The Old Man and The Sea

Amazon.com

Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author. In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career, which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observation that "no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards"). A half century later, it's still easy to see why. This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favorite motifs of physical and moral challenge. Yet Santiago is too old and infirm to partake of the gun-toting machismo that disfigured much of the author's later work: "The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords." Hemingway's style, too, reverts to those superb snapshots of perception that won him his initial fame:

Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.

If a younger Hemingway had written this novella, Santiago most likely would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph--just as the author delighted in doing, circa 1935. Instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks. Returning with little more than a skeleton, he takes to his bed and, in the very last line, cements his identification with his creator: "The old man was dreaming about the lions." Perhaps there's some allegory of art and experience floating around in there somewhere--but The Old Man and the Sea was, in any case, the last great catch of Hemingway's career. --James Marcus

Book Description

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Customer Reviews:

The perfect book for high school reading.......2007-10-11

This is my first Hemingway story, and was pretty pleased with it. I have always been told that his writing gets right to the point and that he's not a "flowery" writer, so I wasn't surprised to see how long this story was. On the surface, the story was very exciting, even more so at the end when he battles the sharks. As I was reading it, I would get so excited whenever he ran across another shark I didn't even want to read those parts. I was really rooting for Santiago, and felt totally gypped at the end! In terms of reading the story for just "more" than the story, I found that the themes are very easy to identify and talk about so that would make this a great "discussion" novella, and it's no surprise that this is a frequently read book in school. This is an excellent starter book for those who are interested in reading a story for more than face value. It's not too long and it's themes and symbolism aren't too vague to understand.

Good delivery.......2007-10-01

It was a good product and it was delivered on time. The only thing i would like to recommend is that the next time stick my name on the box.

A HEMINGWAY CLASSIC ! ( the story is fascinating, and the symbolism offers wisdom).......2007-09-27

Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Old Man And The Sea is the story of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago, and the several days and nights he spends alone in his skiff, catching, killing, and bringing to shore, a large (bigger than his skiff) Marlin. Santiago has gone eighty-four days without a catch, and on this day he goes out farther than he normally does, and catches his prize (or maybe it's not a prize at all). The man-against-nature aspect of the story is intriguing in itself, but I've always seen this book as a wise parable that teaches a lesson, or even several lessons, in life. The fish is a symbol of a sought after prize, and the sea is a symbol for life itself, the old man has gone out too far, and so on (there's much, much more, but I don't want to give the story away). It actually can be interpreted many different ways, and because of this, it's like piecing together a different puzzle each time you read it. I have read this interesting story many times in my life (I've just finished reading it again), and I always find new ways to interpret it, and new ways to enjoy it. It's only 120+ pages, so it's a book that can be read without a great deal of labor. Hemingway's vivid imagery of the ocean and early 1950s Cuba is fascinating, and the simple, honest, and humble lives of Santiago and his devoted young friend, Manolin are refreshing and heartwarming. The Old Man And The Sea is a book that I have read for years, and one that I will continue to read for many years to come.

Hemigway at His Best.......2007-09-13

Having read and enjoyed most of Hemingway's major works, I recently decided to re-read this one. It was a wonderful decision.

"The Old Man and the Sea" excels at several levels. On the surface, it is a fine story about an old, down on his luck fisherman catching a huge marlin. But it also has deeper meanings including man against the elements, man fighting failure, man's relationship with nature etc. etc. It is also a story well and efficiently told. One of the great books of all time in only 120+ pages. It deserved the Pulitzer and all the other accolades it has received.

Short but Good Enough.......2007-09-06

Are all of Ernest Hemingway's books following For Whom the Bell Tolls that bad? No, and The Old Man and the Sea justifies that answer. This is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, Santiago, who has not caught any fish for eighty-four days and is seen by the other fishermen as unlucky. Even the boy that often fishes with him, Manolin, is not allowed to do so anymore by his father's authority, but still helps him out when he is not fishing. The old man goes out onto the Gulf Stream to make some catches and eventually has an arduous struggle with a large marlin. I am not going to give off any big spoilers (for now at least) in this introduction, but I will say one thing: this is a story about how life can reek of misfortunes but in the end, make prosperity.
Hemingway's novels do not just happen as any ordinary fiction based on some random idea, but rather they are inspired by his real-life experiences. What is The Old Man and the Sea based off of? It is based off two things: his time living in Cuba in 1940 and his favorite past experiences: sailing and fishing. The old man, Santiago, is believed to be based off of Cuban fisherman, Gregorio Fuentes. As another fact, The Old Man and the Sea - Santiago's story - was previously intended for a bigger project of Hemingway's: "The Sea Book."
Hemingway has a very unique way of fleshing out the book's situations with words. For most of the book, the old man is out at sea, alone with nobody to talk to, but does that mean he does not talk at all? No, it does not. Often at times, he will talk to himself, usually talking to his own appendages almost as if they had their own degree of sentience. For example, he would say to his arm, "How do you feel, hand?" (Hemingway 58) when it felt pain and then say, "I'll eat some more for you" (59) when he eats some of his recently caught fish to replenish his arms strength for bigger, upcoming catches. He also talks to the fish he has caught or is going to catch, whether they are dead or alive. He communicates with the marlin in his vicious struggle as if it were a sapient creature.
*Warning! Spoilers Ahead!*
Even after the monstrous fish is caught, he still communicates with it, and forms a spiritual bond with his prize. This is evident during the shark attack, which may have been another great battle for the old man, but results in the loss of most of the marlin's edible parts. He feels that he has failed to protect the fish, which was like a brother to him.
*Spoilers end here*
The Old Man and the Sea is a book I would recommend for anyone that usually has poor reading comprehension skills, like me for instance. In fact, I would recommend it for just about anyone. This book is fairly short but interesting enough to keep you engaged, though if you are reading this for school, you may be compelled to take day-to-day breaks with it. Also, this book is not divided into chapters; it is just one chapter the length of the whole book, so it might be a little hard to know when the best time to take a break is. If you think books of this size are just for pre-high school kids, I would say you are bit too judgmental. As they say not to judge a book by its cover, I should also say not to judge a book by its size. If you just started reading this novel, I will say it should take less than a week if you are not too break-heavy. As this is Hemingway's last major novel, Hemingway's literary career sure did end successfully.

