Book Review: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Must be one of my favourite novels, this was my third or fourth time reading it.

This time I took more time with the words that Hemingway wrote, instead of being moved along with the plot. I was able to really see Paris, the Bayonne, dusty white Spain, the bull fights. Hemingway was influenced by the Impressionists and it shows; it's quite amazing how such an economical usage of words is able to paint such a vivid picture. 

This volume was particularly good thanks to the supplementary material. There were portions of Hemingway's first draft of the novel and the first chapter that he decided to cut out upon Fitzgerald's suggestion. 

The Sun Also Rises could have gone in completely different directions based on the content of these first drafts, including an experimental meta-narrative route (some fragments of this remained sparsely scattered in the final version of the novel).

I heard so much about this first chapter that was removed and after finally reading it, I have to agree with Fitzgerald's advice as it made the narrative slow to start. There was far too much telling and not enough showing in this first chapter, although the content of this removed first chapter still made its way into the novel through dialogue. Telling is not ok, but telling through dialogue is ok.

In the end, I was happy to read The Sun Also Rises again, but it did not hit me as hard as it did the first time. Hemingway's values surreptitiously made its way into mine once more, but the feelings of the novel felt not as fresh, and not as pure as it did the first time. Perhaps I am just getting old. The best time to read this novel is past.

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