The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway

In The Sun Also Rises Hemingway shows us the beauty of trout streams in the mountains of Spain, the pleasure of wine at a cafe in the afternoon, the intensity of the running of the bulls, the craft and pride of the bullfighter. It's a retelling of his own exotic life experiences and passions.

But strung through this setting are the tangled relationships of Jake Barnes, Robert Cohn, Lady Brett and Mike. Living off money wired from America, no commitments, just trying to live life to the max. Someone loves a woman, but so does someone else, but she loves another, at least for now, until she finds someone more exciting.

What a mess. What a heap of discontented, envying, backstabbing, drunken, brawling wretchedness. Is this the best we can do? If all we have is life under the sun, maybe so.

It certainly rings true. We are all trying to find happiness in life. Most of the time we can see but can't enjoy the happiness that's right in front of us. We claw after what's nearby but can never be ours. We don't have the ability to stop and be content.

We find the flaw in others. That jerk that doesn't keep to himself. The late train that messes up our schedule. The money that wasn't sent fast enough.

Or we find the flaw in the nature of the universe. Life is cruel and purposeless. Sickness and injury strike us down in the prime of life. Religious impulses earn our respect, but we can't personally get into them. We are somehow above it all, critiquing everyone and everything.

What if this is meant to tell us something? The beauty that we can't enjoy. The relationship we crave but always ends up hurting us. The purpose we long for but can't be convinced of.

Either it's all vanity or we have fallen from some higher place. And isn't the reasoned conclusion that it's vanity self-refuting? There is a grace in Hemingway's writing, a man who ended his life in suicide, which is an evidence that there must be a reason for it all.