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

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One of the most important books I've read
Spirituality of Imperfection
new book1
From AA to Zeitgeist
Understanding and Acceptance

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
Ernest Kurtz , and Katherine Ketcham
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0553371320
Release Date: 1993-12-01

Book Description

I Am Not Perfect is a simple statement of profound truth, the first step toward understanding the human condition, for to deny your essential imperfection is to deny yourself and your own humanity. The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times.

Who are we? Why so we so often fall short of our goals for ourselves and others? By seeking to understand our limitations and accept the inevitably of failure and pain, we being to ease the hurt and move toward a greater sense of serenity and self-awareness. The Spirituality Of Imperfection brings together stories from many spiritual and philosophical paths, weaving past traditions into a spirituality and a new way of thinking and living that works today. It speaks so anyone who yearns to find meaning within suffering. Beyond theory and technique, inside this remarkable book you will find a new way of thinking, a way of living that enables a truly human existence.

Customer Reviews:

One of the most important books I've read.......2007-10-06

I found this book at a retreat (Manresa) a few years ago and have purchased at least a couple dozen of these books for friends since then, with consistently enthusiastic feedback.

I really don't have the proper words to capture the meaning or importance of this book. It's a slow, intense, delicious read ... kind of like eating a very rich Belgian chocolate.

If you like this book, then you may like this one, too:
The Song of the Bird

Spirituality of Imperfection.......2007-09-23

The book was most helpful in evaluation my spirituality and I have or will give 5 copies to my relatves for their improvement.

new book1.......2007-07-21

I've read the book before. Glad to have my own copy now. Package arrived soon after ordering in good condition. Very pleased.

From AA to Zeitgeist.......2007-07-15

This is a remarkably wise book, whatever your spiritual history. From Desert Fathers and Thomas Merton to the Tao Te Ching, its scope is broad and charged with a vision of understanding that stands at the base of any effort to the growth of the soul through the five indices: prayer, observance, disciline, thought and action.

Understanding and Acceptance.......2007-05-14

Ernie Kurtz has written a comprehensive book about the acceptance of self and our human frailities that brings us into a closer relationship with a higher power and deepens our spirituality.

Sometimes over complicated and a bit confusing, but carefully
documented.

Average customer rating:

A classic - buy it.
Lazy and messy
Oh, Buttercup
excelsior!
My first venture into Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684803356

Amazon.com

For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest, somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reason Jordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their local leader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him, Jordan has his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems, has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd of horses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as little attention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriously alarmed him.

"I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?"

In one short chapter Hemingway lays out the blueprint for what is to come: Jordan's sense of duty versus Pablo's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Complicating matters even more are two members of the guerrilla leader's small band: his "woman" Pilar, and Maria, a young woman whom Pablo rescued from a Republican prison train. Unlike her man, Pilar is still fiercely devoted to the cause and as Pablo's loyalty wanes, she becomes the moral center of the group. Soon Jordan finds himself caught between the two, even as his own resolve is tested by his growing feelings for Maria.

For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving El Sordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but the quieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfill his mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to his creator's psychological acuity. By turns brutal and compassionate, it is arguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the 20th century. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Download Description

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Customer Reviews:

A classic - buy it........2007-09-25

I first read this about 40 years ago. I just re-purchased it. This is a classic novel.

Lazy and messy.......2007-09-06

The Spanish Civil War was surely the most brutal and tragic civil war of the twentieth century. It not only pitted Spaniard against Spaniard, but became a kind of bloody curtain-raiser for World War II, with Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy lining up on the side of Franco's insurgents and the USSR backing the embattled left-leaning Republic. (The Western democracies - who might have prevented Spain from going fascist - followed a pusillanimous "hands off" policy which only emboldened the insurgents and their supporters.) Into this vortex came many writers and intellectuals. They were to witness brutality, betrayals, great valour, the corruption of ideals, and the consequences of ruthless Realpolitik.

So with all that in mind, here's an interesting question. If you were an author trying to write the great Spanish Civil War novel, would you choose to (1) sequester your handful of characters up in the mountains away from the main action; (2) write 500 pages covering a mere three days during which time nobody has anything to do; and (3) make the central character non-Spanish?

500 pages about three days of waiting is the book's central problem. It turns the novel into the opposite of an epic. To have taken a canvas as sweeping as the three years of the Spanish Civil War and shrink it down to such a compass-point was an unfathomable decision on the author's part. From this self-inflicted literary ambush there is no escape for Hemingway: you either need excellent descriptive prose or superb psychological insight to carve a good story from such crooked timber, for, after all, what else is left to describe in such a situation save inner musings and the outer landscape?

The prose is the next problem. Much has been made of Hemingway's 'deceptively simple' writing style. However, I found it impossible to read "For Whom the Bells Tolls" without forming the impression that that his reputation for putatively well-masked complexity is itself the deception. Consider the following extracts [from the Vintage edition]:

A hole in a hillside is described as:

"both deep and profound"
[p. 444]

Characters exchange such dialogue as:

'Well, then. Oh, then. Oh, then. Oh.'
[p. 166]

'Maria.'
'Yes.'
'Maria.'
'Yes.'
'Maria.'
'Oh, yes. Please.'
[p. 272]

'But use thy head. Thou hast much head. Use it.'
[p. 444]

Which brings us to the Hemingway penchant for meaningless repetition:

"In an impossible situation you hang on until night to get away. You try to last out until night to get back in. You are all right, maybe, if you can stick it out until dark and then get back in."
[p. 174]

"So a woman like that Pilar practically pushed this girl into your sleeping bag and what happens? Yes, what happens? What happens? You tell me what happens, please. That is just what happens. That is exactly what happens."
[p. 175]

Followed by some impressive run-on rants as the author becomes completely carried away describing love scenes (How many women - even in the thirties - were seduced by being repeatedly called 'rabbit'?)

