This book was published in 1926 and for many readers,finds a place where the finest works of modernist writings of early 20th century are celebrated. Albeit the success of the ‘ The old man & the sea’ and ‘ For whom the bell tolls ‘ to name a few, has led many scholars to argue of the credibility of the book with no central theme yet revolving around the endeavours of humans in an explicit manner. There are instances too where Hemingway scholars found it the greatest work of Hemingway. So this debate goes on as the stream of readers does. That’s what a good book is, if it satisfies all it becomes universal something as literary utopia; but if it doesn’t and leaves people thinking and to find their own meanings as they perceive it, i think there it connects with masses. Now read for your own & put your liking or disliking forth! That’s the literary realism.
A letter to Ernest Hemingway
Eternal Ernest, hello Hemingway!
I hope you like that, you know you aren’t here but as long as books are here, you will be just there residing in the myriads words of the stories of people of our ilk. It’s not about your books only, when one reads Fitzgerald or Gabriel Garcia Marquez or any of the muggles whose magic we believed and still live in that world of words, stories, learnings, repeating, we will talk of you, if it’s ‘This side of Paradise’ your readers will think of you whether it’s your story or not because it’s about more than hundred years of solitude that your books give to us! PS: I love them too!
I knew of your work which fetched you Pulitzer prize & eventually Nobel! But i started with the beginning where the countless masterpieces of yours flooded, so i told myself to start from just there where you did.
It took me quite some time to even think of why the sun also rises when ‘Brett was rising with liberty, a liberty in the dreams of a feminist,a liberty of loving carelessly, a liberty of forgiving, a liberty of letting things go!
When Jake wasn’t aware of his rising but he was constantly lifting himself above the narrow streets of love with conditions, he was witnessing of a Renaissance of love without possessions, he rises with a care to not care, he loved truly without following the same path as his beloved did. He was just somewhere on the way, going with an aim of going without an aim, yet that love would cross his path & let him relish without a promise of ever coming back and he rises with the magical realism!
So did Robert Cohn & Mike, they love in their own ways and rise with their own redemptions of freeing themselves from togetherness of their own kind! (Bill too rises with his Rhapsody)
So verily, everybody rises ( bulls, fighters, fishes, drinks, rain, haze, coldness, huh everything). That makes me believe that yes ‘The sun also rises’
You wrote a moving story without even making us believe that it was moving, an expatriate rambling in the streets of Paris&looking for an escape, found love but was unable to love as the world would think, but he lived & loved!
You wrote & every time i open the book it seems you are still writing & nurturing the story with my understanding of it. I recall Michael Cunningham saying that a book changes when you change,if you reread a book after some time, the book also reflects the change that you have undergone,it conciliates with the different you!
A book is inimitable so are you Eternal Ernest! You’ll read the letter won’t you? It’s in the praises and realisations of the readers that a writer finds meaning to his work, not always but metaphorically our questions are your answers!
With ā¤
Yours Shiwangi!!!
magical realism 