I have just re-read Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I first read this novel in 1982. It was my first year of university. The book was part of my twentieth century literature course. I loved the book then. It introduced me to Hemingway’s spare and masculine prose. He wasted no words. And for me, like Hemingway, less was more. I also much enjoyed the second reading. In particular I liked the photographs and background information within the Hemingway Library edition. Those were not available to me in the standard edition back in 1982.

Hemingway based the novel on real events including the annual bullfights and festival he attended in Pamplona, Spain. He also based his fictional characters on real people: himself and his friends. He was Jake Barnes, Lady Duff Twysden was Lady Brett Ashley and Harold Loeb was Robert Cohn. Unsurprisingly, the real people were less than happy with their characters. Twysden pointed out she never slept with a bullfighter. Loeb maintained Hemingway portrayed his character in a poor light out of jealousy: Loeb had slept with Twysden and Hemingway had not.

On my first reading back in 1982, I liked the powerful and lean prose. Those were the days before political correctness. In 1982 I did not consider whether or not the content was politically correct. Having just read the novel for the second time I am left wondering whether in 2018 a mainstream publisher would accept it. If Hemingway was launching his first novel today would he be joining the growing ranks of self-published authors? In 2018 the novel clearly fails the political correctness test. There are two obvious failures. First, the characters display anti semitic attitudes including Hemingway’s alter ego, Jake Barnes. No apology is made for those attitudes. Secondly, Africans are referred to as niggers, and exist only as caricatures.

Within the book’s opening paragraph we learn that Robert Cohn, a Jew and former middleweight boxing champion of Princeton, had his nose permanently flattened by another Princeton boxer. This ‘increased Cohn’s distaste for boxing, but it gave him a certain satisfaction of some strange sort, and it certainly improved his nose.‘

As the novel unfolds Cohn is described by Jake Barnes and friends as ‘superior and Jewish‘, ‘that kike‘ and ‘that damned Jew.’ While racial stereotyping is evident in Hemingway’s description of Robert Cohn, including a Jewish nose (albeit flattened), a Jewish superior attitude, and ‘a hard, Jewish, stubborn streak’, Hemingway gives Cohn redeeming features. He describes him as ‘shy‘ and having a ‘nice boyish sort of cheerfulness that had never been trained out of him.‘ He has an ingenuous quality. Cohn is the smitten romantic who having read and reread W H Hudson’s ‘The Purple Land‘ about the ‘amorous adventures of a perfect English gentleman in an intensely romantic land‘ will do battle for his lady love, Lady Brett Ashley. Consequently Cohn, being a central character, comes across as well-rounded and not just a racial stereotype.

The novel’s other central characters are American or European. They also come across as well-rounded real people. There are no African central characters, however passing reference is made to Africans. Inside a Montmartre bar ‘the nigger drummer waved at Brett.’ Jake Barnes describes him as ‘all teeth and lips‘. Early within book two Jake’s friend Bill Gorton tells Jake about a ‘wonderful nigger‘ prize fighter, and that ‘he’d loaned the nigger some clothes …’. Jake asks Bill ‘what became of the nigger?‘ While the Africans in the book are not fully developed characters, to the extent they are there, they exist as caricatures. The European minor characters are almost all Spanish and French. They receive mainly favourable treatment and do not appear as caricatures. Hemingway treats the German maitre d’hotel harshly, including his German accent. This may be more evidence of racism. However, it is arguable the man’s race is incidental to Hemingway’s disparaging treatment of an individual character he disliked.

The Sun Also Rises was first published in 1926. It was Ernest Hemingway’s first novel. Hemingway’s treatment of Jews and Africans within the book is disparaging. No doubt it reflects the prevalent attitudes of the time. The publication of this book ushered in Hemingway’s stellar literary career, and with it his immense influence on modern prose. The Sun Also Rises has endured because it is superb literature. If Hemingway were to publish the novel today as a first novel it seems beyond belief that such a book would fail to attract a mainstream publisher because of political correctness. Political correctness should not be taken into account when assessing literary merit. If it is taken into account great literary works will not reach the reading public.

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