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I think there is something cheesey about reviewing an old book, but I felt I had to write something, as I constructed my senior thesis in college with this book as the cornerstone, I have read it at least six times, and I consider The Sun Also Rises to be the Great American Novel. Why?
1) Hemingway was, if nothing else, a great American. A renaissance man, a soldier, a fisherman, and a sportswriter, a romantic and an argumentatively direct chauvinist, a conflicted religious agnostic who never abandoned religion (and, it could be argued, never wrote about anything but his conflicts with religion), Hemingway was a stereotype red-blooded American like no other great writer. An argument could be made for Fitzgerald, but the crux of that argument lies in his relationship to Hemingway (and his psychotic wife. By the way, I love Fitzgerald. He is just a touch wordy).
2) The Sun Also Rises describes (among other things) disillusionment with the "American Way" and what that had come to mean (especially emphasized through the walking wounded, contrasted always with previous generations' "Dulce et decorum est pro patria more" mentality). Unlike other similarly-themed novels, however, the book does not take place in America. I postulate the Great American Novel must take place somewhere other than America, to reveal the way in which Americans can be defined as such anywhere, and to ephasize said disillusionment. I have other reasons to think thus, but suffice to say for the moment.
3) The Sun Also Rises does not end so drastically as other great works of Hemingway's, such as A Farewell to Arms (not afraid to say I shed tears at the end of that one) or For Whom the Bell Tolls. His best ending was in Old Man and the Sea, but that work (at the risk of sounding blasphemous here) was slightly too poppy to be his best.
4) The book does not begin with the narrator (the opening describing Robert Cohen). Americans exist in relationship to one another. The country has been built through a competitive spirit- fostered by democracy and that ideal we call "The American Dream". The backlash of all that is a natural inclination to "Keep up with the Jones'," as it were. Jake Barnes is an observer, separated from the Americans and from the Europeans yet constantly comparing himself, directly or by insinuation, to others.
In short, read the damn book. If you don't get it, read it again. It is arguable (perhaps, though I doubt it) that this book may not be the best ever written, but I do believe no greater has ever been penned.
You want a great trifecta? Read The Sun Also Rises, then The Great Gatsby, then Eliot's The Wasteland. Follow those up by reading Ecclesiastes 1 and the Revelations of John. Now go to a cocktail party and start a conversation. You're welcome.