These days I’m reading books and short stories by Hemingway, but in no particular order. If I am understanding his work, a significant goal of Hemingway is to show us the essence of his subject matter; that we should see it an a way we did not before see it.
I read The Sun Also Rises, and I’m a bit confused by it. I think that I followed the story pretty well and understood the plot. But, something seems to have escaped me. Is this a story about a group of people and their interactions? The book begins with a description of Robert Cohn, but he doesn’t seem to be so significant by the end of the book.
Please help me figure out what I missed.
Also, can anyone suggest a good biography of Hemingway?
The Sun Also Rises is a cyclical scene-setter. It shows us the relative vacancy of the expatriate life in Jazz Age Europe. We go through all these events and are left feeling at the end as though nothing has changed. In part because it really hasn’t.
The novel also examines love in the time after the war. Jake and Lady Brett may well be what are currently thought of as “soulmates”. However, given Jake’s wounding in the war, they are unable to consummate their love, never know that sense of completeness and union through romantic love that was theoretically possible before the world changed.
Also, compare and contrast Jake’s life with the other ex-pats (the endless cycles of drinking, empty partying and the seemingly useless spin of life) and his trip with Bill(?) into the Spanish countryside, with its peasants, good wine and fishing (the fishing sequence in the middle of the book is what Hem was really aiming at. The Earth and its glories abide even though we do not).
As for biographies, Carlos Baker’s “Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story” was the first major one-volume work, and the one all the later ones take potshots at (for various reasons). I would suggest Hotchner’s “Papa Hemingway” to get an idea of the man in the flesh. Also check out “The True Gen,” a round-robin collection of interviews about the man, and you’ll get a “Rashamon”-style retelling of the stories.
There’s also a collection of his letters out as well, and you’ll get a good idea of his style.
I’ve been reading the man’s work since high school, and I’ve got a pretty good collection of books by and about him. This will get you started.
Thanks for the help. I think part of my confusion is that I’ve read some of his more active stories first. That characters simply moved from scene to scene in search of another drink was throwing me off. I think that he did a remarkably good job making the characters vacant. Its almost eerie.
I did like the the fishing scene. Its a wonder I haven’t wandered off already to learn fly-fishing.
I just started reading the Hotchner book. I think its making it more difficult separating the “real” Hemingway with the narrators of his novels.
Thanks for the responses, they give me more to think about.
I have been reading Hemingway for over forty years now, and The Sun Also Rises still awakens two lines of thought in me.
Yes, the fishing scene still resonates after all these years. When the old man was on his game, he did write beautifully, even though not every book he wrote worked completely. Many of his passages in the early novels are quite simply and stunningly among the most beautiful passages in American fiction.
Jake’s problem seems kind of fixable these days, so modern readers do not find this to be the unalterable tragedy it was in the 20’s. However, even when I first read it, I thought the two of them were giving up too easily – after all, the man still had lips, a tongue, teeth, a nose, a chin, several fingers and toes, two elbows… On second thought, maybe my teenage years were too sweaty and imaginative.
I thought the motion picture of the story, with Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, and Ava Gardner, was remarkably faithful (by Hollywood standards), up until the ending. They should have closed on the true final scene in the book, with Jake’s last line – ‘Yes, isn’t it pretty to think so.’
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Robb *
**Thanks for the help. I think part of my confusion is that I’ve read some of his more active stories first. That characters simply moved from scene to scene in search of another drink was throwing me off. **
Hemingway has always been one of my favorite authors. I haven’t reread The Sun Also Rises in a long time, but I can certainly empathize with your confusion. When I first read it in high school, I was completely confuzzled. My only point of reference was Lady Brett, and that was only because my English teacher remarked that my hairstyle at the time was similar to hers. I missed the entire point of her sleeping around as well as her relationship with Jake.
You may want to pick up a copy of A Moveable Feast, which is a collection of essays Hemingway wrote around the time he was penning Sun. He captures the essence of the “lost generation”, in that expatriates, in particular, were essentially shocked into nothingness after World War I. Emotionally spent, they did anything and everything they could in order to “feel” something – ergo, the drinking, travelling, sleeping around, disagreements arising out of the most trivial of matters, etc.
I’ve always viewed Robert Cohn as a reference point in the novel: Out of all the characters, he seems to be the only one who feels in the here and now without any artifical stimulants. The others mock him, but because he refuses to back down into emotional empitness, he is perhaps the bravest of them all.
I agree with pesch’srecommendations in regards to biographies. Baker’s is far and away the best. It covers everything and is a good read. Hotchner’s Papa Hemingwayis by far the most readable although it starts well after the time dealing with The Sun Also Rises although much of the action takes place in Spain and the author and subject reflect back a great deal. I also liked Moveable Feast by Hemingway although according to those involved, it isn’t too accurate, but it does give you a look at Hemingway looking back at the time he wrote The Sun…
I once read a response by Hemingway regarding just your criticism of TSAR. As I remember, and I don’t remember it too well (it’s been years upon years), it was typically Hemingwayesque. He said something to the effect of, “The bastard quit being intersting.” So Papa just quit featuring him.
I will try to remember where I read it and post it. It was a now relatively obscure magazine but then probably a very well known one. Something like Argosy, Esquire or the like. yes, I know those are still somewhat well known. But it was something like that.
Thanks, the book is making more sense. Also, I went home last night and got back to reading the Hotchner book. A couple pages into reading, I got to the point where Hemingway is reminiscing about The Sun Also Rises. Clearly, I need to remember that not everything happens from my point of view. I read the characters and thought they are a bit shallow, all the while forgetting about the fact that they are people would lived through a rather nasty war.
Now its time to go in search of the biographies.
As an aside, I prefer to by books at second hand bookstores. I find that many paperbacks from the time Hemingway’s were published sell for less than a dollar, while Hemingway’s still sell for at least $4.00. No wonder Scribner liked him.