I went back to The Sun Also Rises today. I’d forgotten what an easy and enjoyable read it is. I feel I’m being disingenuous in saying that I’d forgotten it because I don’t think I realized it the first place. It’s only been a couple of years since I first read the novel, so perhaps I was being a lazy reader. I can’t remember the last time I read something so straight forward that was also considered great literature. And therein lies the problem, or more specially, my problem; I called it literature. Approaching any written word as great literature sets an intellectual trap loaded with a bait too irresistible for an English major such as myself. I want to know what makes it great. Consequently, I lose sight of what actually makes great literature great; it tells a good story that readers can relate to.

Speaking of relateability, I have a few words on the first chapter. Hemingway begins by exploring the backstory of Robert Cohn. He writes about Cohn being unaware that his Jewish heritage carries with it some unfortunate baggage. This is the result of being sheltered in his younger years, and it isn’t until he arrives at Princeton that he comes to the understanding that some people are going to treat him like shit simply because he’s Jewish.

Now I can’t relate to this because I’m Jewish, I’m not, but because I had a similar experience in regards to understanding anti-Semitism and becoming more aware of the bigoted world around me. In my small Texas hometown there weren’t a lot of Jews, and if there were I still don’t know where they are because I never met any of them. I realized that being a Jew was something different, and something that could inspire scorn and persecution, not from all the Old Testament reading in Sunday school or from all the Holocaust literature in middle school, but from South Park. I don’t know about y’all, but I think someone must’ve designated seventh grade English as “Holocaust Studies” because I don’t remember reading anything else. For whatever reason, those four cursing little boys got it through to me that Jews suffer a great deal of persecution by no fault of their own and that sucks. Before then I had been completely oblivious to the notion.

Anyways, I realized about a third of the way through writing this that I didn’t have much profound to say on the subject. I finished it anyways. Maybe it will inspire you to go back and read the first chapter of The Sun Also Rises, because I think you would have a hard time finding a better example of sound characterization. It’s all in the action, not in the adjectives.