My favourite passage is when one of the characters reveals to Joaquín that la Pasionara has a son in Russia. Instead of naming the character, Hemingway chooses to write the following clanking line:
"'If we insult them a little?' the man who had spoken to Joaquín about la Pasionara's son in Russia asked."
[p. 324]

On and on it goes like this. For three days. In a cave. This book has now gone into the umpteenth printing and neither the spelling nor grammar have been corrected ("... the flakes was dropping diagonally ..." [p. 185]; "... and then brining it down ..." [p. 213]; "... the felling when the Inglés gave the order ..." [p. 380]; at one point André Marty is referred to as "Mary" [p. 437]).

So it needs to be said openly. Hemingway pundits who make excuses for this sort of thing have a lot of explaining to do: otherwise they are obliged to defend similarly poor writing when they find it outside the world of Nobel laureates.

Oh, Buttercup.......2007-08-30

I read this book a couple years ago and loved it. War, adventure, love, it's like The Princess Bride minus lighthearted fairytale-ness. I highly recommend it.

excelsior!.......2007-08-05

must be where Metallica got the song name from. Anyways this is one of but many authors that, like Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain decided to take the easy way out. In the meantime he penned this great literature that is a great book. I don't care what anybody says, the old man and the sea is boring and short and so with that I bid you good day and happy reading!

My first venture into Hemingway.......2007-08-03

This was my first time reading a book by Hemingway, and it was not all I had hoped for. The Spanish Civil War is one of my major interests (it was the subject of my undergraduate research thesis) and so I ordered this book with great anticipation. Unfortunately, I was not completely satisfied.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" gives a great understanding of the personalities and characters of the Spanish people. It also is balanced in the sense that it shows that atrocities were committed by both sides.

However, my main complaint with the book is that it seems like nothing happens. It is not until probably the last 100 pages or so that action begins to take place. (Granted, there were many instances during the Spanish Civil War where the lines were at a standstill and nothing DID happen, so perhaps in that sense it is quite accurate). But despite how much Hemingway tries to build up to the destruction of the bridge, it's not exciting by the time you actually get to that point.

The other thing that irritated me (and this is just as a Spanish speaker) was that the dialogue is written as though it was literally translated word-for-word from Spanish conversation rather than translated for meaning. For example, the dialogue reads, "That he comes soon," ("que venga pronto") instead of, "I hope he comes soon," or "He better come soon." It just makes the dialogue awkward and unnatural.

Despite my complaints, I will not let this be my only reading of Hemingway and I will try out something else of his in the near future.

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The Depressing American Novel
A Soap Opera
A classic!
Brilliant
"I thought she might be a little crazy"

A Farewell To Arms
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684801469

Amazon.com

As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corps instead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he became the first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingway came out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealth of experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold with A Farewell to Arms. This is the story of Lieutenant Henry, an American, and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. The two meet in Italy, and almost immediately Hemingway sets up the central tension of the novel: the tenuous nature of love in a time of war. During their first encounter, Catherine tells Henry about her fiancé of eight years who had been killed the year before in the Somme. Explaining why she hadn't married him, she says she was afraid marriage would be bad for him, then admits:

I wanted to do something for him. You see, I didn't care about the other thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted if I would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all about it now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn't know.

The two begin an affair, with Henry quite convinced that he "did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards." Soon enough, however, the game turns serious for both of them and ultimately Henry ends up deserting to be with Catherine.

Hemingway was not known for either unbridled optimism or happy endings, and A Farewell to Arms, like his other novels (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and To Have and Have Not), offers neither. What it does provide is an unblinking portrayal of men and women behaving with grace under pressure, both physical and psychological, and somehow finding the courage to go on in the face of certain loss. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Hemingway's frank portrayal of the love between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley, caught in the inexorable sweep of war, glows with an intensity unrivaled in modern literature, while his description of the German attack on Caporetto -- of lines of fired men marching in the rain, hungry, weary, and demoralized -- is one of the greatest moments in literary history. A story of love and pain, of loyalty and desertion, A Farewell to Arms, written when he was 30 years old, represents a new romanticism for Hemingway.

Customer Reviews:

The Depressing American Novel.......2007-10-20

Well, being the 363rd review listed here on Amazon for this book, there probably isn't too much that hasn't already been said by the average reader about this book. Having read this and other Hemingway novels for my 10th grade honors English class (and a subsequently painful paper) I can honestly say I enjoyed this a lot more than I did back then at age 14 or however old I was at the time.

My "little" book group read this one--we'll read anything, and take turns picking stuff out, and this was not my pick, but it is kind of an unspoken rule in this group that if someone wasnts to read something like this, we'll all do it. I was pleasantly surprised. Hemingway's writing was as spare a I remembered it, but also much more readable than I recalled, despite the run on sentences, giving an almost stream of consciousness feel to the dialogue. It really served to lend itself to the desperation of these lonely souls trying to find solace anywhere during a war that is clearly un-winnable by all sides.

Not a romantic love story--Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley find each other and cling to the idea of their relationship, even though anyone can see that outside of these terrible circumstances, theirs is not a relationship that would last. She is clearly no Mrs. Henry. It is a relationship about sex and comfort, and little else, sadly.

The most prominent feature that stood out for me about the whole novel is that it is so clearly a very modern feeling anti-war novel. Our little group was surprised at the familiar "this isn't our war" sentiment that hovers over Lt. Henry's person.

Full of some great moments, this book should be read by all college bound students and all Americans.

