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Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises
Includes a brief biography of the author, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas
72 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Harold Bloom
1,716 books2,021 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 29, 2016
The English literature experts are most likely rolling their eyes at me but I stick by my rating of 1 star. To me, there was no substance to this story. I won't even get into the strange way of Hemingway's writing. The book is about several mid-aged friends that basically meet or run into each other at various cafes and clubs in Paris. Some like each other; some don't. For the majority, they usually consume large amounts of wine each day. The main female character is one that most of the men seem to be in love with. Towards the end of the book they head to Spain for the week of festivals surrounding the bullfights. I have plans to also read For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms but I am rethinking that if they appear to be anything like this. I read them all some 45 yrs ago and thought it would be good to do that again.
November 20, 2020
Read this for my master's.
This was bad. I sincerely cannot give a better rating to a book that compares the act of literary activty to sexual intercourse and then proceed to use r*pe an analogy for so called "textual violations".
You don't do this.
You don't compare sexual abuse to the act of omitting something from a text or the fragmentation of a text.
This was disgusting.
This was bad. I sincerely cannot give a better rating to a book that compares the act of literary activty to sexual intercourse and then proceed to use r*pe an analogy for so called "textual violations".
You don't do this.
You don't compare sexual abuse to the act of omitting something from a text or the fragmentation of a text.
This was disgusting.
June 2, 2017
Interesting. Enjoyed it, but it is nothing to write home about. If you are a fan of SAR and haven't read
the pieces inside, you might like it.
the pieces inside, you might like it.
December 13, 2019
Enlightening. Makes observations about the book that I would not have thought of.
May 11, 2008
this turned out to be my favorite hemingway. it was his first novel, yet it shows a mature style and a skillful handling of character, incident, dialogue and theme. especially important -- it embodies and foreshadows the sense of doomed life that pervades his works, from "a farewell to arms" to "the short happy life of francis macomber". though i had read those works, as well as "for whom the bell tolls", it was with "sun" that i finally apprehended the twinned motifs of the need for having courage in facing life's disappointments and the ultimate futility of that courage in changing the ominous course of life that characterize hemingway's writing. these motifs are found in a particularly intense form in his early short story "the killers" and find their strongest expression in "sun" in jake's closing line, "Isn't it pretty to think so.". hemingway, like fitzgerald, is an american sophocles -- they both repeatedly describe tragic destinies of contemporary heroes -- or perhaps more fitting for our age, anti-heroes. yet "sun" was not depressing to read. why? because it was so well-written, both in terms of the style of its phrases and sentences and its plotting. and, as with all hemingway's writing, when it comes to expression of emotions, there is a precision and economy, a suppression even, that is both attractive and, to those of us living in a time when sensitivity to feelings is encouraged in men, somewhat awkward. and essentially british, as this exchange between the american francis macomber and the english hunting guide wilson shows:
[macomber]"But you have a feeling of happiness about action to come?”
“Yes,” said Wilson. “There’s that. Doesn’t do to talk too much about all this. Talk the whole thing away. No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much."
"No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much." with this stringent code, it is remarkable that hemingway's novels and stories can be so affecting. yet certainly jake's plight, and that of his fellow expatriates, does engage both our interest and our sympathy.
commentaries on this novel typically describe it as a story about the "lost generation". i think it is more particular than that -- it is a story about a small number of individuals trying to make the best of their lives and only intermittently succeeding. the former interpretation is sociology; the latter, art.
[macomber]"But you have a feeling of happiness about action to come?”
“Yes,” said Wilson. “There’s that. Doesn’t do to talk too much about all this. Talk the whole thing away. No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much."
"No pleasure in anything if you mouth it up too much." with this stringent code, it is remarkable that hemingway's novels and stories can be so affecting. yet certainly jake's plight, and that of his fellow expatriates, does engage both our interest and our sympathy.
commentaries on this novel typically describe it as a story about the "lost generation". i think it is more particular than that -- it is a story about a small number of individuals trying to make the best of their lives and only intermittently succeeding. the former interpretation is sociology; the latter, art.
November 21, 2009
The Sun Also Rises
A beautifully written book in the sense of saying so much with so little. Each word counts, and each scene moves with a kind of graceful inevitability towards the truth of the story.
The narrator's impotence in the face of life became a kind of symbol of the "lost generation" whose masculine ideals with shown to be at such variance with the brutal and stupid reality of the First World War.
Since America is still at war it is still helpful to have a book in which the hero is shown so clearly to be a result of such a tragic and meaningless effort to kill as many people in as short a space of time as possible.
Today we might see Jake's impotence as a sign of "post traumatic stress disorder." But you don't have to label his plight to understand that it can also be a symbol of everyone's search for meaning in the face of an apparently meaningless world.
What lifts the story and carries the reader along is Hemingway's honest baring of his own personal struggle to find meaning enough in each experience--from drinking to trout fishing to loving--to keep going without simply killing himself in despair. His prose has the strength of an artist struggling with all his heart to tell the truth of his life and share his story and not give in to his own sense of the futility of it all.
A beautifully written book in the sense of saying so much with so little. Each word counts, and each scene moves with a kind of graceful inevitability towards the truth of the story.
The narrator's impotence in the face of life became a kind of symbol of the "lost generation" whose masculine ideals with shown to be at such variance with the brutal and stupid reality of the First World War.
Since America is still at war it is still helpful to have a book in which the hero is shown so clearly to be a result of such a tragic and meaningless effort to kill as many people in as short a space of time as possible.
Today we might see Jake's impotence as a sign of "post traumatic stress disorder." But you don't have to label his plight to understand that it can also be a symbol of everyone's search for meaning in the face of an apparently meaningless world.
What lifts the story and carries the reader along is Hemingway's honest baring of his own personal struggle to find meaning enough in each experience--from drinking to trout fishing to loving--to keep going without simply killing himself in despair. His prose has the strength of an artist struggling with all his heart to tell the truth of his life and share his story and not give in to his own sense of the futility of it all.
May 30, 2012
I picked this up at the library yesterday to prepare for my book club's discussion of The Sun Also Rises. I was being rather lazy about doing my own research for lit crit articles on my university's library page. While I would hate for my students to read only excerpts of critical essays, using a Bloom guide might be a good way to introduce them to the genre. In any case, I took away an overview of critical ideas about the novel since it was published and deepened some of my own ideas about it.
March 21, 2007
The Sun Also Rises is basically a book about expats getting drunk. Not the recipe for a good book, in my opinion, but emingway's bare bones writing style is acclaimed by some. I still cannot figure out why.
May 12, 2011
For those moments when simply reading a classic is not enough, and I don't have an English professor to turn to, I will remember Harold Bloom's literary guides. Fascinating to see the thoughts of Hemingway's contemporaries, and how the interpretations of his work has changed over the last 80 years.
December 8, 2008
Weird that it's hard to find a normal copy of The Sun Also Rises on here... It is my favorite book of all time. Read it.
October 7, 2009
Just finished this. Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" has remained one of my favorite books and this guide helps to tease out a lot of the theory behind what's occurring in the novel. Good Stuff!
June 9, 2014
Come on, Harold. Ask yourself why, THEN write your introduction. Give us a little more insight.
February 18, 2007
Took me three times to finish it but glad I did.
April 9, 2007
went on and on
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews