Book Review: The Sun Also Rises

Title: The Sun Also Rises
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Published: 1926 Pages: 251
Genre: Modernist
Rating: 5/5

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It is amazing how one such as myself, a constant reader, can still find herself reading long-known, but never-read books. I have a distant memory of The Sun Also Rises; perhaps I read it a long time ago. There are many books, particularly novels considered literary in nature, that I read at too young an age to truly remember. So for me, despite this distant memory, this was my first reading of this novel.

I picked it up for two reasons: 1) Brandon said it was his favorite book and I trust his judgment; and 2) Deb said she was going to read it, and I thought it would be nice to read a book along with her and discuss. So around nine o'clock tonight I started reading. It is now midnight and I have finished. I should have read slower, taken more in, but I was fascinated and hence absorbed the novel a paragraph at a time. Maybe tomorrow I will re-read with a more analytical perspective, but for now it was enough to experience.

Two words come to mind after reading this novel: broken and bittersweet. The people in this novel are broken, leading superficially frivolous lives. But the tone, to me, is not one of judgment or condemnation, but rather bittersweet in its treatment of this group who have been made empty. Even the character who could be most despised because of her treatment of men and refusal to forgo sex for love is made pitiful to the reader.

I will definitely be re-reading this novel with a clearer head soon.