The Sun Also Rises

As promised, I looked up the SparkNotes for The Sun Also Rises after finishing it on Thursday evening.

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There are a lot of nuances that I didn't pick up on.

Like the evolution in perceived masculinity that resulted from the experience of World War I, or the aimlessness of the younger generations. Or the fact that our narrator was rendered impotent as a result of his war injuries, and that is why his love won't actually be with him.

Had I read this novel in 1926 when it was published, I might have been a little more shocked by it.

In 2010, I wasn't surprised by weak male characters and strong female, nor by the accepted promiscuity of the token lady of the group. It didn't strike me as odd that a group of 30-somethings spent their days drinking, rather than doing.

The interesting thing about this novel, 85 years later, is actually its normalcy. It's a story that, with a change of wardrobe, could be successful on any prime-time network.

At 24, I'm somewhat younger than the characters in the novel (who were in their mid-thirties). And yet I see an aimlessness and dissatisfaction among my generation not-so-different from that observed by Hemingway. I see a large number of women with strong -- even forceful -- personalities, and a lot of men without.

I remember a conversation I had in college with another student and a professor, in which I pointed out the dynamics of the class. In this particular business course, with a fairly even ratio of genders, the women always led. What I observed then, at 21, had resulted from years of watching the girls encouraged and the boys silenced (or, at best, simply ignored), as if a boy's intelligence was somehow detrimental to a girl's.

It's an unfortunate backlash of the feminist movement (with roots stretching as far back as WWI, apparently), in which we've become so hypersensitive to treating women equally that we've stopped giving men the same respect. In fact, I would say that the expectations placed on boys at a young age are much lower than on girls (though this is not always true, especially in areas where "traditional" gender roles continue to be the norm), and the boys are often meeting those expectations.

However, the primary difference I see between my generation and the characters of Hemingway's novel is that we want to do something with our lives, but we can't. We poured hours and money and hope into our educations, but now can't find jobs (thank you economy). I know dozens of other 20-somethings beside myself, both male and female, who gained their degrees, spent a year or two volunteering with AmeriCorps or Peace Corps, and now possess massive amounts of debt, but no or low-paying jobs.

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We want to change the world, and we want to do something that matters with our lives. But can we?

I don't actually know. But in the meantime, a small group of us will be taking our cue from Jake, Brett, Robert Cohn, Bill, and Mike by visiting a wine bar this coming Friday. Perhaps we don't know quite what we're doing with our lives, but we, too, can enjoy some of the finding-out. It won't be Paris/Pamplona/Biarritz, but it should be enjoyable nonetheless. And no, Mom, I won't be drinking an entire bottle. One glass or two is more than enough for me.




Side note: While I didn't actually intend for this post to develop into a critique on the failings of society or the current economic situation, I'm not surprised. I firmly believe that the longevity of "classic" literature is due, in part, to its ability to make us ask difficult questions. After all, most of the books that have withstood the test of time are not fairy tales, but critiques.