Sam Morgan’s Reviews > The Sun Also Rises > Status Update

An absurd amount of alcohol has been consumed throughout this whole book.
“I’m rather drunk’, Mike said. ‘I think I’ll stay rather drunk”.
Mike is constantly drinking as a way of coping with his issues with life, Brett, unresolved war trauma, and his financial woes. Jake seems to have had a moment of clarity and realizes that alcohol solves nothing..?
A bloody, severed bulls ear is a quite an odd gift

A bullfighter, a fight critic, and a Hemingway main character walk into a bar…
Fireworks failure to launch symbolizes Jake’s sexual impotence? 🧨 Brett seems to be confusing lust for love, & is a desperate attention seeker. Jake seems to be helping Brett as her wingman almost as a way of sexually fulfilling her…?

🐂🇪🇸🍷🌞
“You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working…”
“It sounds like a swell life…”

Love the beautiful Spanish countryside setting. Fishing for rainbow trout, drinking wine, & taking an afternoon nap sounds ideal. Love the friendship between Jake, Bill, and Harris. The fuse is certainly lit between the friends 💣
“Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people”.
“How did you go bankrupt?”…
“Two ways…Gradually and then suddenly”

Traveling the Spanish countryside drinking wine & hot rum punch at a mountainside villa is something I need to experience. Bill sounds like a terrible person but also a good friend. All these characters, with the exception of the Count, are miserable (and alcoholics).
“My son- go west with this face and grow up with this country”
Direct action… it beats legislation”

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever... The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose"
Ecclesiastes 1:4–5

End of book one. Not much has gone on so far, just getting introduced to the characters and their endless drinking around Post-WW1 Paris.
“You see Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well… That is the secret. You must get to know the values”. …
“You haven’t any values. You’re dead, that’s all.
No, my dear. You’re not right. I’m not dead at all.”