The Sun Also Risese by Ernest Hemingway

[Virgil]

Excerpt from the end of A Farewell to Arms:

I ate the ham and eggs and drank the beer. The ham and eggs were in a round dish-the ham underneath and the eggs on top. It was very hot and at the first mouthful I had to take a drink of beer to cool my mouth. I was hungry and I asked the waiter for another order. I drank several glasses of beer

Passages like this occur very frequently in this novel and The Sun Also Rises. Despite their stylistic simplicity, they're oddly incredibly endearing, and I've rarely questioned Hemingway on his "authenticity" when describing drinking scenes. At the end of this particular scene, the narrator describes his table: "There was quite a pile of saucers now on the table in front of me." In Hemingway, it seems all the excesses and intricacies of food and drink are given a meticulous rendition. Of course, this works to great dramatic effect in the passage I quoted above, as (if anyone has read A Farewell to Arms) the extreme focus on food juxtaposes itself with the tragic events that are being purposely thrust to the fringes of the narrator's mind.

There are passages that are endearing in those works, but that passage you quote is not one for me. That's frankly kind of shoddy. It's circular, repetative, stilted, and there's not any point to it.

In defence of this: it is very easy to notice the faults in someone we do not happen to like - not that being Jewish is a fault. I do not think the characters (and by extention, Hemingway) are naturally anti-semitic, but the very fact that he is Jewish, and the negative notions they derive from that fact, arise from their dislike of him. In dealing with Jacob Barnes, for example, if the characters happen to dislike him (and we were privy to their thoughts), Jacob's impotence might be a point of contention and ridicule.

I happen to like Hemingway and I happen to like The Sun Also Rises, but I am taken aback by the anti-semitism too. I only excuse it for it's time and place. But there's nothing notably redemptive about the jewish slurs that occur in the novel. It's definitely not Hemingway's finest moment to say the least.

[Buh4Bee]

I have to remind myself of time and place. Somehow, we need to remember the context. Despite this flaw in Hemingway, he is a fabulous writer and I truly loved this story.

[mpeachhead]

It's got a great last line: "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

[Buh4Bee]

Yes, it was so enraging to me that Brett couldn't get past Jake's impotence. They should have been together, or so I wished that. Jake was such a hell of a character. He was well developed. Brett was not aa complicated, but her flaws were blatant. I cried at the end again!

[Brad Coelho]

This and Farewell to Arms are cut from the same cloth, and both innundate the reader in alcoholic bliss....you could argue the only hyperbole Hemingway uses is in terms of volume of alcohol consumed. Save for their super-human hepatic abilities, the characters are as human as can be imagined. Vulnerable, flawed hedonists...the inter-relations are full of tension and complexity....as said before, the dialogue does the majority of the work and it really pops. The stories don't culminate w/ rosy-tipped bows. The stories are visceral and unadorned, ending in uncompromising fashion...always honest, always real.