The Sun Also Rises - First Quarter Book

     This first quarter I decided to read something older so I picked up The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. The main character is Jake Barnes and he narrates his encounters with Robert Cohn, Lady Brett Ashely, and others. Jake is a veteran of the Great War and is having a relaxing life in Paris. Robert is a Jewish man perceived as hasty by everyone else as they all seem to hate him. Lady Brett is a free spirit who is enjoying her life as much as she can. The story takes place in Europe after World War I, and that was something that definitely influenced the plot—I will explain.

     Hemingway's language was a bit hard to understand sometimes and this definitely had to do with me not understanding some of the cultural references that were going on in the 1920s, but overall you found that the way people talked back then was the same except that the actual words were different (if that makes sense). We express ourselves no different than our ancestors did; however, we have found newer terms.

     The way the book is written, you get this idea that the main characters are fond of taking part in exciting activities, but this is their only source of happiness. Last year in history class, I learned that Hemingway's goal with some of his novels was to outline this idea of the "Lost Generation" after World War I. This is very evident throughout the novel, you can see that most of the characters don't see life as something valuable. There plenty of times where they were stripped of emotion, where their pleasure came from talking behind Robert Cohn's back.

     The book is intended for a mature audience because it's a bit of a hard read and because there's a lot of sexual themes, which ultimately decide the fate of the story. I have to admit that there isn't much action besides lots of traveling, but the underlying themes and the (sometimes bewildering) assumptions that you have to make about some of the characters is what really makes this book one-of-a-kind.