Guest Book Review: The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway

Guest post by Maya Simao. 

In the last 40 seconds, someone took his own life. Every year, over 800,000 people commit suicide.

The numbers are only rising.

Throughout my life, I often wondered what could ever persuade someone to take such an awful step – what could have happened to these people that made death look so much better than the life they led? I could never comprehend it – i could not contemplate even the idea for very long without my head hurting.

All of that changed in a matter of hours.

4 months ago, November 22, 2017, my little brother, Isaiah died. And my whole world seemed to come crashing to pieces. It still seems that way. Sometimes, I feel like I’m on a crumbling cliff and, with every crash of rock and sod giving way beneath my feet, I think to myself that my predicament cannot get worse. But another rock falls down and I am proven wrong.

In my head the words of the Wise Man are repeated continually: “Vanity, vanity. All is vanity.” Life seems so meaningless. In a matter of hours, what was once only a vague and confusing question became an overwhelming sympathy and understanding. And yet, even in the deepest moments of my grief, even when I cannot breathe and the tears do not stop and my very soul screams within me – I find I can keep going. I can live. How? What separates me from the suicide victim?

This past month, I was assigned a book in school: The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. To be honest, I was bored by the end of the first chapter. The book is named after Ecclesiastes 1:5 which says, “The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose.” The book is written in the same tone of sinking despair, but not only this, it is written in such a way that the reader, himself, begins to question the meaning of life. Every sentence feels  worthless and burdens the reader with the uncanny sensation that perhaps all the enjoyment of life is, as Hemingway puts it: “learning to get your money’s worth and knowing when you have it.”

Following this mindset, each character becomes nothing more than an alarming hedonist, playing about with hate and love and sex and money, caring nothing for the past and devoting nothing to the future.

And though mildly interested in the plot, I still felt like I was wasting my time reading this book. Then it struck me. That was Hemingway’s whole point.

You see, most authors write in what is called the Hypotactic Style. The sentences flow in and out of one another, holding our attention. The use of frequent periods are subconsciously impactful to us. However, Hemingway chose to write the entirety of the Sun Also Rises in the Paratactic Style, which means that instead of periods and commas, he uses the word ‘and’. The result, is something very similar to the manner in which one would speak in casual conversation – without previous thought.

It is run-on and sluggish. It is unkept and dreary. It is an editor’s worse nightmare. But it was no mistake of Hemingway’s. It was a deliberate decision because it empathizes the whole point of his book. Everything is worthless and you might as well do what you want when you want because in the end, you are the author of your own story. You decide when to ‘be good’ and when to ‘be bad’. You, alone, are sovereign. You have robbed life of God and therefore of all life’s meaning.

In the last chapter of The Sun Also Rises, the serial flirt and adulteress, Brett, leaves her lover in an attempt at self-sacrifice and real affection because she suddenly feels shame for her actions and considers herself unworthy of him. She remarks in her matter-of-fact way: “You know, it makes one feel good not being a b—-. It’s sort of what we have instead of God.”

In the end, even with her belief that life is only worth living if you fulfill every desire of the flesh, she is still struck by the sense of her sin. She still has a conscience. She still has a god. It is herself.

Hemingway was plagued by the idea that life is merely a series of sunrises and sunsets. You are born, you live and you die. There is no point in life. All is vanity. The trials of life are not worth suffering. What is the point? It was this belief that led him to take his own life in 1961 after years of misery and regret.

The Sun Also Rises is a sobering book. The theme of vanity is repeated throughout it and Ecclesiastes with one difference. Hemingway ends his book in despair. Ecclesiastes in determination. Hemingway paints a life for us in which every worldly pleasure is fulfilled. Life is a constant party – in a literal sense, as the whole book revolves around a week long fiesta. And yet at the end, all Brett can find is regret. She says only: “Oh, Jake, we could have had such a d—– good time together.” And Jake replies, “Yes. Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 says, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

The Bible tells us exactly what could have happened. It explains the purpose of our life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We are not told to find our meaning in the fleeting pleasures of life, but to find our all in Christ.

This life is vain. It is difficult and wearying and sometimes it seems more than we can bear. So what separates the grieving Christian from the grieving unbeliever? What is it that carries the believer onward despite his trials? How can we dare to live? For the simple reason that we have something worth living for.

Colossians 3:1-4 says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

God does not leave us to the vanity of life, wandering about in our trials and suffering. He can provide eternal salvation from such an end because He, Himself, chose such a life. Every burden that we rightly bear because of our sin, He takes upon Himself. He promises to see us through every trial life offers. But what is more, He promises that this life is not the end.

Romans 21:4-7 reads: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Christ suffered and died so that we might live and He rose again that we might hope. Job 19:25-26: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”

It is because of this, alone, that we have a reason to continue onward and have continuous joy, even amid our grief. What separates the life of the Christian with that of the unbeliever, is not that the Christian does not suffer, but that the Christian does not suffer in vain and therefore does not despair. In our helplessness, we yet have hope because of Christ.

Perhaps if Hemingway had read just a little further, he would have seen the truth to which we so desperately cling: The SON Also Rises.

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