Hello! For my new post, I am continuing to read “The Sun Also Rises.” The author, Ernest Hemingway, is who I am studying for my author study for the semester. In the last post, I praised him highly for his character sketch. After continuing to read further, I noticed the sexism in his characters, or maybe through his own thoughts. Either he was sexist or he created his own characters to have sexists thoughts, particularly the narrator. I know that sexism was very normal in the time period it was written during as well as the time period it portrays in the book. However, I cannot help but notice that maybe Hemingway is expressing his thoughts through the narrator.

Excerpt (pg 14) to show subtle sexism within the text:

“She went by once more and I caught her eye, and she came over and sat down at the table. The waiter came up.

‘Well, what will you drink?’ I asked.

‘Pernod.’

‘That’s not good for little girls.’

‘Little girl yourself. Dites garcon, un pernod.’

‘A pernod for me, too.’ ”

While the narrator is gender stereotyping, I do appreciate Hemingway creating this fiesty confident young woman who doesn’t back down when told that specific drink is not for her, because she is a “her.” This will be something I will watch for during my author study to find out more about him because even though he is considered a genius for literature, he may not be a genius in gender stereotypes and how to avoid sounding sexist.

In the same part of the book, Hemingway demonstrated his magnificent powers of sensory detail. I had no idea what Pernod was and this simple description was so useful and I felt like I could smell it and see it while reading.

Excerpt (pg: 15) to show sensory detail:

“Pernod is greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns milky. It tastes like licorice and it has a good uplift, but it drops you just as far.”

I also loved how he incorporated the “uplift” in contrast with the “drop(ping)” of spirits. While seriously describing a drink, it is hilarious that he was able to get a little sarcastic bit in there. I will also be watching for more sarcasm as I continue to read.

The Sun Also Rises (1)

The Sun Also Rises (1)

I recently started The Sun Also Rises (TSAR). The author is Ernest Hemingway, the author I am researching for my author study. Since I have already researched the author a bit, I was interested to see if this book would live up to the hefty praise Hemingway has received. I only read the first chapter and was very impressed. In the past month, I have not read a book of substance. I have been reading teen fiction by authors who have not even graduated college yet. Delving into this book was a huge change for me.

This first chapter is basically a character sketch of Robert Cohn. This sketch is given by a close friend of his whom Cohn knows from tennis. The sketch begins with declaring that Cohn was “middleweight boxing champion of Princeton.” In the style of Hemingway, that declaration did not impress me. But what did impress me was that the author knew that describing Cohn in the same manner that he himself would, reveals a lot about his character. The fact that Cohn would tell people about this title shows that this means something to him. It shows it means that he can stand up for himself and that no one will mess with him because of his Jewish background. Since this means so much to him, we can assume there is some history of being picked on or hurt because of his religion. The narrator continues to describe Cohn as coming from a combination of the richest and oldest families in New York. The way the distinction is made in the book reminds me of a comparison between old money and new money in “The Great Gatsby.”

Hemingway surprised me on the second page. His narrator had talked all about Cohn being a middleweight boxing champion for two pages and then all the sudden he writes, “He… was married by the first girl who was nice to him.” He then goes on to talk a little bit about the marriage but the story isn’t nearly as detailed as the boxing story. This is surprising because I would have thought Hemingway would have dragged out the details of the wedding and how they met. Maybe Hemingway was trying to show that the marriage did not mean as much to Cohn as being the middleweight boxing champion meant to him. Since the narrator only seems to know what Cohn has told him, I am sure he has heard many more stories about the boxing than the marriage so it is proportionately represented in the narrator’s character sketch of him.