The Sun Also Rises (1926) By Ernest Hemingway

 

Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, has recently been reprinted by the Library of America. I thought it would make a good re-read. On second thought, I think I read it before, now I am more inclined to believe it was assigned when I was in high school, but I probably watched the movie instead of reading it. 

The novel is one of the classics of American literature, penned by perhaps the greatest of the Lost Generation writers. The Sun Also Rises takes place in France and Spain in the years between the World Wars. Significantly, The Lost Generation was a working title for Hemingway’s book.

There are two primary characters. One is the narrator Jake Barnes, an American army veteran who stayed in Europe after World War I working as a foreign correspondent. He lives in the Montmarte neighborhood of Paris and has a large clique of writer friends, some successful, some not, all of whom could be categorized as alcoholics. 

The other primary character is Lady Brett Ashley, an English woman who was a volunteer at the hospital where Jake was treated for his war injuries. They had fallen madly in love, a relationship never to be consummated as a complication of his injury and recovery. After the war, Lady Ashley returns to England and marries. 

The action in the story begins a few years later when Brett returns to Paris to escape her abusive husband. With her is a man named Mike whom she intends to marry once her divorce is finalized. He was also in the hospital at the same time as Jake during the war. Brett and Mike (also severe alcoholics) already know many of Jake’s friends – each of whom are charmed by her. There is soon a new arrival into this group of ex-patriots, the recently divorced Robert Cohn, a writer and old friend of Jake’s. He immediately falls for Brett, and they have a fling. The crux of the story then becomes how Brett handles each of these people who are in love with her, and how they compete for her attentions – not the least of whom is Jake. 

These machinations climax when they all attend the Fiesta de San Fermin (Running of the Bulls) in Pamplano, Spain where Brett falls for a 19-year-old matador named Pedro Romero. Long story short, a jealous and taunted Robert, a middleweight boxing champion when he attended Princeton, knocks out his good friend Jake, flattens Brett’s fiancée Mike (who is aware of the fling), and seriously beats up Pedro the day before his big bullfight.

While the above plot synopsis matches what I remember about my initial read (?) of The Sun Also Rises in say 1970, there is one important aspect of my reread 50 years later, that I had no recollection of: a significant streak of antisemitism. I remember the infighting and name-calling between the guys – they were all in a fierce competition for Brett – yet, now I note that the put-downs of Robert were repeatedly expressed as antisemitic slurs and stereotypes. The biggest culprit of this was Brett’s fiancée Mike, but all of the characters – including Brett -- are seen to routinely concur. This is so blatant that there is no way I could have NOT noticed it, which is why I think maybe I did not read the book.

When I finished my “reread” I decided to re-watch the 1957 movie made from the book. It is a classic in its own right, starring Tyrone Power as Jake, Ava Gardner as Brett, and Mel Ferrer as Robert.  Sure enough, none of the antisemitism from the book is in the movie (I have not watched the 2007 remake).

So, my unanswered question is this: Is this antisemitism a reflection of Hemingway, or is it a case of Hemingway observing antisemitism in the 1920s and exposing it (as in Christopher Isherwood)? I am not a Hemingway-scholar, I do not know the answer.

Recommendation: Yes to the 1957 movie, it is excellent. As for the book, it is a classic and I am not going to say don’t read it. I will however say if you read the book you must also watch the 1957 movie and take note of what has been edited out.  

Fiela's Child (1984 in Afrikaans, 1992 English Translation) By Dalene Matthee

 

Earlier this year, I blogged a book by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.  In the blog post I admitted that I have read very few books by native African writers and asked for recommendations.  I received several, one of which was Fiela’s Child by Dalene Matthee from South Africa. It is an excellent read.

Set in the mid-1800s, the book tells the story of Fiela, a “coloured” woman living in rural South Africa with her husband and their children; and a three-year-old Caucasian boy who shows up alone on their doorstep one night. When there are no reports of a missing child, they will name the boy Benjamin and raise him as one of their own. Fiela, a deeply religious woman, considers Benjamin her “hand-child,” handed to her by God to care for. 

Enter the outside world.  Nine years later, census takers sent to the countryside by English colonial administrators note that one of Fiela’s children is white. They begin to ask questions.  Weeks later, they will return to claim Benjamin as possibly the long missing child of English loggers who live in the mountainous forests between the farmland and the coastal settlement of Knysna.  

When the census takers return, they convey Benjamin, now twelve, to the Magistrate’s office in Knysna for a hearing. At the hearing, the white mother and father who had lost their child are brought in to see if they recognize the child as their own. The mother claims to, claims he is her son Lukas. They are given custody and take the terrified child back home with them to the forest where they will “teach him to be white” again.

While the above is the beginning of the novel, it is not the full story by any means.

The novel is about the power of love and upbringing, the racial and economic caste system in Nineteenth Century South Africa, the geographic landscape of the country, the colonial system, the divide between the “Cape Coloureds,” Afrikaners, and the English administrators, and the differing viewpoints people have of the natural environment.

As I was reading Fiela’s Child I was imagining what a great movie it would make, turns out there have been two movies. The first, made in 1988, ranks as one of the worst movies (acting and production quality) I have ever tried to watch. In 2019 a second movie was made based on the novel. I understand it is quite good, though I can’t locate a link to it.

Recommendation:  YES, as a social justice treatise, an environmental essay, a partial history of South Africa, or just as a good novel, absolutely.

The Last Summer of Reason (1999 French, 2001 English) By Tahar Djaout

 

Tahar Djaout was an Algerian writer, poet, and journalist whose work reflected support for secularism in his country, and a disdain not of Islam, but for religious fundamentalism. In 1993 he was assassinated by members of the Armed Islamic Group because of his growing notoriety. The Last Summer of Reason was published posthumously from a manuscript discovered in his personal papers.  Its title refers to a family's last summer vacation prior to a bloody civil war.

The primary character in the fiction novel is Boualem Yekker who lives in an unnamed country clearly patterned on Djaout’s native Algeria. He is a lover of poems written in Arabic, and world literature. He makes his living as a bookseller, buying and selling hard to find books for people who appreciate them. The novel is a series of progressing personal essays on how the country is changing as a result of the growing presence/dominance of religious fundamentalism in the country’s post-colonial politics. That presence is encapsulated in a group of men collectively known as the Vigilante Brothers (VBs).  They are thugs, not unlike Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood or Algeria's Armed Islamic Group. 

They “convert” the general public to their cause and make life miserable for those who don’t sign on, eventually even recruiting Yekker’s wife and children.  The children join the VBs, not because they are “true believers,” but because they want to belong to something, and the Vigilantes have equated and merged their religion with the post-colonial nationalism. His wife signs on because life will be easier if she’s not thought to be a holdout. Yekker sees what is going down, but adamantly resists.    

Eventually, Yekker’s family will move out of his house and disown him. Deserted, he develops nightmares. In one such nightmare he dreamt his son had become a VB enforcer, and turned in him.  In the dream, Yekker kills his son. 

Back to the waking hours, the Vigilantes close down his bookstore, having already scared away his customers and burned his inventory in the street. Their mantra is that only “one” book is needed.  They post a note on the store door telling Yekker they have changed the lock and he should not try to enter. It informs him they will “be in touch” to let him know what, if any, of his belongings he may remove.

Without his family, and now locked out of his own store, Yekker further slips into a dreamworld, his dreams being the only avenue left to him of the way things were before all this madness began, not knowing if the country will ever return to the way it was.

Recommendation: Yes, for students of history (and although this is technically “fiction” be there no doubt this is Algeria).