A Soap Opera.......2007-09-23

I re-read this recently. I don't know why. I guess a friend of mind is into Hemingway. Here's what I found: this seminal work of the American 20th century fiction reads like a chick flick or soap opera, especially the rather embarrasingly overwrought last chapter.

A classic!.......2007-08-27

I read this book in high school and I fell in love. This book has it all: adventure, love, and a incredibly tragic ending. This is the type of book that should be required reading in schools!

Brilliant.......2007-08-13

At first I was not a fan of Hemmingway's writing style but the story overpowered whatever problems I had. Wonderful depictions of war and love. Emotional when you least expect it. An amazing journey. Must Read Classic.

"I thought she might be a little crazy".......2007-07-26

The only justification for WWI, if there is one, is that it serves as a great backdrop for this marvelous novel, the story of wounded ambulance driver Frederick Henry and his nurse -lover Catherine Barkley as they try to survive that ignoble war (which began with dancing in the streets of Vienna and ended in the pointless slaughter of millions. Remember?). Early in the book, Frederick says of Catherine, "I thought she might be a little crazy." Well, Yeah! Is it any wonder considering she has treated about a thousand casualties with injuries ranging from self-inflicted foot wounds to splintered limbs and assorted other dripping war wounds? Together they make the only sane decision they can make under the circumstances: they escape to neutral Switzerland where they manage to make a life for themselves, away from the war--but never really free from its underlying curse. Out of a time when kings and keisers (not renegade vice presidents) made war, Hemingway, the master of macho angst, creates the premier anti-war novel. If only Bush had been reading it to the kids in Sarasota the morning of 911 instead of the lamb book, what a different world it might be today...

Average customer rating:

Metric Handbook
This book is all metric - worthless
Handbook of Hydraulics
Great reference
a good reference book

Handbook of Hydraulics
Ernest F. Brater , Horace W. King , James E. Lindell , and C. Y. Wei
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0070072477

Book Description

Your one-stop answer guide to hydraulics engineering and design. Turn to Handbook of Hydraulics, Seventh Edition, for the tables, formulas, computer applications, and other resources you need to design and engineer virtually any hydraulic system. Bringing Ernest F. Brater and Horace W. King's last edition into the 21st century, James E. Lindell and C.Y. Wei have revised and updated this unmatched advisor--coverting all constants to metric units--to give you powerful solutions governing: Viscosity, surface tension, and elasticity; fluid pressures and hydraulic forces; laminar, turbulent, steady, and unsteady flows; oscillatory, breaking, and wind-generated waves plus shore erosion control' flow through orifice gates, tubes, weirs, and pipes; uniform and nonuniform flow in open channels; high-velocity transitions through straight-walled, enlargement, and curved-wall constrictions; unsteady open channel and spatially variable flow; flow measurement with meters, pilot tubes, venture flumes, and other devices; computer-based numerical methods; much more.

Customer Reviews:

Metric Handbook.......2007-09-07

This book did not help me at all! It is in metric, no English units are provided in the book. All of the equations are worthless to me!

This book is all metric - worthless.......2003-02-28

We use english units in my state. This book is all metric. They could have at least had both metric and english in the book. I sent mine back, as it is worthless to me.

Handbook of Hydraulics.......2003-02-16

This book was a classic, but why does it have to be metric? I guess converting it gave the academics something to do. Here is a news flash for the publisher: Civil Engineers praticing in the US don't use the metric system. Even our state DOT has given up on converting. I wish that the 6th edition was still available. Its just about useless now.

Great reference.......2001-09-08

If you need a reference manual, this has everything. Although, most people need text books for problem solving, whether they be a student or a professional. This book some how managed to completely avoid sample problems. I returned it.

a good reference book.......2000-05-04

I have used this book in my work, it is a very convenient reference book for hydraulics. I think it is worth every penny I spent. This book covers a wide range of the knowlege in this area.

Average customer rating:

Precision drawing basics.
Wonderful little book.
A promise that is fulfilled.
Artist's review
Excellent!... It's my #2 choice in my Top 5 perspective books...

Perspective Made Easy
Ernest R. Norling
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486404730

Book Description

Perspective is easy; yet, surprisingly few artists know the simple rules that make it so. Now they can remedy that situation with this step-by-step book, the first devoted entirely to clarifying the laws of perspective. Using over 250 simple line drawings, the author leads the reader through every important concept. 256 illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Precision drawing basics........2007-01-09

This is a book that teaches precision drawing. It is easy to read in that the text seems like it is written for elementary school age, but at the same time it doesn't "talk down". It's just simple and direct. This would be an excellent book for a kid (age 10 or so) or an adult to learn about the basics of drawing - vanishing points, eye level, horizon line. At the end of each chapter is a "Remember" section which reviews the main points covered in the chapter and a "Problems" section which is a list of exercises to do to practice what was taught in the chapter. Another plus is that this book covers Perspective Downhill, Perspective Uphill, Reflections, and Mechanical Perspective which I have not come across elsewhere.

Although it does a great job in explaining what the basics are and has many very good illustrations, compared to other books it lacks in explaining the exact mechanics of what to do when you draw your own drawing (e.g. how to use your pencil to figure out angles and lengths).

Bottom line is that because of the simple explanations and the unique topics covered this, I want this book in my art book library. However, this is more of a supplemental book. If you're looking for only one book that will teach you to draw, it would be better to get a different book such as Perspective Without Pain by Philip W. Metzger or Drawing Sharp Focus Still Lifes by Robert Zappalorti.

Wonderful little book........2006-11-14

A wonderful understandable little book on the basics of perspective. It is not meant to be overly technical, rather it's goal seems to be to aide artists quickly through the most common perspective issues and then some.

