While in college, Ernest Hemingway was my hero. I wanted to marry someone like him. My friend gave me a pen and ink drawing of him. It was on display like a sacred icon.
That was then; this is now.
I started to reread The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. This time, fifty years later, I can't believe how naive I was. The characters in The Sun Also Rises are a bunch of degenerates. No wonder, they were called "The Lost Generation." They were lost morally. There only aim in life was self-indulgence. They were always drunk. The female character, Brett, had the morals of an alley cat. Whatever whim entered her empty head, she followed.
The story is narrated by Jake, a journalist. He and Brett are best friends. Evidently, Jake is impotent; that's where the title of the novel comes in. Brett always calls on Jake to help her, like a big brother. Brett is in love with a drunken Englishman, Mike. Cohen is in love with Brett and she does indulge him and spends a weekend with him, but she drops him.
When the group decide to go to Pamplona for the fiesta and bull fight, Brett falls for a matador. But he's only 19. Brett is in her 30's. Uncharacteristically, she realizes that not only is she too old for him, plus her morals would also corrupt him and she sends him away.
I see Hemingway's style is very descriptive. He places the reader in the scene. His diction puts the scene present. The bull fight turned my stomach. I don't remember it doing that when I read it the first time. I've matured and my stomach is fussy, like my reading taste.
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