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.
Read free book «The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (first color ebook reader TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Ernest Hemingway
Read book online «The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (first color ebook reader TXT) 📕». Author - Ernest Hemingway
“Let’s have one more drink of that,” Brett said. “My nerves are rotten.”
We each drank a glass of the smooth amontillado brandy.
“Come on,” said Brett.
As we came out the door I saw Cohn walk out from under the arcade.
“He was there,” Brett said.
“He can’t be away from you.”
“Poor devil!”
“I’m not sorry for him. I hate him, myself.”
“I hate him, too,” she shivered. “I hate his damned suffering.”
We walked arm in arm down the side street away from the crowd and the lights of the square. The street was dark and wet, and we walked along it to the fortifications at the edge of town. We passed wine-shops with light coming out from their doors onto the black, wet street, and sudden bursts of music.
“Want to go in?”
“No.”
We walked out across the wet grass and onto the stone wall of the fortifications. I spread a newspaper on the stone and Brett sat down. Across the plain it was dark, and we could see the mountains. The wind was high up and took the clouds across the moon. Below us were the dark pits of the fortifications. Behind were the trees and the shadow of the cathedral, and the town silhouetted against the moon.
“Don’t feel bad,” I said.
“I feel like hell,” Brett said. “Don’t let’s talk.”
We looked out at the plain. The long lines of trees were dark in the moonlight. There were the lights of a car on the road climbing the mountain. Up on the top of the mountain we saw the lights of the fort. Below to the left was the river. It was high from the rain, and black and smooth. Trees were dark along the banks. We sat and looked out. Brett stared straight ahead. Suddenly she shivered.
“It’s cold.”
“Want to walk back?”
“Through the park.”
We climbed down. It was clouding over again. In the park it was dark under the trees.
“Do you still love me, Jake?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Because I’m a goner,” Brett said.
“How?”
“I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him, I think.”
“I wouldn’t be if I were you.”
“I can’t help it. I’m a goner. It’s tearing me all up inside.”
“Don’t do it.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help anything.”
“You ought to stop it.”
“How can I stop it? I can’t stop things. Feel that?”
Her hand was trembling.
“I’m like that all through.”
“You oughtn’t to do it.”
“I can’t help it. I’m a goner now, anyway. Don’t you see the difference?”
“No.”
“I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to do something I really want to do. I’ve lost my self-respect.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, darling, don’t be difficult. What do you think it’s meant to have that damned Jew about, and Mike the way he’s acted?”
“Sure.”
“I can’t just stay tight all the time.”
“No.”
“Oh, darling, please stay by me. Please stay by me and see me through this.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t say it’s right. It is right though for me. God knows, I’ve never felt such a bitch.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come on,” Brett said. “Let’s go and find him.”
Together we walked down the gravel path in the park in the dark, under the trees and then out from under the trees and past the gate into the street that led into town.
Pedro Romero was in the café. He was at a table with other bullfighters and bullfight critics. They were smoking cigars. When we came in they looked up. Romero smiled and bowed. We sat down at a table halfway down the room.
“Ask him to come over and have a drink.”
“Not yet. He’ll come over.”
“I can’t look at him.”
“He’s nice to look at,” I said.
“I’ve always done just what I wanted.”
“I know.”
“I do feel such a bitch.”
“Well,” I said.
“My God!” said Brett, “the things a woman goes through.”
“Yes?”
“Oh, I do feel such a bitch.”
I looked across at the table. Pedro Romero smiled. He said something to the other people at his table, and stood up. He came over to our table. I stood up and we shook hands.
“Won’t you have a drink?”
“You must have a drink with me,” he said. He seated himself, asking Brett’s permission without saying anything. He had very nice manners. But he kept on smoking his cigar. It went well with his face.
“You like cigars?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. I always smoke cigars.”
It was part of his system of authority. It made him seem older. I noticed his skin. It was clear and smooth and very brown. There was a triangular scar on his cheekbone. I saw he was watching Brett. He felt there was something between them. He must have felt it when Brett gave him her hand. He was being very careful. I think he was sure, but he did not want to make any mistake.
“You fight tomorrow?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Algabeno was hurt today in Madrid. Did you hear?”
“No,” I said. “Badly?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing. Here,” he showed his hand. Brett reached out and spread the fingers apart.
“Oh!” he said in English, “you tell fortunes?”
“Sometimes. Do you mind?”
“No. I like it.” He spread his hand flat on the table. “Tell me I live for always, and be a millionaire.”
He was still very polite, but he was surer of himself. “Look,” he said, “do you see any bulls in my hand?”
He laughed. His hand was very fine and the wrist was small.
“There are thousands of bulls,” Brett said. She was not at all nervous now. She looked lovely.
“Good,” Romero laughed. “At a thousand duros apiece,” he said to me in Spanish. “Tell me some more.”
“It’s a good hand,” Brett said. “I think he’ll live a long time.”
“Say it to me. Not to your friend.”
“I said you’d live a long time.”
“I know it,” Romero said. “I’m never going to die.”
I tapped with my fingertips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his head.
“No. Don’t do that. The bulls are my best friends.”
I translated to Brett.
“You kill your friends?” she asked.
“Always,” he said in English, and laughed. “So
Comments (0)