Best Books of the 20th Century
549 books |
2148 voters
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of The Sun Also Rises.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 18995)
Read in January, 2000
recommends it for:
Everyone
I think there is something cheesey about reviewing an old book, but I felt I had to write something, as I constructed my senior thesis in college with this book as the cornerstone, I have read it at least six times, and I consider The Sun Also Rises to be the Great American Novel. Why?
1) Hemingway was, if nothing else, a great American. A renaissance man, a soldier, a fisherman, and a sportswriter, a romantic and an argumentatively direct chauvinist, a conflicted religious agnostic who never...more
1) Hemingway was, if nothing else, a great American. A renaissance man, a soldier, a fisherman, and a sportswriter, a romantic and an argumentatively direct chauvinist, a conflicted religious agnostic who never...more
Like this review?
yes
(6 people liked it)
4 comments
bookshelves:
fiction
I always feel a little odd writing about books that are considered “great literature.” Mostly because I read either for fun, or to investigate particular subjects or authors that I find personally interesting. I’m not particularly interested in literary theory (by not particularly, I mean, not at all), and find wading through academic analysis of writing to be more of a chore than it’s usually worth. So in reviewing a classic work like the Sun Also Rises, I’m always conscious of the fa...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2005
While remaining free of any epic-scale event to fuel its plot (in stark contrast with many novels written throughout the course of history), The Sun Also Rises not only addresses the human condition externally but conveys what it truly feels like to live and to be alive. It is written in the way thoughts are conceived, sharing with the reader a perspective on existence that comes from within, not from without. Whereas in most novels the protagonist is a person seen, watched, and analyzed ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
bookshelves:
classics
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in July, 2003
recommends it for:
anyone who loves Spain, France, or drinking heavily.
A magnificent and deceptively simple book. If you judged it solely on its plot, you probably wouldn't come away very impressed: a collection of American ex-patriots travel from Paris to Pamplona for the running of the bulls; drink too much and make fools of themselves; then return to Paris a few weeks older and not much wiser. Where Hemingway really succeeds, though, is in capturing brief flashes of life that any reader will recognize.
Again, I'm hardly qualified to propose and defend a the...more
Again, I'm hardly qualified to propose and defend a the...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
I read this for our church book club. Not sure what if anything it has to do with "faith exploration." The only exploring of faith done in it is half-hearted and instantly given up. I pretty much thoroughly disliked it and resented having to spend so much time with a cast of characters I found repellent. I kept waiting for some insight, or some ray of hope, or some redeeming feature in some character, but with the possible exception of the narrator, there was none. I have admired He...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
Well, I didn't hate it as much as my English/Journalism teacher does/told me I would.
It was a decent book. I enjoyed it enough, even though it put me to sleep quite often.
I'm not usually one for books with little plot, but Hemingway is pretty crafty. He somehow manages to create some sort of a plot, while, in reality, not really having one. Perhaps nothing happens, but it's still decent and interesting.
I think the whole idea of these characters being totally different people who...more
It was a decent book. I enjoyed it enough, even though it put me to sleep quite often.
I'm not usually one for books with little plot, but Hemingway is pretty crafty. He somehow manages to create some sort of a plot, while, in reality, not really having one. Perhaps nothing happens, but it's still decent and interesting.
I think the whole idea of these characters being totally different people who...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
classic-literature
Read in January, 2008
I read this book because I wanted to give Hemingway another chance. I was trying to be fair, because I had previously only read The Old Man and the Sea (v. short) and some short stories. Unfortunately I still have mixed feelings about Hemingway's style. I did enjoy this book because it had some unique characters and the story itself did peak my interest. What troubles me is Hemingway's (over)simple style of prose. There were truly some beautiful lines and scenic descriptions (one of Hemingw...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
This book was definitely much better the second time around than the first. I read it in highschool and remember disliking it because it was just about people going around from bar to bar with nothing much happening, then a fistfight at the end and that was about it. I must be older now, though, because I actually enjoyed the various bars and conversations and figured, Jake's genital wound excepted, the protagonists were doing fairly well for themselves. It was an easy, readable book and I enjoy...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
all
I was told to read this book by a good friend of mine – after he learned that I was going to be visiting Spain and France – and I must say that he was right.
