Lisa's review of Fiesta (original) (raw)

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Lisa's Reviews > Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises

Fiesta by Ernest Hemingway

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Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
by

32532774

"Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"

Looking through my copy of The Sun Also Rises, I believe it is the most quotable Hemingway I have read. Line after line resonates with me on the deepest level possible. I used to think the Lost Generation represented a unique time in history, and I was vaguely jealous of their beautiful misery. The older I get, the more I believe this is the universal novel describing the human condition. The hardboiled by day, broken by night attitude to life hurts and attracts. As a person who has been dragging myself along from country to country, I know Hemingway was right when he said you can't escape yourself by moving.

But you can build that fashionable surface of the glorious expatriate - which haunts you by night.

Wonderful, wonderful prose!

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Reading Progress

June 26, 2014 – Shelved as:nobels

Comments Showing 1-14 of 14 (14 new)

Czarny Pies I rather like this one but I find that the characters do a lot of drinking. Some critics have suggested that this novel is a precursor for those of Jack Kerouac whose characters are always in a state of drug and alcolhol induced euphoria.

Ray Killer quote at the start and the penultimate paragraph is just as insightful. We are all but a veneer of civility over a raging maelstrom of emotions.

The line about living half a life already hits home. I am past that stage, though I plan to give mortality a run for its money.

Kim Kaso The characters do a lot of drinking because the people upon whom Hemingway based it, including notably himself, almost all had what we would call PTSD from their experiences during WW I, or were married to people who did. Self-medication at its most ubiquitous. There is a book about this period of H’s life, Everyone Behaves Badly. He chose to “out” everyone with whom he partied, and lost his relationships with them all. Arguably his best book, but it came
at a cost.

Czarny Pies Kim wrote: "The characters do a lot of drinking because the people upon whom Hemingway based it, including notably himself, almost all had what we would call PTSD from their experiences during WW I, or were ma..."

Your are correct that the only logical conclusion to draw is that the the excessive drinking of the characters in the Sun Also Rises is rooted in their experiences during the war. My problem is that Ernest Hemingway nonetheless encouraged his readers to view drinking as a skill rather than a vice.

Lisa Czarny wrote: "Kim wrote: "The characters do a lot of drinking because the people upon whom Hemingway based it, including notably himself, almost all had what we would call PTSD from their experiences during WW I..."

What you raise here is the dilemma of the author, Czarny: does he have a moral obligation to promote a healthier life or an artistic calling to describe his experiences? For this generation, and for many others as well, social interaction revolves around drinking. I tend not to like authors who tell me too clearly how they think I should behave. That reminds me of the priests of my adolescence. Their advice was normative and threatening, but not effective. Maybe showing the glamour and misery and talking about it via booksis a means to raise awareness without judgment?

Czarny Pies Lisa wrote: "Czarny wrote: "Kim wrote: "The characters do a lot of drinking because the people upon whom Hemingway based it, including notably himself, almost all had what we would call PTSD from their experien..."

I suppose that Hemingway would have been dishonest if he had described all the drinking. I assume nonetheless that this is one book that you do not teach to your students.

Lisa Czarny wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Czarny wrote: "Kim wrote: "The characters do a lot of drinking because the people upon whom Hemingway based it, including notably himself, almost all had what we would call PTSD from t..."

A really good point, Czarny. What is a good class novel?

If I could get my students to read on this level, I wouldn't mind teaching it. It is about offering them a context and about discussing our own reflections on the characters' behaviour. We teach literature relating to drug abuse, sexual violence, religious fundamentalism, political radicalism, homophobia, misogyny etc. All those things exist, and we prepare students for life. I believe in equipping them with critical thinking skills rather than shielding them from issues. Graphic and explicit violence I would ban from the curriculum, as well as contemporary texts that are written with the purpose to be openly offensive to race, gender etc. If references to racism occur in older literature like Huckleberry Finn though, I would teach it with reference to time and place and ask students to think about changes in society since then.

It is always a difficult balance.

Lisa Ray wrote: "Killer quote at the start and the penultimate paragraph is just as insightful. We are all but a veneer of civility over a raging maelstrom of emotions.

The line about living half a life already hi..."

You are right, Ray! We should stick it out with existing as long as we can. It's never boring!

soleil I don’t know if you thought this, but I saw Jake’s fascination and sort of obsesson with Pedro Romero to be queer coded. Like even all the other characters are tired of Jake saying how hot he is. It makes the story all the more heartbreaking.
To go off the point that this was a precursor to Jack Kerouac- in On the Road, the characters jokingly refer to each other as Jake and Sal which is a direct reference to this book!

Lisa Lee 🦆 wrote: "I don’t know if you thought this, but I saw Jake’s fascination and sort of obsesson with Pedro Romero to be queer coded. Like even all the other characters are tired of Jake saying how hot he is. I..."

Yes, I remember thinking about the fixed idea of male attractiveness. There are definitely some underlying currents. I felt a similar idea when Nick watched Gatsby though, so it might just be attraction to pseudo-glamour. You make me want to reread On The Road too. Been ages...

Fionnuala The Like is for your comment responses as much as for the excellent review, Lisa — all so well thought out.
Re the focus on male attractiveness, I remember noticing it in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and thinking, rightly or wrongly, that Hemingway was fetishising his main character but that the main character was really himself, so I saw it as a kind of self-fetishising, if that makes any sense.
I should maybe read this book. It might rehabilitate Hemingway for me. I couldn't relate to the writing in For Whom at all (though I've reread The Old Man and the Sea several times).

Lisa Fionnuala wrote: "The Like is for your comment responses as much as for the excellent review, Lisa — all so well thought out. Re the focus on male attractiveness, I remember noticing it in [book:For Whom the Bell T..."

For Whom The Bell Tolls is the Hemingway I struggled most with - by far. I found it too long, and not necessarily as convincing in its language as his shorter fiction. I still appreciated it for being "a Hemingway", but if I look at my bookshelf, I would probably reread ten others of his before that one would even be considered. On the Spanish Civil War, nothing surpasses Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

Alexis Love this quote from the book

Lisa Alexis wrote: "Love this quote from the book"

Yes, me too, Alexis!

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