The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (first color ebook reader TXT) 📕
Description
The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway’s first published novel, and the novel that introduced the term “Lost Generation” to describe the generation that came to adulthood during World War I.
The novel follows Jake Barnes, an American expat living in the Parisian café society of the roaring 20s. A wound sustained during the war has left him unable to have sex, and that drives a wedge between him and the woman he loves: Brett Ashley, a twice-divorcée who has embraced the sexual freedom and independence of the age. As they drift through their lives in postwar Paris, they find themselves on a trip with some friends to Spain to witness the Festival of San Fermin, a week-long bacchanal whose highlight is bullfighting.
Hemingway explores the aimless, heavy drinking, and dramatic lives of Jake, Brett, and their friends as a means to reflect the Lost Generation as a whole. Jake is a character of troubled masculinity: his war wound has fundamentally changed him as a man, and his behavior is often tentative, unsure, and placating. On the other hand, Brett is an enigmatic New Woman: free to drink and carouse with the men, she is seductive, but aching for the reassurance and love of a real relationship, and not just sex. The satellites of friends that orbit around them are equally troubled, drinking to excess and fighting with themselves and with others.
These complex characters are now mere spectators for the bullfight, a microcosm of war and death whose masters, the matadors, are the powerful and elegant emblems of masculinity that the Lost Generation finds it impossible to compete against.
Though initially met with mixed reviews, modern critics consider it to be Hemingway’s best novel. The characters and events are largely based on real-life people in Hemingway’s social circle and his time spent in Paris and Spain. Thus, the book sold very well in its first print run, as the expatriate community was eager to read about the coded scandals of their peers. Today it is recognized as a foundational work of the modernist style, and an American classic.
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- Author: Ernest Hemingway
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I grabbed Mike. “Come on to the café,” I said. “You can’t hit him here in the hotel.”
“Good!” said Mike. “Good idea!”
We started off. I looked back as Mike stumbled up the stairs and saw Cohn putting his glasses on again. Bill was sitting at the table pouring another glass of Fundador. Brett was sitting looking straight ahead at nothing.
Outside on the square it had stopped raining and the moon was trying to get through the clouds. There was a wind blowing. The military band was playing and the crowd was massed on the far side of the square where the fireworks specialist and his son were trying to send up fire balloons. A balloon would start up jerkily, on a great bias, and be torn by the wind or blown against the houses of the square. Some fell into the crowd. The magnesium flared and the fireworks exploded and chased about in the crowd. There was no one dancing in the square. The gravel was too wet.
Brett came out with Bill and joined us. We stood in the crowd and watched Don Manuel Orquito, the fireworks king, standing on a little platform, carefully starting the balloons with sticks, standing above the heads of the crowd to launch the balloons off into the wind. The wind brought them all down, and Don Manuel Orquito’s face was sweaty in the light of his complicated fireworks that fell into the crowd and charged and chased, sputtering and cracking, between the legs of the people. The people shouted as each new luminous paper bubble careened, caught fire, and fell.
“They’re razzing Don Manuel,” Bill said.
“How do you know he’s Don Manuel?” Brett said.
“His name’s on the programme. Don Manuel Orquito, the pirotecnico of esta ciudad.”
“Globos illuminados,” Mike said. “A collection of globos illuminados. That’s what the paper said.”
The wind blew the band music away.
“I say, I wish one would go up,” Brett said. “That Don Manuel chap is furious.”
“He’s probably worked for weeks fixing them to go off, spelling out ‘Hail to San Fermin,’ ” Bill said.
“Globos illuminados,” Mike said. “A bunch of bloody globos illuminados.”
“Come on,” said Brett. “We can’t stand here.”
“Her ladyship wants a drink,” Mike said.
“How you know things,” Brett said.
Inside, the café was crowded and very noisy. No one noticed us come in. We could not find a table. There was a great noise going on.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Bill said.
Outside the paseo was going in under the arcade. There were some English and Americans from Biarritz in sport clothes scattered at the tables. Some of the women stared at the people going by with lorgnons. We had acquired, at some time, a friend of Bill’s from Biarritz. She was staying with another girl at the Grand Hotel. The other girl had a headache and had gone to bed.
“Here’s the pub,” Mike said. It was the Bar Milano, a small, tough bar where you could get food and where they danced in the back room. We all sat down at a table and ordered a bottle of Fundador. The bar was not full. There was nothing going on.
“This is a hell of a place,” Bill said.
“It’s too early.”
“Let’s take the bottle and come back later,” Bill said. “I don’t want to sit here on a night like this.”
“Let’s go and look at the English,” Mike said. “I love to look at the English.”
“They’re awful,” Bill said. “Where did they all come from?”
“They come from Biarritz,” Mike said, “They come to see the last day of the quaint little Spanish fiesta.”
“I’ll festa them,” Bill said.
“You’re an extraordinarily beautiful girl.” Mike turned to Bill’s friend. “When did you come here?”
“Come off it, Michael.”
“I say, she is a lovely girl. Where have I been? Where have I been looking all this while? You’re a lovely thing. Have we met? Come along with me and Bill. We’re going to festa the English.”
“I’ll festa them,” Bill said, “What the hell are they doing at this fiesta?”
“Come on,” Mike said. “Just us three. We’re going to festa the bloody English. I hope you’re not English? I’m Scotch. I hate the English. I’m going to festa them. Come on, Bill.”
Through the window we saw them, all three arm in arm, going toward the café. Rockets were going up in the square.
“I’m going to sit here,” Brett said.
“I’ll stay with you,” Cohn said.
“Oh, don’t!” Brett said. “For God’s sake, go off somewhere. Can’t you see Jake and I want to talk?”
“I didn’t,” Cohn said. “I thought I’d sit here because I felt a little tight.”
“What a hell of a reason for sitting with anyone. If you’re tight, go to bed. Go on to bed.”
“Was I rude enough to him?” Brett asked. Cohn was gone. “My God! I’m so sick of him!”
“He doesn’t add much to the gayety.”
“He depresses me so.”
“He’s behaved very badly.”
“Damned badly. He had a chance to behave so well.”
“He’s probably waiting just outside the door now.”
“Yes. He would. You know I do know how he feels. He can’t believe it didn’t mean anything.”
“I know.”
“Nobody else would behave as badly. Oh, I’m so sick of the whole thing. And Michael. Michael’s been lovely, too.”
“It’s been damned hard on Mike.”
“Yes. But he didn’t need to be a swine.”
“Everybody behaves badly,” I said. “Give them the proper chance.”
“You wouldn’t behave badly.” Brett looked at me.
“I’d be as big an ass as Cohn,” I said.
“Darling, don’t let’s talk a lot of rot.”
“All right. Talk about anything you like.”
“Don’t be difficult. You’re the only person I’ve got, and I feel rather awful tonight.”
“You’ve got Mike.”
“Yes, Mike. Hasn’t he been pretty?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s been damned hard on Mike, having Cohn around and seeing him with you.”
“Don’t I know it, darling? Please don’t make me feel any worse than I do.”
Brett was nervous as I had never seen her before. She kept looking away from me and looking ahead at the wall.
“Want to go for a walk?”
“Yes. Come on.”
I
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