A promise that is fulfilled........2006-11-12

As a representational painter I find that a sound knowledge of perspective is of paramount importance and I cannot blame modernist art enough for the damage it has done to generations of painters by ignoring and teaching to ignore perspective .
Over the years I have collected an impressive number of books about perspective, from 15th century manuals to modern textbooks. All of them are fascinating but rather complex and tend to discourage the reader after a few chapters.
Norling's book, on the contrary, is beautifully simple without being superficial. It teaches the aspiring artist all the tricks with a simple language and without burdening him or her with exceedingly complicated rules and formulas. It is equally useful to the experienced artist that wants to refresh some difficult points.
An honest book that delivers all that it promises, that is how to make perspective easy.

Artist's review.......2006-11-10

I bought this book, because, as an artist, I was having trouble putting the right perspectives on my paintings. Perspectives have always seemed difficult to me, so I was looking forward to finding a text that would be able to educate me on this subject quickly and easily. This book fills the bill. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get up to speed on perspectives.

Excellent!... It's my #2 choice in my Top 5 perspective books..........2006-11-08

Simple & effective! These drawings might look somewhat dated, but there's a consistent *simplicity* to the style & teaching here that really grew on me over time. Simplicity is the *main* reason I like it now. So many books get overly complicated or provide lots of information that may be good but not really necessary. This book keeps very much to the point. And it's surprisingly effective! Created in 1939- not many books can survive the test of time like this. Still, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the only perspective book you'll ever need, and as much as I like this, I have other favorites too. My current Top 5 perspective books: Perspective Drawing Handbook; Perspective Made Easy; Perspective! for Comic Book Artists; Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Guide, 4th edition; and then Creative Perspective for Artists and Illustrators. All still available today!

A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)

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We can all learn a lesson....
Reaches in and finds the soul
Good story for a young teenager
Death with Dignity
Sensitive Treatment of Heroism and Faith

A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)
Ernest J. Gaines
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375702709
Release Date: 1997-09-28

Amazon.com

Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1997: In a small Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a young black man is about to go to the electric chair for murder. A white shopkeeper had died during a robbery gone bad; though the young man on trial had not been armed and had not pulled the trigger, in that time and place, there could be no doubt of the verdict or the penalty.

"I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be..." So begins Grant Wiggins, the narrator of Ernest J. Gaines's powerful exploration of race, injustice, and resistance, A Lesson Before Dying. If young Jefferson, the accused, is confined by the law to an iron-barred cell, Grant Wiggins is no less a prisoner of social convention. University educated, Grant has returned to the tiny plantation town of his youth, where the only job available to him is teaching in the small plantation church school. More than 75 years after the close of the Civil War, antebellum attitudes still prevail: African Americans go to the kitchen door when visiting whites and the two races are rigidly separated by custom and by law. Grant, trapped in a career he doesn't enjoy, eaten up by resentment at his station in life, and angered by the injustice he sees all around him, dreams of taking his girlfriend Vivian and leaving Louisiana forever. But when Jefferson is convicted and sentenced to die, his grandmother, Miss Emma, begs Grant for one last favor: to teach her grandson to die like a man.

As Grant struggles to impart a sense of pride to Jefferson before he must face his death, he learns an important lesson as well: heroism is not always expressed through action--sometimes the simple act of resisting the inevitable is enough. Populated by strong, unforgettable characters, Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying offers a lesson for a lifetime.

Book Description

From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.

Download Description

In this novel, a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.

Customer Reviews:

We can all learn a lesson...........2007-10-22

There are so many lessons learned when reading this book. This is the story of Jefferson. Jefferson is at the wrong place at the wrong time and is accused and convicted of robbery and murder. He is referred to, by his own defense lawyer, as a "hog". The reader knows he is innocent. He is convicted by a jury of 12 white men. He is sentenced to death by electrocution. Even though he is innocent and all of the black people know it, it is accepted. This is the hardest thing for me to understand. There is no fight.

The story takes place during the 50's in Louisiana. A time of obvious racial discrimination. Grant Wiggins lives in the same small town as Jefferson. His aunt and Jefferson's godmother ask Grant to help make Jefferson a man before his last day. Grant does not want any part of it, but does it for the two women. Grant is a school teacher and is not a man of faith. He does not think he can do anything to help Jefferson. He struggles with his own demons as well as dealing with the conviction of this innocent man.

This book is a great read, provokes great discussion and is very touching. I highly recommend.

Reaches in and finds the soul.......2007-10-14

How can one thank an author for painting a picture so wonderfully that you enter into their world? Thanks to Mr. Gaines for creating Jefferson, an angel in his own right, who saves so many souls. This book was so painful to read, yet it cleansed the spirit! This book and the book Understanding: Train of Thought are the two best books I've read this year.

Good story for a young teenager.......2007-10-04

This book is concerning a child that happen to be of African- American ethnicity who had run ins with the law all the time and almost lost his life a couple of times. Well that is what my son told me. He seemed to have kept the bookmark in this book for a long time to read other books written by black writers. I assume that it was okay though because he would still pick it up every now and then.

Death with Dignity.......2007-09-21

A Lesson Before Dying is the best known Ernest J. Gaines novel, even having been blessed as an "Oprah's Book Club" choice in September 1997. Today it is read in many middle and high school English classes for the lessons that it has to teach all of us about human dignity and grace. Not all of Oprah Winfrey's book choices over the years have been the wisest, but she got this one right.

The novel is set in a section of 1940s Louisiana that Gaines knows and works so well in his writing. Jefferson, a young black man who by sheer chance found himself at the scene of a store robbery that went terribly wrong is convicted of murder and sullenly awaits his date with the state's electric chair. There is substantial evidence of his guilt since the money from the cash register is found in his pockets and he has helped himself to a bottle of whiskey from behind the counter. And he is the only man still standing since the white storekeeper and the two black men who gave Jefferson a ride to the store have all been shot to death.

