Souvenirs.. C'est ce que j'avais laissé dans ma mémoire, et j'aurais du m'arrêter ici, mais cela aurait été, en quelque sorte, incohérent.
J'ai lu " Fiesta", il y a 30 ans, et je ne me souviens pas que d'une longue lueur d'espoirs, de déceptions, de beaucoup d'alcool, mais surtout, d'un sentiment de frustration permanente. Des personnages qui essaient de se projeter dans le présent, mais qui sont fortement ancrés dans leur passé.

Aujourd'hui, en relisant le volume, j'avais la même image, beaucoup plus proche de celle d'une perpétuation de la futilité et de l'absurdité de certaines vies, qui voudraient être rose, mais en fin de compte, elles ne sont pas du tout comme ça.
Le roman de Hemingway est, à la base, sur la guerre, mais, grâce au style, nous voyons une autre guerre, - celle d'esprit contre l'âme, dans laquelle la victoire n'appartient ni à l'un, ni à l'autre.
Le dialogue final m'a fait penser à " Casablanca" de Curtiz ...Il a la même charge émotionnelle, d'une révélation tardive.
C'est peut-être pour ça que toute cette histoire m'a reanimé des souvenirs.

I honestly didn't think that this book would be as bad as it was. I was assigned to read this book for class, and the books we've read for class have hitherto been better than this.

This book has virtually no plot, and the characters are very flat. The entire book consists of a group of people, each of them disliking at least one person in their party, driving around Paris drinking. Then they decide to go to Spain and drink. So the rest of the book is about them drinking with each other, drinking with people they meet in Spain, drama, a little more drinking and drama, and a little bit of bullfighting.

This is essentially a 200+ page drinking game which features a group of people who don't need to work for a living getting tipsy and talkative. It's not awful, but compared to the other two Hemingway novels I've listened to - (The Old Man and the Sea, and A Farewell to Arms) - this one seems rather dull and pointless.

Indeed, the only real pleasure I got out of this audio version was the fact that it was read by William Hurt. He does a fantastic drunken Irishman, PLUS, it was a joy picturing him as Jake Barnes.

Uma geração perdida entre duas guerras, ébria de álcool e de novas experiências que preencham vidas vazias, que poderiam ter sido bestialmente boas; mas, como conclui o narrador, não é bonito pensar nisso? Afinal, o sol nasce sempre, acrescento eu.
A Espanha dos toureiros e dos touros e dos usos e costumes, que Hemingway tão bem conhecia, é magnificamente retratada e algumas páginas podem ferir a susceptibilidade dos não aficionados.
Hemingway dizia que o seu objectivo era colocar no papel o que via e sentia da forma mais simples e melhor. Mas, em minha opinião, nos seus romances a linha que separa ficção e não ficção é demasiado ténue, o que lhe causou problemas, natural e justamente. Por exemplo, no dia a seguir a Fiesta ter sido publicado, Harold Loeb, que era o Robert Cohn do livro, anunciou que o mataria assim que lhe pusesse a vista em cima.
Há ainda uma referência de mau gosto a Henry James, que o tradutor, Jorge de Sena, numa nota de rodapé indica erradamente como o célebre contista O. Henry (1862-1910).
Gostei do livro. 4 (quatro) estrelas.

Note, July 15, 2024: I've just made a slight factual correction to a background detail of this review.

In the case of books I've read but disliked, I often indicate that fact with a one-star rating, so people browsing my shelves won't be misled as to my tastes. Some Goodreaders object to the practice of giving single-star ratings without a review to explain why; one likened it to a drive-by shooting. Mindful of their point, I've tried to go back and add reviews in some of these cases; and (to keep the shooting metaphor) this is one where I'm quite glad to come back and pump a few more bullets into the corpse. :-)

As the glowing Goodreads description indicates, Nobel laureate Hemingway is a critical establishment darling, so anybody panning his work risks condemnation as a philistine or worse. In my friends circle, ratings of this book range from five stars to one (and points in between), and some of the former come from friends whose judgment I respect a lot more than I do that of most critics. Of course, literary tastes are subjective; so I can only indicate how and why the work impressed (or failed to impress) me, for whatever that's worth. (As another friend sometimes says, "Your mileage may vary.") It's probably worth noting that I read this while I was in high school, and while it wasn't assigned by a teacher, I read it as something one had to read in order to be "educated." So I wasn't really drawn to it on its own merits; that may have been a factor that helped color my reaction, though a negative reaction didn't need much help.

