And while men should examine and explore the concepts of masculinity, Hemingway, along with his literary brethren, kin and wannabe kin (helloooo, Harvey Mansfield), have been so obsessed by what it means to be a man, that they lost track of what it means to be a human, the most important task of any writer or any person, regardless of gender, race, creed, or color.
But if there is much about Hemingway that needs to be cast off into the dustbin of history, there is much too much about him that needs to be kept. He would write better novels: A Farewell to Arms is too mired in romanticism for me, but it gets to where it needs to go better than Sun did, and The Old Man And The Sea is the best novella long prose piece that I have read next to Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad.
The Sun Also Rises doesn’t rise to those levels, but, like Hemingway, it matters. Or at least it, and he, should matter. I will be the first to say that Faulkner mattered more then, matters more now, and will matter more than Hemingway as long as people read books. But if we want to have a full appreciation of our history, he has to matter for something. Because of his flaws, I will not say that it’s a shame that we don’t read him now, but American literature has lost something since he hasn’t mattered any more.
Article comments
1 - Joey
Bravo. Thanks for a great Sunday morning review!
2 - Howard Dratch
"... it is a shame that we don't read him now..."
Hemingway is the ultimate 20th-century American artist/monster, one of the most schizophrenic of our literary masters. His biases shackle a great deal of his work to his time, but they are part of a total package intractable from the man himself. Every novel that he wrote had holes...Impossible! Are you saying that Hemingway is out of favor and forgotten? I am getting old and like Hemingway in Cuba, I am living in Mexico, beginning to catch up 21st c. culture through the 'net.
If he is not now read; then, as you sort of wrote, "American literature has lost something since he hasn't mattered any more." Absolutely!
You did a great article but took on all of Hemingway and most of the 20th century in tackling either The Sun Also Rises let alone the entire oevre of an American icon. Perhaps he was even heard of past the Bush wall and over the puddle.
I have to stick to Jake and Lady Brett,to The Sun Also Rises to this one work of many that are sometimes spotty, yes, but are definitely an integral part of the American landscape of words and stories. More importantly, they were the characters of my youth and models from the clay-footed hero of the mid-century.
Jake and the Lady Brett were companions of my youth and, Charles Dickens or not, struck me as strong characters worthy of becoming part of my psyche. Jake faces his impotence - or not - and pushes on, a victim of the times and the history of the century. Did he or Ernest throw around their masculinity a bit (doth he?) protesting too much. But it is, at least, masculinity. And it is the stuff of pain and loss.
Oh, but I did and did not want to be Jake roaming Europe, strong and silent with only a trace of his feminine side showing. Or perhaps I just wanted to live in Paris and meet beautiful Ladies. It was, no matter, the stuff of dreams, that taxi ride with Lady Brett, a tear and "...At the end, when Brett and Jake, back at Gay Paree, ride off into the sunset just as unsure of their relationship as they were in the beginning of the book...".
To be sure, you mention some unsuccessful parts of the novel and, surprisingly, I don't remember them so I accept that they may have let me down to slide over them.
I don't even really remember the anti-Semitism but I was escaping the South where anti-Semitism was a part of daily life from friends, foes, teachers and everyone else so I found it easier to ignore -- then. I was also just escaping adolescence which also clouds my judgement. (Time to re-read yet another book I have read more than once).
We all have holes. Few (Dickens excepted usually) made works without some holes. Perfection is a heavy load to carry.
But you made the most frightening of statements when you wrote that
Because of his flaws, I will not say that it's a shame that we don't read him now, but American literature has lost something since he hasn't mattered any more .
Perfect or not, hyper-masculine or humanly flawed; it will be a sadder America if Hemingway is not kept in the pantheon of patron (unsaintly) writers.
3 - Jesper Docter
I loved this article. I totally agree with Lashley, when he basically says that "The Sun Also Rises" is as good as it is bad. After I had read the book I was a bit disappointed by the plot and often I had to struggle to get to the next page. It was the first book by Hemingway I had ever read and that's not something you want to do if you want to stay enthousiastic about good old Ernest.
4 - Scott
Have you read this book lately? Jake "kind of" likes Brett? Jake "can't stand" Mike? Wow. As for the "crippling flaw" of anti-semitism, you need to open your mind and read the book in the context of its times. Also, the book isn't a structural mess, any more than life is, which is probably the point.
5 - bliffle
"Sun also Rises" was the first Hemingway I read in 1955 and though I groaned at the sorta corny plot, I loved the descriptions of the country and the air and the ambience. To this day, being in Spain or France reminds me of the sense of air and light that I got from Hemingway, and for that I am grateful, because it is always pleasing and thrilling.
6 - zingzing
i dunno about hemingway not being read anymore... am i missing something? maybe i misread? maybe it's a personal prejudice, but out of all the authors of his day... faulkner, joyce, steinbeck, fitzgerald are maybe more widely read (for a book or two). maybe. i'd say he's still one of the most popular mid-century american authors. i dunno.
that said, this was a very good review. i haven't read the book in some years, but it made me want to go back and check it out with a few more years of "manhood" behind me.
7 - kejti
please can anybody tell me what does the other mean with the title "the sun also rises?".I've read half of the book and to tell the truth I haven't mada any conclusion
8 - ACE
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ARTICLE! I HOPE IT WILL HELP ME WITH MY TERM PAPAER..
9 - slotz
Dude, the possessive form of "it" is "its" not "it's". FAIL.
10 - Ernest
I liked your review.....this novel was so long winded, repetitive and banal I wanted to take a cheese grater to my face. It should be renamed..."The Tequila Sunrises" or "How I drank my way across Europe". Where is the substance?? Surely, there has to be more to discuss about "the lost generation" than how much everyone drinks, what the names of the drinks are, how many euphemisms for being intoxicated you can come up with, and how many frontiers you can cross while remaining blind drunk. For all the supposed exploration of things masculine there is such meager substance that it makes me want to scream. What about the war wound? Could a soldier's bravery be compared to bullfighter Romero's bravery in the ring? Can Jake's impotence and/or missing penis be a metaphor for the flaccid cultural achievements of the world in the 20's? How does Jake feel about Brett behaving like a $2 whore from Division Street??? The "deepest" and most masculine part of this novel is Jake trying to pray in the church of San Fermin. I like the fact that he exercises some higher powers and deals with spiritual aspects of his life. This is substance; this is a wounded man making some attempt at redemption. The rest is just the chronicle of a drunken, sophmoric "road trip".
My final thoughts deal with the tendency of 20's authors to dredge up some obscure quote or citation and make it the title of their work. Huxley was notorius for doing this with his lesser works but of all the people who should leave Scripture alone....it's Hemingway.
11 - Tallo
hemingway lasts because he was and is a master craftsman, poet, and storyteller. unquestioanbly some aspects of his work have not worn well and we know too much end story not to let it impact us. Sun is a great book. It is not his best: thats in some short stories, Old Man, Farewell and For Whom. There are passages and scenes in Hemingway that will be cherished as long as there are readers. And for me, that excuses a lot of the very bad behavior and psychological issues. judhe an author by his true merits. hemingway is in the pantheon of the greats.