The book centers on the main characters – Jack Barnes and his flamboyant lady interest Brett Ashley. Soon after learning the basic stories of the characters we are taken on a journey out of Paris and into a world of bullfights and fishing in Spain. A basic love triangle acts as the center of commotion and is constantly encouraged wit...more
The book centers on the main characters – Jack Barnes and his flamboyant lady interest Brett Ashley. Soon after learning the basic stories of the characters we are taken on a journey out of Paris and into a world of bullfights and fishing in Spain. A basic love triangle acts as the center of commotion and is constantly encouraged wit...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
interested in bullfights or american tourists in europe during the 20's?
Jake, an ex-patriot of WWI and an american journalist living in France, explores France and Spain on an endless tavel/party binge with his companions, Robert Cohn, Bill, Mike, and the much coveted Brett (aka lady Ashley). The four amble about on an endless vacation, in a perpetual conflict due to everyone's lustful desire for Brett. Their travel excusion ends in Pamploma where they engage in a week-long fiesta of dramatic bullfighting and drinking with villagers.
At first Hemmingway's langua...more
At first Hemmingway's langua...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
fiction
Read in January, 2005
If This Book Weren't Famous, Most People Wouldn't Like It
And with good reason. If I were Hemingway's English teacher (or anyone's any kind of teacher) I'd say, "This reads more like a screenplay than a novel. Where are your descriptions, where is the emotion??"
And he would say something like, "The lack of complex descriptions helps focus on the complexities and emptiness of the characters' lives, and the emotion is there, it's only just beneath the surface, struggling to be ...more
And with good reason. If I were Hemingway's English teacher (or anyone's any kind of teacher) I'd say, "This reads more like a screenplay than a novel. Where are your descriptions, where is the emotion??"
And he would say something like, "The lack of complex descriptions helps focus on the complexities and emptiness of the characters' lives, and the emotion is there, it's only just beneath the surface, struggling to be ...more
Like this review?
yes
(3 people liked it)
8 comments
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in February, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
For a long time I was convinced that there were two sorts of people in the world: those who adore Hemingway, gush about his genius and lavish praise upon him at every opportunity, and those who despise him utterly. As it turns out, there is a third category: those who have read him and still remain wholly indifferent. I am that third category.
I found my copy of The Sun Also Rises in a thrift-store for a buck, and I figured, 'meh, what the hell?' It is supposed to be one of the fabled great American novels,...more
I found my copy of The Sun Also Rises in a thrift-store for a buck, and I figured, 'meh, what the hell?' It is supposed to be one of the fabled great American novels,...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
bookshelves:
novels
I read more than most kids did, at least more than the kids I knew—freaking retarded, sports obsessed hoodlums. However, The Sun Also Rises, which I read when I was 16, was the first time that I thought I had read a book for adults. Growing up, I remember seeing the collections of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and others on my parents’ bookshelves and thinking that those were for grown ups. I was taking high school French at the time but I was too landlocked in the Midwest to ev...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
I once had a fight about Hemingway on a long train ride. I'd read one of the short stories from one of the collections (the one that's always on sale at Powell's). It was about a man who'd gone fishing in a creek with a friend, but mostly it focused on when he went off alone up the creek, and was fishing. I was kind of pissed about it because I felt like it was this exclusive gender-thing: a man and nature. Which it kind of was, but I think, in retrospect, that I was more pissed about oth...more
Like this review?
yes
4 comments
Read in May, 2008
My dad was a big Hemingway fan and tried to turn me on to it when I was a kid, but I didn't get it. I liked the Old Man and the Sea, and I vaguely remember reading A Farewell to Arms, or maybe it was For Whom the Bell Tolls; I really don't recall, and I know I wasn't all that impressed when I read it then. Then of course in college I was assigned many of his short stories, and I liked them alright, but they seemed so dry, detached, postured. This time around, however, I have a whole new apprecia...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 1999
I'm not sure if I should say I read this. I read it in parts over several years because I so thoroughly disliked Brett and Jake and almost every single character in it that I couldn't bear reading about them for too long. I'd start, want to slap one of them for saying something so self-indulgent, whiny and "entitled" and put the damn thing down for months until I could force myself to start again. I started in 1995, and I remember forcing myself to finish it sometime in my second yea...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone desperately in love. people who like the giving tree. college kids.
I was skeptical about this book at the begining, really for the first hundred pages. It seemed to me at first that Jake was just a lonely guy who refused to do anything about it, in love with the wrong girl and nothing really happened besides that. It was no Moby Dick, no adventure, no strangeness at all. It was just a really simple look at a normal person's life. That didn't cut it at first, but then I realized that it really hits the intensities of everyday life and friendships and the ent...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment



































