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Murray's Reviews > The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises
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✍� The Style ✍�
You have to like his somewhat flat unemotional journalistic style applied to the novel to enjoy him. This is a good story but as I say you have to be able to ease into his dispassionate almost ironic approach, the approach of an observer who cares about what they are seeing but remains somewhat distant.
I recall a friend saying they had read Hemingway for the first time but assumed it had been an earlier work because his style seemed undeveloped. When I told them that was his style they’d heard everyone talking about they were surprised and disappointed.
I would say his style works well in several cases. When a soldier is watching blood drip from a ragged wound and expresses no emotional connection to casualties and the horrors of war it carries a strong impact. When the old man is fighting off the sharks and it’s described in that same flat tone it has a certain power more descriptive and emotive language would not have.
Everyone has their tastes. You see that diversity every day on ŷ. Ernest is embraced or not.
[Admittedly, this is less a review of the novel than a review of Hem’s writing style. I will rectify this oversight with a fresh rereading of the novel and a new review focused on the storyline.]
📚 Some short Hemingways I would recommend are: Big Two Hearted River 1 & 2; The Snows of Kilimanjaro; The Old Man and the Sea; any of the Nick Adams stories set in a rural America (Idaho) of the 1930s; any of his pieces on writing.
You have to like his somewhat flat unemotional journalistic style applied to the novel to enjoy him. This is a good story but as I say you have to be able to ease into his dispassionate almost ironic approach, the approach of an observer who cares about what they are seeing but remains somewhat distant.
I recall a friend saying they had read Hemingway for the first time but assumed it had been an earlier work because his style seemed undeveloped. When I told them that was his style they’d heard everyone talking about they were surprised and disappointed.
I would say his style works well in several cases. When a soldier is watching blood drip from a ragged wound and expresses no emotional connection to casualties and the horrors of war it carries a strong impact. When the old man is fighting off the sharks and it’s described in that same flat tone it has a certain power more descriptive and emotive language would not have.
Everyone has their tastes. You see that diversity every day on ŷ. Ernest is embraced or not.
[Admittedly, this is less a review of the novel than a review of Hem’s writing style. I will rectify this oversight with a fresh rereading of the novel and a new review focused on the storyline.]
📚 Some short Hemingways I would recommend are: Big Two Hearted River 1 & 2; The Snows of Kilimanjaro; The Old Man and the Sea; any of the Nick Adams stories set in a rural America (Idaho) of the 1930s; any of his pieces on writing.
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Finished Reading
October 6, 2013
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Debbie Y
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Sep 06, 2023 10:11PM
Stoicism isn’t for everyone. Sometimes, it’s not for me as well because I love being immersed in a story, and for that, some passion is required. I do like Hemingway, that said. Great review, Murray, I have yet to read this one:)
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Yes. So, there’s definitely passion in A Moveable Feast and I feel his passion for his lovers in various books. And also for the wilds of Idaho not far from me. So, I think we could say he is stoic when it suits a certain part of the story, but passionate when he arrives at other parts. I think you expose something here in a good way and that is we can make too much of the flat, dispassionate aspect of his fiction. Clearly, if we’ve read a certain amount of Hemingway, we are well aware that description is not inclusive of all his fiction.
A wonderful review, Murray. I have not read this book yet but I hope to in the coming year. Thanks for the nudge.
Lorna I liked I guess eight tenths of the book but I didn’t like the bull fighting. I’m not a fan of the blood sports.
Good book but not his best in my opinion. The old man , a Farewell and moveable feast is great
I agree Iluvatar - Rises is early in his career
"Yes, wouldn't be pretty to think so".---The best closing line in all of American literature.
Murray, you sound like Al Pacino in DONNIE BRASCO.
It was a pretty good book of the thoughts and feelings of the Lost Generation
Yes Siobhan and it offered us a real close up of F Scott at the exact time Gatsby was released. It did not do well so far as sales go, at first. That may have been because it was Scott’s indictment of his generation.
Fitzgerald was the role model for "Robert Cohen", the hopeless romantic who doesn't realize the times are dark and merit cynicism. Hemingway took F. Scott's personality at planted it in the body of a Jewish writer he knew in Paris.
That’s interesting Julio. Cohen has a rough time of it in Hemingway’s writing if I recall rightly.
Si, Murray. Hemingway portrays him as a fool who won't adjust to the times. Jake is Hemingway himself, his heart broken but at least he doesn't fall for naive solutions in personal or political affairs.
I thought that I learned to appreciate Hemingway's style, but something didn't work in this one.
It was his first novel and he was still working on his approach
