The Sun Also Rises

Some spoilers below, so steer clear if you want to discover them yourself.

More famously known as “The Sun Always Rises”.

Famous for characterising ‘the lost generation' - those who came of age in WW1, this is an interesting book. Wealthy people - at least people acting as if wealthy - drinking up a storm, fitting a little work in around the drunkenness. Americans spending their time in France and Spain.

A novel in three parts- the first set in Paris, the second in Pamplona, the third in San Sebastian / Madrid.

Seldom does a book blurb so well explain the plot -I can't do better so “Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions.

This has lot of Hemingway in it - drinking, fishing, bull fighting, drinking, women, and more drinking. It also has self-destruction, journalism, bankruptcy, flighting and more drinking.

Is is simple in its style, narrated by the main character Barnes, also large proportion is dialogue. It is not a particularly descriptive book - with regards to the scenery and the setting, but it describes well the main features - the running of the bulls, the bull fighting and most importantly, the characters.

It is a brutal life Barnes has been handed. Wounded in the war and lacking the use of his downstairs operation, in love with Brett, and unable to keep her without the sex, he follows her about. She is a notorious slapper, who shacks up with whoever she is currently in love with - Barnes even helps facilitate setting her up with her lovers. Throughout the novel he keeps a fairy balanced outlook - no doubt helped by his almost constant drunkenness, always off to the rescue.
For me, it is a sad look at the lost generation, lost mostly in alcohol.

Four stars.