King Solomon, Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway's "Lost Generation"

From its publication in 1926, readers of The Sun Also Rises have been guided—I would say misguided—by the first of the novel's two epigraphs: "'You are all a lost generation'—Gertrude Stein in conversation." But I argue that the second epigraph, three verses from Ecclesiastes, more accurately epitomizes the novel. While readers following Stein see its central characters as "a handful of… disillusioned and degenerating expatriates," Solomon's words suggest that within the flux of experience there are comprehensible patterns that can guide human behavior. Jake Barnes's recognition of these patterns enables him to evolve a practical definition of morality and a working philosophy of life. Jake is in no sense lost.