The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Finished: Mid-Late September? 2018
Gosh, this one took me ages- I think about two years. I don't know what I expected from the guy who wrote The Old Man and the Sea (which I HATED btw) but I thought, hey, I'll try it. He has very matter-of-fact and simple writing, which I'm not used to, but it was a nice change. I was expecting the story to have a true plot, you know, with exposition, rising action, etc., but that's not really what I got. The writing seems very disconnected and far away, and I at first I couldn't tell whether or not that's actually what he was going for. Then, as I reached the end, I realized that was the point. All they do is go to a restaurant, drink, go to another, and drink some more. I don't think there was a time in the entire novel when the characters weren't drinking. The novel is described as "the quintessential novel of the Lost Generation"- Hemingway shows how people really lived after the trauma of World War I- how they coped, how they spent time, and how they went about their daily lives. Jake, the main character, struggles a lot, I think, with the aftermath of the war but fails to discuss it with anyone. Instead, like everyone else, he drinks away his pain. Brett seems to struggle a lot with commitment. She flits around to and from different men, never settling on one who could potentially make her happy. She refuses to let herself find love which I found really sad. This book was a little hard to power through, but I found the message really cool and impactful. It took me a little to understand, but now I think I have. It sometimes still has me questioning it which is a pretty interesting aspect. Go Hemingway- pretty great book.