Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A Casebook (review)

104 ¦ THE HEMINGWAY REVIEW of the Hemingway family. Woodward represents the high society of Harbor Springs, the wealthy community several miles north of Walloon Lake and the modest Hemingway cottage. Trudy is the Native American descendant of Prudence Boulton, and she inhabits the other end of the social spectrum. The story takes place in the early 1950s, a time of"bovine mentality ," according to the narrative. The characters in this section are not fleshed out well, especially the wealthy, who have virtually no positive attributes, but the narrative has some element of attraction. It often reminded this reviewer of early 20th century popular adolescent literature, like the Hardy Boys stories, but without a mystery other than how the lives of the two major characters will come together. The narrative follows Woody more than Trudy because he has a more colorful social life, with unlimited funds, an airplane, speedboat, sportscar, etc. Trudy's life is narrower. She delivers dresses for an aunt, works in a small store in Harbor Springs, and hopes to go on to college. If the book makes a contribution to Hemingway studies, it might be in offering a collection of Native American materials in one volume. The fictional narrative could interest younger readers, especially those interested in northern Michigan. —Jack Jobst, Michigan Technological University Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A Casebook. Edited by Linda Wagner -Martin. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. 185 pp. + suggested reading. Cloth $45.00. Paper $15.95 · Readers of this journal will recognize many of the selections from Linda Wagner-Martin's Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A Casebook. A few of them are as familiar to us by now as the tales of our own grandfathers. For instance, George Plimpton's interview for the Paris, Review captures Hemingway wearing a half dozen of his favorite masks. The "interview," which is really an amalgamation ofa personal visit by Plimpton and epistolary replies by Hemingway, places the author amid his books and toys and mail and skins. It includes Hemingway's pose as the "famous author," delivering his much-rehearsed and now-classic description of his writing the Hemingway review, vol. 22, no. 2, spring 20Ò3. Copyright © 2003 The Ernest Hemingway Foundation. Published by the University ofIdaho Press, Moscow, Idaho. BOOK REVIEWS · 105 process, "When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. ..." And, in response to the question, "How much rewriting do you do?" Hemingway melds many of the characteristics that make him interesting: honesty, buoyed with hyperbole; earnestness, laced with irony; and simplicity, fraught with complication: Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page ofit, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied. Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you? Hemingway: Getting the words right. I know that I have been entertained and edified by this interview for more than thirty years, but beyond addressing the nature of Jake's wound and making reference to the composition of Hemingway's first novel, what business has this old chestnut (1958) opening a new casebook on The Sun Also Risesi Wagner-Martin's explanation is worth quoting in full: The aim of this collection is to bring together criticism from a range of years, giving today's readers a way to create a montage , a palimpsest of ideas that may help to give The Sun Also Rises a life relevant to the twenty-first century. Hemingway's novel has been historicized over and over, and a few of the essays that were influential in that mode of criticism do appear here. But the real reason for this casebook is to help the reader find the permanence of the literature, its luminous value rather than its past value. The interview, despite its scant reference to the novel in question, turns out to be an appropriate beginning: it showcases Hemingway, which is precisely what our first responses to the novel did; it reminds us ofthe long era that treated the book almost exclusively as a roman à clef; and it associates Hemingwaywith his protagonists. Iftoday's students seekan...