4.5 stars
I clearly remember my reading of The Sun Also Rises. As a twenty year old exchange student in Europe, I was just about to head out on a weeklong jaunt to Spain. As I sat in the beautiful spring weather, preparing for my trip, I picked up the book and was instantly entranced by Hemingway's description of the place in which I would soon be heading. This was a long time ago, but the memory is still so fresh that I am terrified that any re-read of the book will permanently erase the feeling that I had in that moment. That is why I related to this book so much. Hotchner was a good friend of Hemingway's and by the time he sat down with him to record what eventually became this book, the author was broken in spirit and body after two consecutive plane crashed. Hemingway waxes poetically about his time in Paris with his first wife, when he was young and hungry and interacting with so many glamorous and fascinating people. I am not sure this book is so much about the enduring love of a woman but of an older man idealizing a time in his life when the small things were still exciting. I enjoyed this short memoir and found Hemingway's reminisces fascinating and I thought Hotchner inserted himself just enough in the narrative flow. It is an glimpse into the final years of Hemingway's life and what may have been going through his mind at that time. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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