adperfectamconsilium 's review for:

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

4.0

emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This was Hemingway's debut novel first published in 1926 and it's also my first time reading Hemingway.

It's written in a sparse prose style but somehow the words get in your head. There's something about the lines that make them memorable.

The plot involves a group of ex-pat Americans firstly partying  in Paris and then moving onto Spain for a week of Fiesta, the celebrations involving bull fighting and a lot of drinking.
Drinking is the main theme. The 1920s hedonism of this group known as the 'lost generation', disillusioned with life in the post war years is abysmal. Everyone acts badly, and spends more money than seems possible on getting drunk or 'tight' or 'blind drunk'. Cheers 🥂.

Jake Barnes is working as a reporter although we don't see him do much work. His wartime experience left him wounded and impotent and a slight tragic figure. He's in love with Lady Brett Ashley, a beautiful aristocrat who teases the men and likes to drink, party and sleep around.
Jake must learn that he can never really have her although in tender moments they do know that they love each other. Trouble is that Brett has just got divorced and plans on marrying Mike. But Mike is permanently drunk and bankrupt.
And then Jake's friend, ex-boxer Robert Cohn, another writer, falls in love with Brett which creates more tension. And that's before they get to Spain and Brett has her eye on a bullfighter.

If you took a drink every time one of the characters has a drink you would need a few weeks to read this. Or even months. Stay sober and you can easily read it in a day or two.

The characters aren't likeable and there's not a lot of plot when you really examine it but it's powerfully written and feels like a slice of life of a lost time, a particular period in history that was over as soon as it began.

People and places come and go but the sun carries on.