To begin with, there's the matter of what the author of the Goodreads description (who was probably writing a jacket blurb!) calls the author's "spare but powerful" style: a limited-vocabulary, staccato, sometimes repetitive diction that's averse to adjectives, adverbs and most description of any kind. If prose were bread loaves, this would definitely be industrially-baked, thin-sliced white bread that dissolves in the mouth like slush and is more or less tasteless. It's significant that, despite the critical adulation of Hemingway as a stylist, this way of writing is virtually unique to him; it's usually explained in textbooks as a result of his background in newspaper journalism, but I've never encountered any newspaper story that affected this style, and no subsequent fiction writers I know of have chosen to imitate him (though a few have dared to parody him, sometimes to hilarious effect). There's just so much verbal richness to the English language, in vocabulary and syntax, so many expressive possibilities, that are simply lost here! So, especially given that the English-language writers I admire the most as stylists --Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Tanith Lee, and others-- have a much lusher, more fulsome style, it might be expected that I'm not an admirer of Hemingway's. Before reading this novel, I'd been exposed to it in some of his short fiction; I didn't like it there, and didn't appreciate it here.

More importantly, there are the more substantial matters of message, plot, and characters. Basically, the premise here can be summed up as: socially useless expatriates in Paris, whose worldview is comprised of cynicism, nihilism and hedonism, sit around killing time by drinking, fornicating, being bored, and going on jaunts to other places where they can sit around and do the same. That also pretty much summarizes the plot; if you're looking for eventful storytelling, examinations of constructive human relationships, a tale of some goal achieved or conflict undertaken, moral choices made or principles stood upon, you won't find it here. Of course, Hemingway was following the adage, "Write what you know;" (Jake Barnes could be his alter ego). He was part of a vast sea of human flotsam that came out of World War I with their shallow beliefs destroyed, and nothing to put in their place, convinced that life is futile; and he wrote this novel as a literary testament to that conviction. The symbolism of the title expresses the thought in a nutshell, being taken from the epigraph from Ecclesiastes (having been raised in a Congregational church, Hemingway was familiar with the Bible); the quoted verses make it clear that from a purely earth-bound perspective, human life is a cycle of vanity that doesn't go anywhere but in the same pointless circle. (For the Biblical writer, of course, in context, this is balanced by an awareness of the divine and transcendent that breaks the circle; but there's no such awareness here.) Since the literary critical establishment of the mid-20th century came out of the same "lost generation" (to quote the novel's other epigraph), this is the kind of self-referential, navel-gazing literature that they could eat up with a spoon and solemnly declare to be Great Truth. But if you recognize that life and the universe are meaningful, this doesn't come across as Great Truth, but as whiny drivel from people who need to grow up and get a life. Nor does it really succeed as a literary portrait to help us understand what makes these people tick, or to present it alongside the backdrop of an alternative; Hemingway isn't perceptive enough to analyze what makes his characters this way, and he hasn't got an alternative.

