Book Review - The Sun Also Rises

By Elizabeth Suggs

Inspired by his trip to Spain in 1925, Ernest Hemingway wrote the 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, which revolves around American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona to watch the running bulls and the bullfights.

When this was first released, the book received mixed reviews, and it makes sense why. While the characters are endearing and complex, one of them, a woman (who happens to be one of my favorite female secondary characters), Lady Brett Ashley, is a twice-divorced Englishwoman with bobbed hair and countless love affairs. She is the embodiment of sexual freedom in the 1920s, and this character may have unsettled readers as she is “too real” for books.

""Era un vecchio che pescava da solo su una barca a vela nella Corrente del Golfo ed erano ottantaquattro giorni ormai che non prendeva un pesce. A quel punto decise che era giunto il momento di mangiarsi quei succulenti filetti di tonno in vetro..."" by Il Tonnotto is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Not only that, the relationship between Brett and the main character of the story, Jake Barnes, appears to be slowly blossoming into a romantic relationship, seems to be romantic, on the surface, but eventually, it is made clear how unlikely a romance would be between these two characters.

As a reader, I love to see characters fall in love, but the emotional depth between these two is so well thought out and so matter-of-fact that I, too, believe a relationship between them wouldn’t work, yet not everyone shares my views. This unsatisfying climax of love could have also contributed to the mixed reviews.

However, reviewers be damned! Hemingway’s biographer Jeffrey Meyers explained that this book was actually his greatest work.

What I find most compelling about this work, and all of Hemingway’s writing is how “real life” it is. He based his stories and characters on reality, whereas many authors choose to focus on fiction. I truly enjoy magic and fantasy, but Hemingway is a nice break from that.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a real-world view of life and impactful characters.

I give this a four out of five stars.

If you’d like to read the book yourself, check it out:

Elizabeth Suggs is the owner and founder of Editing Mee. When she’s not writing or editing, she loves to dive deep into books (the weirder, the better!), and she loves to take random long walks to unplanned destinations.

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