El Sol també s'aixeca (1926)

This is one of those classics of the terse Hemingway style. I believe I imitated it for weeks after reading it. There's lots of interesting big themes at work in the novel, but I enjoy it simply for its finely observed portrait of the Lost Generation drinking class--and for its great description of the bull fighting milieu when the setting shifts from Paris to Spain. ( )

Parisen bizi diren eta idazle izan nahi duten kazetari amerikar batzuen ibilerak eta festarako gogoa kontatzen ditu Jake Barnesek, liburuko narratzaileak. Horrela esanda, obrak ez dakar muntako ezer berezirik, ez bada oso obra atipikoa dela: badu trama estilizatu bat, hari nagusietakoa, zeina den Brett Ashley erizainak kuadrillan eragiten dituen erreakzio sentimentalen kontakizuna; baina liburuak asko du erreportajetik ere (sanferminak protagonismo handia du); bada, gainera, oroitzapen-liburua; eta bada, halaber, bidaia-liburua ere. Obra hibrido bat dela esan liteke avant la lettre, askotarikoa, baina osagai horiek guztiak biltzen dituen zakuak izen doitu bat du, eta da nobela.
Ez, Fiestan kontatzen dena ez litzateke bereziki interesgarri, ez balitz bertan gertatzen diren peripezia egunerokoak kontatzeko moduarengatik. Kixoteari gertatzen zaio. Edo Denbora galduaren bilari.
Anjel LertxundiI

It makes me want to travel. =) ( )

Fantastic and gripping (at some points). I don't think I've ever read another book written quite like it.

bonus point for the running of the bulls


very enjoyable.
( )

There is much to like in this book. For instance, the deceptively simple writing style. There are fewer short, simple sentences than one would expect from a disciple of William Allen White of the 110 edicts. Avoid adjectives was another White dogma. It struck me how often Hemingway uses adjectives, but they are empty ones such as "nice."
There's a repetition of words and a subtle rhythm to the sentences that fascinates me. Chapter 12 is a nice set-piece on a day spent fishing that would go well alongside Hemingway's Upper Michigan stories. My grammar editor wants me to choose another adjective for that sentence, but if "nice" is good enough for Hem, well. . . .
It probably says something that I discuss style before plot and character. I enjoyed this book, but it leaves me ambivalent.
There's hardly another writer whose biography is as well-known as Hemingway's, and this, his first novel, is transparent. Didn't his companions on the trip see him scribbling incessantly in his Moleskines? What did they suppose he was recording? We can't help but see Hemingway in our minds when we read of Jake Barnes. It's hard to resist falling into the biographical fallacy.
Barnes comes off better than anyone in the circle of friends with whom he descends on Pamplona. When he and Bill arrive in Spain, Bill repeatedly complains of the cold, but Jake is stoical. There's a lot of drinking in the book, but apparently, Jake is the only one who can hold his liquor. Mike and Bill are loud, obnoxious drunks, Brett's hand shakes until she gets the glass to her lips for a first sip. Jake remains stoic, even when the room around him is reeling. The effect is to make the book seem mean-spirited. A settling of scores perhaps none of his real-life friends knew were open. Does a writer have to be so ruthless? Did Hemingway need a new circle of friends after every book?
It's also telling that two of the circle of friends are writers. There's a competition going on here that's about more than drinking and fishing and the question of who is the only true aficionado of bull-fighting. The two writers have successfully published, while Jake is still a newspaper reporter, measuring himself against them. The gratuitous put-downs of Mencken are another indication of what Harold Bloom would call the anxiety of influence.
There's a common thread: It seems his friendships were pugilistic, his approach to writing agonistic. Bull-fighting is more than the backdrop; it's a way of life. It appears as if the only person Jake admires in the book is the young bull-fighter, Pedro Romero. If he were a writer, Jake would hate him. But since his excellence is in an activity that Jake doesn't perform in, he can accept him.
And just how much anti-semitism can we simply write off as reporting the attitudes that would have existed in a circle such as that at the time? To me, it goes beyond that, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
And yet. . . . After it seems as if Hemingway will spend the entire book with his characters moving from Paris to Pamplona, and from dining table to bar stool, all of a sudden he lands a punch that you realize he's been building toward since the first page. You just have to admire it. And the denouement, leading to one of the best final lines in literature, is perfect. ( )