To be sure, there's a kind of vestigial plot, in the form of a triangle of sorts (I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "love" triangle) involving Jake, Lady Brett Ashley, and Robert Cohn --the latter two have a brief sexual dalliance, and the former two are quite scandalized that he's so gauche as to expect it to be anything more. (The reader might be scandalized, too --but not by that.) But none of these characters are likeable enough to arouse any emotional connection, or caring one way or the other about what they do or who they end up with --at least, I didn't. The book did, though, evoke one emotional reaction: resentment and distaste for its anti-Semitic undercurrent. Hemingway takes pains to note Cohn's Jewishness, paints him in as unflattering a light as he can, even compared to the other characters, and puts in one character's mouth the line, "Brett's gone off with men. But they weren't ever Jews, and they didn't come and hang about afterward." (This represents, of course, the author's way of trying to hurt the feelings of his nominal friend Gertrude Stein, towards whom he harbored pretty ambivalent feelings that included a hefty component of resentment.) If the critics hadn't already canonized this book before the Nazis gave anti-Semitism a bad name in respectable circles, one suspects it wouldn't be so highly rated today.

So, if this book "educated" me with any lesson, it was that I never wanted to read another Hemingway novel. :-) One might assume that this was an adolescent negative reaction to fiction from that era. But at the same time of my life, I read and liked works by such Hemingway contemporaries as Cather, Sinclair Lewis, and Arthur Koestler. Nor is it a blanket rejection of fictional writers with Hemingway's worldview --Lovecraft was, like Hemingway, an atheist and materialist (and from the same generation), but he became one of my favorite writers. He also produced a body of fiction that has something to offer in terms of literary enjoyment and rewards, whether you accept his worldview or not. Alas, that's not something I personally can say of Hemingway.

Much Ado about Nothing.

‘The Sun Also Rises’ by Ernest Hemingway is a novel that looks to capture the disillusionment and aimlessness of the ‘Lost Generation’ in the aftermath of World War I. It is about a group of American and British expatriates travelling from Paris to Spain during the 1920s. The protagonist, journalist Jake Barnes was left impotent by the war, but is in love with Lady Brett Ashley, a beautiful but emotionally troubled woman who cannot be with him because of his injury. This is typical Hemingway writing, focusing around drinking, fishing and bull fighting. The characters end up sitting around in an unfulfilling life, as Hemingway paints a picture of a world where love is painful, masculinity is fragile, and meaning is elusive. The novel climaxes at a bull run where the strain and complexities of their relationships come to a head.

Hemingway’s writing style is his greatest strength, he is famous for his minimalism and this is on full display, making the prose feel raw and immediate. His ability to convey deep emotions through understatement is masterful, and the dialogue is sharp, realistic, and often laced with unspoken tension. His influence on other writers such as Charles Bukowski is clear. The novel also excels in its vivid descriptions of both Paris and Spain, particularly Pamplona during the running of the bulls. The bullfighting sequences, while controversial, are some of the most striking passages in the book.

However, the book is not without its flaws. The characters, particularly Lady Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn, can be frustrating, for example Brett’s destructive relationships and Cohn’s insecurity often make them difficult to sympathise with, but is this on purpose? The novel is also slow at times, with long stretches of drinking and aimless conversation that, while thematically fitting, may test the patience of some readers. I did loose the sense of where the novel was going at times with this. Additionally, its portrayal of Jewish characters, especially Cohn, reflects the prejudices of its time, which can be jarring to modern audiences.

Overall, ‘The Sun Also Rises’ is a beautifully written and deeply evocative novel that captures the emptiness of a post-war generation. While its characters may not be likable, they feel painfully real, and Hemingway’s prose ensures that their struggles linger long after the final page. It’s not a book for everyone, but for those who appreciate subtlety, atmosphere, and a meditation on lost love and lost purpose, it’s a rewarding read. I have read a few Hemingway novels now and this is typical of what to expect from his work. I’m not sure if you would ‘love or hate’ Hemingway, but you know what you are getting yourself into.

Yes, impeccable and precise prose. Yes, a superstar writer. Yes, I hadn't read it before, but that's totally okay.

