The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

As I said in a comment in another post, I have a love/hate relationship with this book and Hemingway. I appreciate Hemingway’s genius, his exquisite manner of storytelling and the amount of emotion he can convey in just one sentence. I love the “bohemianism” of the setting, of the characters. On the other hand, I hate Hemingway’s “macho” notions, how he romanticizes something as barbaric as bullfighting, how he idealizes not necessarily the braveness of men, but their aggressiveness. 

It is fair to say that bullfighting scenes almost ruined the book for me. I know it is fiction and I should take it as part of a bigger work of art, but having read quite a bit about Hemingway’s life, hobbies and interests and knowing that this book is based on real-life events, I couldn't help getting a little mad. I have heard every argument saying it is an ancient tradition, that it represents the identity of a country, etc. That is nonsense. It is a barbaric tradition that should not continue. I don’t like people who torture animals for entertainment (and then have the nerve to call it art). 

It sickened me to read the parts of the bullring. I tried to be as objective as possible, reminding myself that it was part of a story and had its purpose there. I have read many other unpleasant things before and they didn’t affect me this way. I have read about horrible wars, death, misery. Why this, then? Why was this affecting me so? And not in the way Hemingway intended: it was making me angry and sad. Then, I realized it was because Hemingway was romanticizing it, because the bullfighter was supposed to be some kind of hero and example of masculinity in the story. What affected me was not the bullfighting itself  (within the story) but the perspective from which it was written and by someone who thought it was beautiful. That sickened me. I guess I’ll never understand how making another living creature suffer became a sport, the object of fanaticism and admiration. How a genius man as Hemingway thought it was beautiful to see a bull bleed to death. 

I could rant about this for pages but I don’t want to do that. There are many other noteworthy things I’d like to mention.

What about the characters? I loved the apparent freedom of their relationship. Brett is the center of everyone’s attention. Jake, Robert and Mike are in love with Brett. She is in love with Jake, engaged to Mike and having an affair with Robert, and then with the bullfighter. I really liked the lack of a judgmental tone in the narration. Brett is definitely a woman without the limitation of society’s prejudices and stereotypes for women’s behavior. She seemed to float around trying to be happy, making a lot of mistakes in the way and regretting them to a certain point but not really learning from them. As a contradiction to her own nature, she likes the “macho” idea of a man. When Romero, the bullfighter, kills the bull and presents  to Brett the bull’s ears, I couldn’t help thinking of a medieval warrior presenting to his princess the head of his opponent. 

After a while you can see the conflicts that lie below the surface. They are not really free; there’s a sort of disorientation making them sad. At the end of the book their underlying sadness is revealed. Hemingway is good at that.

That is the reason I do get the whole “lost generation” thing in this book. I don’t know if it is all the wine-drinking, the fighting, the feeling of not having anywhere clear to go, that made me think they were indeed a little bit lost. But this is the romantic part of the book I did enjoy. There is something nostalgic about it, the unfulfilled love between Brett and Jake and the uncertainty of their futures, of what will become of them or what they will have to settle for. 

I could say that without the bullring scenes I would have loved this book. But then, would  it have been the same book? Would it be Hemingway without his romantic ideas of masculinity and aggressiveness? 

When I wrote my review of A Moveable Feast I said I could either love or hate the next book I read of Hemingway. I didn’t know it could actually be both. What I’m certain of now is that I will always have strong feelings about his books. I’m pretty sure I will never say “meeeh” to describe them. 

Despite the whole bullfighting thing and the macho ideas of masculinity, I still want to read more. He writes beautifully, that I can most definitely say. 

A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

I've heard so many different opinions about Hemingway. People either love him or hate him, according to my experience. It seems as if he causes the same passionate reactions that characterized him during his life. 

I read The Old Man and The Sea when I was fourteen and I hated it. It made me suffer so much for the old man while I was reading it, I could almost feel his blisters on my hands. I remember I closed the book and said “I hate Hemingway”. I read it during a time when I was very sensitive and didn't want to feel that much (oh, those teenage years). Looking back, I think it must have been a good book if I became so involved with it. I have to add it to my list of re-reads, I don’t remember much except the impact it had on me. 

I didn't want to read Hemingway again because of that experience, but a couple of years ago someone convinced me to read his short stories and I loved them. I thought they were brilliant and I tried to analyze them and break them down to find out what was it that made me want to read them over and over again. I decided to give his books another chance and I chose A Moveable Feast to start with. 

Within my limited experience reading Hemingway, he always makes me feel a lot with so very little. His writing is unadorned and simple. It felt as if someone was speaking to me, as if he was sitting with me, drinking a glass of wine, telling me his stories about Paris in the twenties. It was so touching, so beautiful to me, specially the parts related to Hadley, his first wife. This book gave me the impression that it was a love letter for someone who had been lost. He wrote it at the end of his life so I imagine that looking back to those early years made him nostalgic for the days when he was poor but happy. I actually think this book was meant to be an apology to Hadley, that despite it all he was never happier than with her and she was the only one who knew him for real.

Ernest Hemingway, Hadley and Sylvia Beach in front of Shakespeare and Co.

The book also gave me a glimpse of what was he like as a young writer, when he was still learning about his craft and how to convey the stories within him. I've dealt many times with writer’s block and become so frustrated that I wondered if maybe I’m not made for this. But when I read that even him struggled with this sometimes, it comforted me. Again, it felt as if he was speaking directly to me: 

“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

When I sat down to write the review for this book my mind went blank. I didn't understand why I was having a hard time writing the review of a book that moved me so. And then I realized that was the problem. That’s why this isn't really a review. I’m explaining here why it was so moving to me. I’m writing what is true to me.

Needless is to say that I've changed my mind about him and I’m ready to read more of his works. I plan to read The Sun Also Rises very soon and I don’t know how I will react to it. I could love it or I could hate it. Either way, I’m pretty sure I will have strong feelings about it, that’s the one thing I can count on when it comes to Hemingway.