It is when Jefferson's defense attorney, trying to save him from the death penalty, describes him as something more like a hog than like a man that Grant Wiggins finds himself drawn into the drama surrounding the pending execution. Wiggins is the first black man who has left the plantation for an education and he is unhappy and resentful that the only work for him is teaching the children of those who still work the fields of the cane farm as generations of their families did before them. In a way, he considers himself to be as much a slave of the system as all those who are still tied to the land for their survival. But his aunt, with whom he still lives, and Jefferson's godmother pressure him into becoming involved. They want him to convince the condemned man that he is a man, not a hog, and that he needs to approach his pending execution with all the dignity and courage that only the best of us ever really possess.

Wiggens takes on this responsibility simply because he doesn't dare to deny his aunt's request and, when he believes that he is failing them all, he continues the struggle only because he cannot bear to disappoint her. It is only when Jefferson begins to slowly respond to what Wiggins is telling him, and asking of him, that Wiggins realizes that he is being taught a lesson every bit as important as the one that he himself is trying to teach. A Lesson Before Dying is an inspirational book, one that will be used in classrooms for many years to come, and it very much deserves the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction that it received in 1993.

Sensitive Treatment of Heroism and Faith.......2007-08-29

Gaines writes with force and sensitivity about heroism and faith. The burden of expectations on black men in 1949 Louisiana, the impossiblity of meeting those expectations, the self-loathing that comes as a result, and the possiblity nonetheless of redemption are skillfully and compellingly developed.

The setting is a young black man's dubious conviction of murder, which the white defense lawyer rebuts with the observation that the defendant was no more capable of premeditation than a hog. The protagonist is a young black teacher who reluctantly works with the defendant to touch his soul and to help him face death with great courage.

Given the daily horrors and humiliations suffered during the segregation era, it's not entirely convincing to me that this one "hog" remark would be so devastating to the defendant and the community. Of course, it's a great symbol for all of the nastiness of racism -- which points to a serious problem with the book. The obvious symbolism and didactic nature of the book do lessen its force.

Another problem is the protagonist, Grant Wiggins. He's whiny and betrays a real mean streak in how he treats his pupils. His dialogue with his girl friend is very unconvincing, and for the life of me I don't understand what she sees in him. Of course, self-doubt is a critical theme of the book, and the weaknesses of its main protagonist is in some ways a real strength of the book. But there is a balance here, and the reader will sometimes find the protagonist irritating.

On the whole, this is an absorbing and worthwhile book.

Average customer rating:

This is how Christianity is Supposed to Work
Touching and profound!
Inspiring, well told, and true story
Hope Makes The Spirit Unbreakable
Moving

To End All Wars
Ernest Gordon
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0007118481

Book Description

The best-selling classic of the power of love and forgiveness in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

Customer Reviews:

This is how Christianity is Supposed to Work.......2007-10-02

My wife and I had watched the movie a couple months ago (be warned: it is incredibly brutal) and been moved by the power of the story. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the book and the move are not the same story. In fact, other than the similarity of the major premise (a British officer in a Japanese POW camp during WW2), they had almost nothing in common.

However. . .

That was only disappointing insomuch as I kept waiting for certain events from the movie to show up. The movie had colored my expectations for the book, which meant I couldn't take the book on its own merits. Which is too bad, because, upon completing the book, I would say it is as powerful as the movie, perhaps even more so. But you have to let the book speak for itself. The story is truly miraculous, as this band of prisoners devolve into a wild bunch of animals at the hands of their captors, only to be transformed by the Spirit of Christ into a true Community of compassion and care. Somehow, in the midst of hell, these men found the power to love each other, to care for each other, to even forgive their Japanese tormentors. When people ask "Does Christianity work?", the story of this book says "absolutely!" And in a day and age of spiteful attacks, divisive language, polarized religions and selfish money-grubbing politicians and religious leaders, there is a real lesson here about what being a True Follower of Christ is all about.

Touching and profound!.......2007-06-10

This is one of the best books I've read so far... Though it may appear repetitive at times (there's really little else the author could write about beside what's happening in the POW camps along the Kwai), the reflection on the human condition and the supreme virtue of self-sacrifice in the footsteps of Jesus Christ is poignantly and profoundly written. The epilogue is a penetrating tour de force piece of criticism on the 'civilised' society the author returned to after the war. The reverse culture shock he experienced is a haunting reminder of how that still small voice can be so easily drowned out in the cacophony of modern society.

Inspiring, well told, and true story.......2007-01-10

It's a difficult, but true message. The author takes an unflinching look at the evil that men are capable of through his own personal experience in Japanese prison camps and carries you through the experience on to the brilliant hope on the other side of his own personal pain. The underlying truth you discover is the genuine potential to be found in one man's selfless, sacrificial care for another. It's an excellent read.

Hope Makes The Spirit Unbreakable.......2006-11-17

Formally published as "Miracle on the River Kwai" and renamed to coincide with a new movie. This book was written by Ernest Gordon a Scottish Army officer who served in the South Pacific During the war.

Back Story
During that time the Japanese advanced on Singapore, and Gordon and a few other officers try to escape on a chartered sailboat. After being captured at sea, he was incarcerated and sent to a work camp in Thailand, building the infamous railway of death, where nearly 80,000 prisoners lost their life in a little over a year. This railway and the Chungkai prison camp are the real back story to the Oscar winning film "Bridge On the River Kwai."

What the classic movie doesn't tell you is the horrific condition and constant death that the builders of the bridge met with on a daily basis.

The Book
The story is a recount of Ernest Gordon's experiences at the camp and his witness to that camps transformation from what he called "the worst that man could be" to the "best that man could be."