Somehow, I couple this quaint piece--most of the characters are blah because they belong to that blah generation, I mean, what to do if not fight in war?--with the monstrously intolerable novel by Malcolm Lowry, "Under the Volcano." But thank god this one has the European charm that is all but ridiculed in Lowry's take on some similarly lost days in Mexico. Here are some lost days in Paris, then some in Spain in Pamplona; I rather favor travelogues and valentine-to-(insert place other than home here) books, but the aimlessness, while pretty and underscored symbolically to feelings of hopelessness and totally melancholic disconnects, is rather-- um...uneventful? It is interesting, yes. It's Hemingway for fuckssakes! But I can't help but grin at modern writers who have bested him time and again. "Old Man and the Sea" is, for me, his masterpiece. This, well... just like a Picasso is a Picasso (even the sketches that go for thousands of dollars along the Florida East Coast), a Hemingway is no doubt a Hemingway.

The bored, the disenchanted, the wandering wondering and/or nearly thoughtless (except for where their next drink will come from) ex-pat characters, these borderline socialites fighting off ennui, of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises do very little worth reading about and yet read you do. Blame it on the author's clean writing style or his choice of scenes, choosing to paint with poignant words almost documentary style clips of cultural happenings that still excites even in this television/internet era. Hemingway's spartan style and story, which could just as easily have been called And Things Happen should be a recipe for disaster, but instead, you have a classic.

I'd forgotten what an interesting novel this is, as it has probably been at least thirty-five or forty years since I last read it. The Sun Also Rises impacts me on a couple of levels. First, there is an almost travel-log aspect to it. I mean, after all, this is the story of a group of friends starting out in the Bohemian quarter of Paris and then making their way down to Spain to attend a bullfighting fiesta, with a very cool trout-fishing interlude in the Basque countryside. Hemingway is great at putting the reader in each every scene--you can feel the sultry heat of the day and sweat on your skin; experiencing the motorcars puttering down the dry, dusty roads; experience the swaying of the train cars; thrill with the crowds as the toreadors duel with the bulls, and so on and so forth. I suppose that it is really no wonder that so many people make the pilgrimage to Pamplona and "run with the bulls" even to this day!

The second aspect of this book that I really could relate to was the camaraderie of Hemingway's fictional characters. Sure, there was probably too much alcohol abuse, and some bullying, but really this was not a lot different than some of the times and experiences I shared with my gang of friends when I was in my early 20s and in the military. Also, I think a subtle point that Hemingway was endeavoring to make to his readers was that the First World War influenced not only his writing of the novel, but also the experiences of the characters in the novel. The whole psychology of friendship, as well as platonic, romantic, and sexual love is seen and experienced by the novel's characters, and all of those relationships are tinged with the taint of the War.

I think that The Sun Also Rises is a novel that should, in all likelihood be read many times over the course of a person's life. I think there is so much to get out of this novel, and the reader is only able to peel back the layers with increasing maturity, life experiences and wisdom. Even crafting this review has been a very thought-provoking exercise for me.

I am glad to have revisited Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and do look forward to reading it again sometime soon. Four out of five stars for me.

I gave this one star because I wasn't old enough to drink or really enjoy much of anything when I first read it, and I haven't read it again since.

I'm almost certain I'd still hate it though.

This is my favorite Hemingway novel, maybe because it was my first. The Sun Also Rises was to Hemingway what The Great Gatsby was to Fitzgerald.

“Funny,” Brett said. “How one doesn’t mind the blood.” (p. 211)

Fifth or sixth reading. This is one of the essential books of life. It never fails. It possesses—for the right reader—an enormity of narrative pleasure and it grips from the very first line. Its storytelling is so exhilarating that one gets goosebumps.

Jake Barnes, our narrator, fought in The Great War for Italy (1914-18) when he was injured. Recuperating in the hospital he meets and falls in love with Lady Brett, a nurse. Later on, in Paris, where he works as a journalist, he runs into Brett again. Their relationship is now pure torture. Their chemistry is thermonuclear — she says Jake’s touch turns her to jelly and his love for her is beyond question — but sexual intimacy is impossible. Jake’s particular agony now, which he suffers in silence, is to standby while Brett sleeps with other men.

