This episode we talk about Hemingway’s first big break through book, The Sun Also Rises. We also talk about Hemingway’s Iceberg theory on writing, Hem’s favorite Bourbon, and his use of gender and sexuality in the novel.
This book was written about his life after WWI. It follows a group of ex-patriots who live in Paris and go on a trip to Spain to see some bullfighting. While all the men fight over the beautiful and vivacious Lady Brett, she is aloof and refuses to fall in love with any of them, except our protagonist who was modeled after Hemingway. But his character Jake was wounded in the war in such a way that his penis doesn’t work so they can’t have sex. This isn’t a problem for Brett because she has a lot of sex with many different men and afterward gets tired of them.
This is a roman à clef, or a what the French describe as a story based on real events with a fictional story structure. That said, what does it say that Hem left the fact that his wife and infant son was there during the entire time the story spans?
Sean Davis 