The book starts with Gordon laying in the hospital at Chungkai, called the "Death House" by the prisoners as there was very few he came back from the hospital. Gordon then flashes back to what led him here, and then continues from that point and tells of the camps transformation. Before Gordon wound up in the hospital the camp was very much "every man for himself" animal instinct and the law of the jungle dictated who lived and who died. During Gordon's stay at the hospital while he was suffering and near death with Beriberi, Tropical Ulcers, Malaria, and Amoebic Dysentery, he propped himself up, void of hope, and penned a last letter to his parents. That was his low point. He was nursed back to health by two other POW's Dinty Moore, and Dusty Miller. Both bartered for food and medicine, cleaned his ulcers, massaged his legs to reverse the atrophy and gave him encouragement to give him the hope he needed to recover. These two men became an inspiration to the rest of the camp, and like Ernest Gordon, many started to emulate their kindness willingness to help others. Dusty Miller a devote Christian also read the bible to Gordon which inspired him. Gordon then started to hold bible studies with other in the camp; they often shared bibles that men had smuggled in. This led to a spiritual revival of the camp, where men helped each other to survive. The camp changed from a group of individuals to a community that served each other with the same love that Christ had shown them in the bible. Many more survived the wrath of the Japanese as a result of the selfless acts of the camp members, in one part of the book one enlisted soldier, admits that he stole a shovel (which he didn't) just to save the lives of his co-prisoners, that soldier was immediately beaten to death, but his sacrifice as well as others, were what changed to mood of the camp.

The Legacy
This spiritual revival, not only led to many surviving the camp, but transcended into their life after the war. Gordon's epilogue was probably the best part of the book where he paints his perspective against the backdrop of the post-war error.

"We returned to a world divided by hatreds. We thought we had come home to a world at peace; instead we found a world already preparing for the next war. Having had as much reason to hate as anybody, we had overcome hatred."

"We had seen a vision of far horizons and caught a glimpse of the City of God in all its beauty and this vision seemed to be part of a different world."

Summary
Overall the book is very interesting, and is an intriguing story of suffering and hope. Gordon's style is very easy to read, almost like he's sitting next you telling the story. The descriptions of the people and the camp are genuine and I had no problem understanding and even "knowing" many of the characters in the book.

Editorial
It's one thing read about the word of God and the acts of Jesus, it's an entirely different think to witness it first hand as Gordon does and writes about with stunning detail. If found this to be an inspiring story of the grace of God that is given, by giving up selfishness. I have learned a lot about what true Christian's look like after reading this book. If you want my opinion, Christ looked a lot more like Dusty Miller and Ernest Gordon, than the face of modern evangelical minister today.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to see the how God's Grace can transform the most desperate situations

Moving.......2006-10-21

This is a story of ultimate forgiveness told firsthand by Ernest Gordon. The things he and his fellow prisoners of war experienced are near incomprehensible. ...and out of such despair comes the forever life-changing love they experience through Christ, Who is the example they start to follow in showing similar self-sacrificing love and kindness to their neighbors - even to their enemies.

I saw the movie before watching the book which may have been best, as I would've been disappointed had it been the other way around (ie. The book, as many books do, goes into more detail and describes other people encountered by Ernest. For time and format reason, the movie can't cover all of this.)

Also, the book is proof that such a powerful story can be told without foul language (which is present in the movie version).

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition

Average customer rating:

Snappy prose!
Short stories of Ernest Hemingway
Mixed
Great Reading. Paper Back Covers Suck...
a comprehensive collection

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684843323

Book Description

THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR

In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection. For Hemingway fans The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

Customer Reviews:

Snappy prose!.......2007-08-14

It's fantastic to have all these stories in one book. "Hills Like White Elephant's" is still my favorite story, but I also enjoyed some that I had never heard of. I like the short declarative sentences; it makes for an easy read. I love that I can open it up to any story and just start reading. You don't have to start from the beginning and read it to the end. Each story only takes an hour at most to read - some probably twenty minutes if you're an extra fast reader.

Short stories of Ernest Hemingway.......2007-03-25

This book is great!! The stories are organized well and it is a complete collection. I'm really enjoying it!!

Mixed.......2007-03-01

First of all, it is difficult rating; Some stories deserve 4 maybe 5 stars while others only 2.

Finca Vigia is his home in Cuba ("Lookout Farm"). This book contains 21 stories in addition to the "the first forty-nine"; average length is under ten pages. Some are as short as a thought, a page out of a novel, or unfinished. Many of the stories take place in Florida, Cuba, the Midwest, and Spain and are written in first person; some very early in life.

At times the worldly Hemingway just writes about the mundane, while the next story we may be sitting in an arena watching a graphic bull-fight. The reoccurring subject matter: hunting, war, medicine, tragedy, marriage/relationships, death, fishing, sports, and drinking.

Racial epithets are frequent throughout. Many of the stories can be uninteresting, banal (as if making a report) and confusing (overly informative). He then can make the shift to simple everyday dialog, containing amazing and eloquent observations. He introduces native dialect and uses hidden subjects. Can the stories be traced to his personal experiences? His novels are better.

Wish you well
Scott

Great Reading. Paper Back Covers Suck..........2007-02-06

The book is amazing. Buy it.
Nevertheless, I hate these new paperbacks that are extremely soft.

a comprehensive collection.......2006-12-19

It's no mystery Hemingway wrote a ton of material, and while some people say his stories are all kind of the same, I disagree. I haven't read all of his work, but stories like "The Killers" and "Hills Like White Elephants" reach into completely different aspects of human nature. "The Killers" is shocking and alarming when you consider the utter indifference the hitmen in story have towards life - especially at how accurate this portrays the behavior of a sociopathic killer. "Hills like white Elephants," one of his most commonly discussed short stories, shows the natural depravity of our nature, and shows a common kind of inability to handle the consequences of our actions.

Anyway, the point is, even though Hemingway had a distinct style that can seem homogonized at times, he really grew as a writer, and this collection of short stories really demonstrates this.

"The Sun Also Rises" is definitly my favoraite Hemingway story, and most people would agree it was his cleanest/tightest work of writing, but you simply will not get the full sense of who Hemingway was as a writer and the impact he had on literature if you don't tackle his short stories as well. This I'm pretty sure has all of them, or at least vast majority of them. I would say this is one of the more important texts to get, because personally I didn't even get into hemingway untill I read "The Killers" and "The Nick Adam's Stories," and saw for myself how much life Hemingway had a grasp on.

