The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway  

The book is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. It was originally published in 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. I read the 2016 paperback edition published by Scribner (an imprint of Simon and Schuster, Inc.) I read it in July of 2024.  

The title comes from Ecclesiastes 1:5  “The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose” (KJV) 

Apparently Hemingway liked taking titles from the Bible.  

“Hemingway said that he usually chose the title of his books at the end, and that the Bible was an especially good source for titles. This was true of The Sun Also Rises, whose title is taken from the Old Testament; the passage in Ecclesiastes is quoted at the beginning of the novel. It was one of five biblical titles that he considered.” (p.xx) 

It’s fitting too. Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. That’s true about this book. All the characters seem vain and shallow.  

I read this book in college but I wasn’t really paying attention. I reread it because I want to read through all of Hemingway’s works. This his first real published novel. It’s the one that put him on the literary scene.  

Hemingway wasn’t trying to say anything with this novel. It’s just a snapshot from his life. There’s not much of a story. Some friends hang out and spend time together in France and Spain. It’s a wandering narrative.  

My main takeaway is to warn my son about women like the character Brett. She is a whore. Yeah she has a complicated past and oppression and blah blah blah. In the end she is just a whore who doesn’t know what she wants and takes the piss out of men for the whiff of power it gives her.  

She embodies the liberation of women in the 1920s. But it’s a liberation to hedonism. It’s the worst feminist crap. She drags the male characters around by the dick and they let her, all except for the main character Jake but that’s because his dick doesn’t work. She plucks on his heart strings. He is her only foil. Jake is the only way Brett gets a taste of her own medicine.  

This book made me think of a few girls I know who shall remain nameless. I watched as they dragged boys around one by one, including me. Weak-ass.  

It was a little confusing keeping up with the locations in France and Spain. I have very little context for those places.  

The tone of this book was laid back and carefree. The characters just drift around,  having drinks, sleeping with each other, and talking shit. I couldn’t imagine spending one day with this group of “friends.”  

There aren’t any heroes to emulate. Maybe Jake although unintentionally. I want to teach my sons to be that cool and guarded around women, even when you have a working penis.  

I’d recommend this book for Hemingway’s writing, and as a warning against bitches like Brett. I would not want my sons to experience being dragged around by a girl to learn this lesson of how not be a chump, I’d rather they just read this book. That’s a better way to learn lessons. Hemingway is a great writer. It’s a wandering non-story novel but it’s a joy to read. He paints the characters so real and they’re repulsive, but he gets a reaction out of you and makes you feel something and that’s the point.  

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Notable Quotables 

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Hemingway said that he usually chose the title of his books at the end, and that the Bible was an especially good source for titles. This was true of The Sun Also Rises, whose title is taken from the Old Testament; the passage in Ecclesiastes is quoted at the beginning of the novel. It was one of five biblical titles that he considered. (p.xx) 

“””” 

The publishers had praised his novel pretty highly and it rather went to his head. Then several women had put themselves out to be nice to him, and his horizons had all shifted. For four years his horizon had been absolutely limited to his wife. For three years, or almost three years, he had never seen beyond Frances. I am sure he had never been in love in his life. (p7) 

“”””” 

I suppose she only wanted what she couldn’t have. Well, people were that way. To hell with people. (p26) 

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Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time; (p78) 

“”””” 

“Listen. You’re a hell of a good guy, and I’m fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn’t tell you that in New York. It’d mean I was a faggot. That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. The Dred Scott case was framed by the Anti-Saloon League. Sex explains it all. The Colonel’s Lady and Judy O’Grady are Lesbians under their skin.” (p93) 

“””” 

“They only want to kill when they’re alone. Of course, if you went in there you’d probably detach one of them from the herd, and he’d be dangerous.” 

“That’s too complicated,” Bill said. “Don’t you ever detach me from the herd, Mike.” (p112) 

“””” 

Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell, In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on. (p119) 

“””” 

“You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch.” “Yes.” 

“It’s sort of what we have instead of God.” 

“Some people have God,” I said. “Quite a lot.” 

“He never worked very well with me.” 

“Should we have another Martini?” (p197)