The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises
Name	The Sun Also Rises
Author	Ernest Hemingway
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Scribner's
Pub date	1926
Pages	251
Genre	Novel

The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel by Ernest Hemingway that follows an expatriate circle of Americans and British in Paris and Spain in the 1920s. It charts post‑World War I disillusionment through travel, bullfighting, and interpersonal entanglements, centering on an anguished longing shaped by war, loss, and desire. The work established Hemingway's international reputation and influenced modernist literature, expatriate narratives, and depictions of the "Lost Generation."

Plot

The narrative chronicles a group of expatriates who move between Paris, Pamplona, and the French Basque Country around the annual bullfighting festival. The protagonist, Jake Barnes, a journalist injured during World War I and rendered impotent by a war wound, narrates episodes involving his unrequited love for Brett Ashley and interactions with friends including Robert Cohn and Mike Campbell. The party's travel is punctuated by scenes in Parisian cafés near the Seine, social interactions at Hôtel Ritz, fishing expeditions in the Irati Valley, and the climactic running of the bulls and corridas in Plaza de Toros de Pamplona. Conflicts arise at cafés, on fishing trips, and in bars over jealousy, honor, and masculinity, culminating in Brett's marriage to an English aristocrat, a chaotic fiesta, and a final, intimate conversation between Jake and Brett set against a backdrop of thwarted desire and resigned friendship.

Characters

Key figures include Jake Barnes, an American expatriate and journalist who works in foreign correspondence alongside figures associated with Time‑era reporting; Lady Brett Ashley, an Englishwoman whose romantic history intersects with literary expatriates and English officers returning from World War I; Robert Cohn, a Jewish American boxer and writer recently returned from Columbia University and entangled with the group's social codes; Mike Campbell, a Scottish war veteran with debts and ties to British aristocracy; and Pedro Romero, a young Spanish matador from the tradition of the Romero family of bullfighters in Seville. Supporting personae intersect with contemporary figures and institutions such as bartenders, taxi drivers, newspaper editors, and local police in Paris and Pamplona, reflecting networks of expatriate salons, Irish and English officers, and American veterans.

Themes and style

The novel juxtaposes modernist techniques with realist description, employing Hemingway's terse "iceberg theory" style that influenced Modernism and writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Gertrude Stein. Themes center on postwar disillusionment among the Lost Generation; emasculation and sexual dysfunction linked to World War I; codes of honor drawn from bullfighting traditions exemplified by matadors like Juan Belmonte and Ignacio Sánchez Mejías; the clash between Anglo‑American manners and Spanish ritual; and the search for authenticity in nature and sport, including fly fishing in the Pyrenees. Social dynamics engage with anti‑Semitism surrounding Robert Cohn, Anglo‑American privilege, and the constraints of class signaled by British titles and expatriate patronage. Stylistically, the prose relies on clipped dialogue, objective narration, scene construction, and detailed reportage of events such as corridas, café quarrels, and hotel disputes, reflecting influences from journalistic practice and contemporary literary salons.

Publication history

Serialized excerpts and drafts circulated among contemporaries including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald before Scribner's published the novel in 1926. Initial editions appeared in the United States through Charles Scribner's Sons, with simultaneous interest in British publication by firms linked to Hogarth Press‑era modernists. Hemingway revised the text across subsequent printings; later authoritative texts were established in editorial projects that referenced Hemingway's manuscripts, correspondence with Maxwell Perkins, and annotations by friends such as A.E. Hotchner. The book's rights and international translations extended its reach into French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Russian publishing markets, intersecting with interwar debates about censorship, cultural export, and expatriate identity.

Reception and critical analysis

Contemporary reviews ranged from acclaim for vivid scenes of Pamplona and bullfighting to criticism for perceived moral ambiguity and portrayals of gender and anti‑Semitism. Figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald offered both praise and concern; later critics such as Philip Young, Carlos Baker, and Edmund Wilson produced influential biographies and essays debating authorship, representation, and the novel's social ethics. Academic discourse has analyzed the text through lenses of trauma studies, gender studies, postcolonial critique, and modernist poetics, with scholarship appearing in journals connected to Columbia University, Yale University, and Oxford University Press publications. The novel has been both celebrated for stylistic innovation and critiqued for caricatured depictions, prompting ongoing reassessment in light of evolving social values and historical scholarship.

Adaptations

The work inspired adaptations in film, stage, and opera, notably the 1957 Hollywood film directed by Henry King starring Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, and Errol Flynn, and an earlier 1930s adaptation history involving studios such as Twentieth Century Fox. Stage dramatizations have appeared in repertory theaters associated with Royal Shakespeare Company‑style productions and regional companies in Paris and New York City. The novel also influenced cinematic treatments of expatriate life and bullfighting in works connected to directors like John Huston and thematic echoes in films about war veterans and postwar malaise. Musical and radio adaptations have been produced by broadcasters and companies including BBC Radio and American public radio ensembles, while modern theatrical reinterpretations continue to adapt the narrative for contemporary audiences.

Category:1926 novels Category:Works by Ernest Hemingway