The passage at the Paris nightclub with the gay boys doesn’t bother me as it used to. Jake knows he’s being unreasonable. The queers, with whom Brett arrives at the club, have working penises and choose not to use them on her. To a man made impotent by war, a young man in love with her, their preference must seem like a kind of madness. Moreover, there may be a fear on his part that he’s becoming like them. That is, indifferent to female sexuality. He’s not, of course, not emotionally.

Now we’ve left Paris, taking the train to Bayonne. Then in an open car up the dusty roads to the plateau and Pamplona. From here Jake and Bill go to Burguete to do some fly fishing while Robert Cohn returns to San Sebastián to await Brett and fiancé, Mike. The trip on the bus to Burguete—through the stark countryside while Jake and Bill drink wine with the Basques—dazzles, lifts one’s spirits. The fishing sequences on the Irati River are beautifully spartan. Then after five days the fishermen are back in Pamplona. Mike and Brett and Cohn are about to complete the five-some.

So now we’ve got three men together in Pamplona who love Brett, two of whom have slept with her: Jake, Mike and Robert Cohn. Jake sadly can have nothing more to do with her, though they remain close. Cohn is like a child, always staring at her, and the bankrupt fiance, Mike, doesn’t like it. They all go to watch the bulls arrive at the ring. Steers are brought in to “calm” the bulls. This usually ends with a steer or two being gored. That’s when Mike refers to Cohn as a steer for the mute worshiping manner in which he follows Brett around.

“I would’ve thought you’d love being a steer, Robert."

“What do you mean, Mike?”

“They lead such a quiet life. They never say anything and they’re always hanging about so.”

We were embarrassed. Bill laughed. Robert Cohn was angry. Mike went on talking.

“I should think you’d love it. You’d never have to say a word. Come on, Robert. Do say something. Don’t just sit there.”

“I said something, Mike. Don’t you remember? About the steers.”

“Oh, say something more. Say something funny. Can’t you see we’re all having a good time here?”

“Come off it, Michael. You’re drunk,” Brett said.

“I’m not drunk. I’m quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?”

“Shut up, Michael. Try and show a little breeding.”

“Breeding be damned. Who has any breeding, anyway, except the bulls? Aren’t the bulls lovely? . . . Why don’t you say something, Robert? Don’t just sit there like a bloody funeral. What if Brett did sleep with you? She’s slept with lots of better people than you.“

“Shut up,” Cohn said. He stood up. “Shut up, Mike.”

“Oh, don’t stand up and act as though you were going to hit me. That won’t make any difference to me. Tell me, Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don’t you know you’re not wanted?” (p. 141-142)

It occurs to the reader just how painful this exchange must be for Jake, even though he doesn’t mention it. Hemingway was a master of omission, of not talking about the elephant in the room. I’ve read and reread this passage and every time it surprises me anew. In some ways Jake is like a steer, too, but he doesn’t moon and fawn. Instead he’s very stoic, tortured, yes, but good at not seeming so, good at joining in the party.

Then the fiesta “explodes” with two rockets over the main square and the peasants, who until then have been drinking quietly in the outer town, come rushing into the main square. They’re singing riau riau music and dancing. “The square solid with people, those in the centre all dancing.” (p. 159) The peasants dance about Brett as if she were some kind of Madonna. Everyone is ushered into a wine shop; some peasant women are wearing necklaces of garlic and one is hung about Brett’s neck. These are among the most moving moments in the book for the author captures the wonderful local manners with their astonishing air of friendliness and formality. The description is spare yet rich in detail.

The end is a knockout. Jake is held in odium because he has allowed the bullfight to be compromised. Whereas before, Jake and the hotel owner, Montoya, saw each other as fellow aficionados, now Jake is seen not just as a disappointment, but as a corrupter of the bullfight. There is much I’m not touching on here. Please read it.