Lost. Not the show. The generation.
I finished 'The Sun Also Rises'. It's due back to the library today, but I probably would have finished it even without the deadline. I confess that the only Hemingway read prior was 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'.
Expressed opinions have varied, from a 19-year old Portuguese snowboarding Jehovah's Witness telling me that 'Farewell to Arms' was the only book I needed to read to less specfic remarks of Hemingway being "y'know...a real dick."
All I know is that some sort of emotional internal combustion propelled me through Ernie's look at gender identity, classism, post-war nativism, absinthe, hard-boiled eggs, wine skins, bankruptcy, and attraction. While it could be said that our generation won't have its "Great War", it's hard to ignore the significance the Iraq "war" has had in destroying the spirit, creating disillusion, and driving "leaders" to vomit remarks calling for nationalism...Social Darwinism gone awry...again.
That might be reading into it all a bit much. Who knows.
And as I admire how remarkably attractive young Hemingway was, I realize a backup plan if I should face a brutal loss on Jeopardy!
P.S. - Reading too much from the 1920s has placed a monocle and top hat on my diction.
posted by Di-Di at 11:56 AM
2 Comments:
Just finished this myself though I'll admit it didn't quite have the impact on me that it did on you. Perhaps I spread it over too long a period of time but I came away somewhat unimpressed. It's also possible that I just plain missed the point but C'est La Vie.
That's a fair view. Often, I would stop and think, "why should I give a rat's ass about a bunch of broke literary drunkards?" The characters aren't really very likable, but their surprisingly mundane lives (fishing, drinking, eating, sitting, sleeping) touched upon...something.
No, I won't say this was 1926's 'Garden State'...but picturing an epileptic Natalie Portman as Brett Ashley inspires magical visions.
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