Average customer rating:

Beauty in words
A True Classic
Absolutely terrible
Sitting Around, Feeling Sorry for Themselves
Hemingway good, story bad

The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684800713

Amazon.com

The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.

Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." Whereupon the party disbands.

But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin

Book Description

The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's first big novel, and immediately established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists, and one of the preeminent writers of his time. It is also the book that encapsulates the angst of the post-World War I generation, known as the Lost Generation. This poignantly beautiful story of a group of American and English expatriates in Paris on an excursion to Pamplona represents a dramatic step forward for Hemingway's evolving style. Featuring Left Bank Paris in the 1920s and brutally realistic descriptions of bullfighting in Spain, the story is about the flamboyant Lady Brett Ashley and the hapless Jake Barnes. In an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions, this is the Lost Generation.

Customer Reviews:

Beauty in words.......2007-09-17

Ernest Hemmingway in his unique style delivers a masterpiece in adult fiction. His prose is concise and words beauty known only to the reader. He creates a wonderful atmosphere of the locations and his character's travel through the landscape and through emotions is captured exceptionally well.

This is a timeless classic. There is nothing I can say to convince anyone to read it. The characters are well-developed. There is love and passion and pain and beauty. The world that Hemmingway recreates belongs with these characters. The book launched a successful career and in me it set in motion the desire to read everything ever written by this brilliant writer.

A True Classic.......2007-09-03

The Sun Also Rises turned out to be quite a remarkable read and a novel worthy of classic status. It is absolutely amazing how much symbolism and hidden meaning Hemingway can sneak in through his distinctive clear and simple prose style. On the other hand, if you are not paying attention and miss the implied messages then this novel will strike you as nothing particularly special.

The book is about a group of American and English expatriates residing in Paris during the 1920s. They live aimless, purposeless lives after World War I because their whole value system has been shaken up. They are members of the "Lost Generation", a term popularized by this very book. Although the plot is simplistic, with Jake Barnes and his friends traveling to Spain for the Pamplona fiesta, the brilliance of the novel shines through in the relationships and dialogue between characters. The rambunctious Lady Brett Ashley is the target of four men's desires and Hemingway uses her to exemplify the destructiveness of sex and the male insecurity felt after World War I. It is a world where everyone drowns their sorrows in alcohol. The novel ends in an outstanding description of a bull-fight and on a hopeful, wishing note.

The novel opened my eyes to how drastic the effects of WWI were on soldiers and how disenchanted some of them became with prewar values and notions. I also was truly impressed by Hemingway's bullfighting descriptions and how he made them seem almost like poetic events. The characters were likable and compelling, too, and gave the novel much life even without an enchanting plot. Although I couldn't relate to the characters all that well, I'm sure someone who has had more of life's experiences will have no trouble doing so. Altogether, Hemingway created a novel that changed the literary world forever and will leave a lasting impression in many minds for generations to come - it sure did in mine.

Absolutely terrible.......2007-08-02

I'm no scholar, no student of literature. I just like to read. Everything from Huxley to HST to Dan Brown... if a book is good, I'll read it. If a book sucks, I'll usually put it down about halfway through.

That's what bothers me the most about The Sun Also Rises. I've heard nothing but good things about Hemingway, how he's the greatest American author of all time. So even though page after page of this book was boring to the point of tears, I kept reading. I gave Hemingway the behefit of the doubt that at some point, SOMETHING other than dinner, drinking, and everyone taking their turn on the neighborhood whore would happen.

Unfortunately, nothing happens. There's no plot, no conflict -- wait, that's not true... everyone hates the Jewish guy and everyone wants to sleep with the same woman... let me clarify -- there's no conflict interesting enough to carry a novel, no interesting characters (everyone is either an alcoholic or a slut, who you'd think might be interesting, but they are really just sad and pathetic), and absolutely no action. I wish I had read something else by Hemingway first, because odds are that ANY book would be better than this one. But now that this is my first impression of him, unfortunately, I don't know if I'll ever pick up another one of his books. It really is that bad.

DON'T READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Sitting Around, Feeling Sorry for Themselves.......2007-07-08

In the shallow world of the characters of Ernest Hemingway, everybody seems to spend most of their time feeling sorry for themself. Going beyond the tragic hero, the charcters are perhaps best described as arrogant and self-centered. Coupled with the terse writing style of Hemingway, this makes for a quick read with a somewhat clever plot.

While bull fighting actually takes place in the plot, it is also a clever metaphor used in the story. The main character Robert Cohn follows Lady Brett Ashley around like a stupid bull follows a bull fighter. It is hard to feel sorry for Cohn when everybody realizes Brett's disinterest in Cohn except Cohn. It comes to a head when Brett falls for the bull fighter and Cohn assaults his friends for viciously taunting him about Brett's disinterest.

While the main theme is somewhat clever, much of the other prose seems to be self-loathing and scenary. When the characters get drunk, they pour their hearts and failures out like spilling wine. Even when Bret finds her resolution, the reader could anticipate the downfall.

It is difficult to like any character in the story which may leave the reader with an awkward feeling. The characters are depraved and infantile while searching for a love that eludes them. While the search for an elusive love is one that readers can identify with, the flaws in the characters make evident why their goals elude them.

Hemingway good, story bad.......2007-06-24

I've often wondered how I got through college as an English major without reading any Hemingway. The classics have always been my favorites, and American lit specifically. So, as an adult, I've tried to add some of those critically acclaimed books I missed in undergrad to my "Have Read" list. The first Hemingway book I read post-college was A Farewell to Arms. I liked it ... not loved, but liked it enough to read more of his work. But this one ... I struggled through it. I felt like each page was the same -- group of friends who don't all like each other and lots and lots of alcohol. I did make it to the end despite my minimal interest in the story (or lack there of) because, no matter what the story is, Ernest Hemingway's style of writing is a great example of a true gift.

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