The Sun Also Rises

Hemingway’s first novel, 1926. Jake Barnes, an American newspaperman in Paris left impotent by a war wound, moves with a circle of expatriates from the cafes of the Left Bank to the bullfights at Pamplona, in company with Lady Brett Ashley, whom he loves and cannot have. Very little is explained; the novel works almost entirely by what the characters do not say.

Context: First published 1926; published in Britain as Fiesta. 272 pages in the linked Vintage edition. Lexile 680 — low, because the sentences are short, and misleading, because almost nothing in the book is stated outright. Filed under Fiction. One thing to know going in: the Jewish character Robert Cohn is described in terms that are openly antisemitic, and whether that is the narrator’s prejudice being exposed or the author’s being indulged has been argued over since publication.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the curriculum this came from; a 468-title reading list published in December 2025 by the Substack writer Dissident Teacher, of which Kyle is carding only the Ages 13-99+ band.
• Ernest Hemingway — the author.
• For Whom the Bell Tolls — also on the list.
• The Old Man and the Sea — the third Hemingway title in this band.
• Literature