself and the narrator (jake) expresses it well

"it's sort of what we have instead of God" (brett)
"some people have God," i (jake) said. "quite a lot"
"He never worked very well with me."
"should we have another martini?"

this lost greneration differs from kerouac's road warriors in that they have money and they have stopped searching. exactly what brought them to this is never clear. like the cause of the narrator's impotency, it is simply the war.

the closing exchange between jake and brett crystalizes their perspective on life:

"oh jake, we could have had such a damned good time together."
"yes. isn't it pretty to think so?"

this book is worth reading to see one of america's great writers at his best.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Moments
Review: The novel has its moments of greatness: fishing, bullfighting, and even Jake's swim--a rather life affirming, physically invigorating moment wherein the numbness induced by a week of Spanish fiesta seems to abate. Nature is the thing that revives the deadness of human realtionships. Nevertheless, reading this novel is like watching the development of a garden slug: you keep waiting for it to change into a butterfly, but it just never, ever happens. I enjoy the majority of Hemingway's works, but, to be very honest, this is not his best effort, and certainly not worth the 5 stars that one might give Moveable Feast, Farewell to Arms, or many of his short stories. I give it three stars for its powerful, raw, descriptive moments (Tell us what you really think, Hemeinway) and the writer's ability to make me laugh aloud as I read. And, although the climax is supposed to be anticlimatic, (just as the journey in Heart of Darkness is supposed to drag on and on and on...) I did not like the lack of one, single, horrible, terrific moment that would shake me enough to FEEL and remember the contents of the 245 pages I read, only to learn that human relationships are fragile,indescribable,and expensive. Someone wrote that one would either love or hate this book--I think that I am one who loves AND hates it. Maybe that is the genius of it--maybe that is for the lack of genius. People say, "You HAVE to like Hemingway.." I say,"It is okay not to share popular literary opinion, but it is not okay to deny yourself the experience of reading this book."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a magical experience
Review: Now, I love Hemingway. What I've read of him has been great, but I found The Sun Also Rises to be a wondrous experience while reading it (as I did The Complete Short Stories). Perhaps I should have waited before writing this review as I am still struck dumb by the sparse beauty of Hemingway's prose. This is a tender, absorbing, gripping story of a group of American and British expatriats and their vacation in Spain for the bullfights and festivals. This has become one of my favorite books.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the all-time great novels
Review: This is one of the all-time great novels, along with The Catcher in the Rye, Women, The Great Gatsby, American Psycho and False Rhymes. The writing is crisp, the pages look great, it's really where modern American writing began.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Lost in the detail
Review: This book reminds me of a painting that has so much detail that you can't figure out what the artist is trying to say.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Book described thoroughly the "lost generation"
Review: Sun Also Rises is my first book I read that is written by Hemingway. This book may perhaps seem slow-paced and rather boring by many people today, including me. This book is believed to be one of the best classics. The book is written in an old-fashioned style and rather dry due to the fact that it was published long time ago. Yet, his descriptions and metaphors are rather simple and lively, such as bullfighting. I think this book is worth to read to explore the world of the 'Lost Generation?

This novel is written in the way that is told by a narrator in the story. The narrator, Jake Barnes, is a veteran of World War I. He is in love with Lady Brett Ashley. However, the love between them two was never actually resulted. Jake was wounded during World War I and resulted of sexually impotence, in which caused the unfulfilled love between them because in Brett's thinking, sexually-active plays an important part of love.
Jake and most of his friends, including Brett, live aimlessly and purposelessly. They are mostly heavy alcoholics and alcohol certainly plays and important role in their lives. They claim that alcohol is used to ease the pain they suffered caused by the war. This in fact is true for Jake, both physically and emotionally. Additionally, they all followed almost the same schedule every single day: wake up in the morning, work, eat lunch, meet friends, go to caf? bar, or club, get home, get drunk and go to sleep. The name of the novel, Sun Also Rises, may perhaps refer to the lives of Jake and his friend. Everyday sun rises, just as if they all follow the same schedule everyday.They lived a corrupted lifestyle lacking of meaning, direction, and emotional connection; Jake and his friends are afflicted from these.
Hemingway described thoroughly the world of the 'Lost Generation?through the character settings that most of them have either suffered from the war physically or emotionally.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: classic Hemingway
Review: This interesting piece of expatriate literature is a fascinating look at the post World War One "Lost Generation," to which Hemingway himself claimed to belong. Through the eyes of the main character, Jake, we see what life was like for an American living in Europe in the post-war years. The relationship between Jake and the other main character, Brett, provides another interesting view of the moral and social values of this time. The plot of the novel is focused on bullfighting in Spain, though the fights seem to be merely a backdrop for the interaction between Brett, her fiancee Mike, Jake, and their American friends Robert and Bill. Throughout the book, we see interaction between the characters that reflect Hemingway's view of expatriate society at that time.

This is a very entertaining book. It is lighter than some of Hemingway's other work (such as For Whom the Bell Tolls), and is in some ways more readable. The book is very well written, but the dialogue is what makes this work truly great. It is at times funny, at times serious, at times biting, and at times just plain entertaining. This is the book that made Hemingway a force to be reckoned with, and, reading it, I can see why. This is a great book for any fan of Hemingway or for anyone interested in good modern literature.


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