Fiesta - Ernest Hemingway

“I mistrust all frank and simple people” declares Jake Barnes, the cynical narrator of this torrid tale of dissolute expats. Luckily for Jake there aren’t that many frank and simple people in this story.

Set in Paris in an undetermined period after the First World War the novel follows the lives of a group of American and British expats. Jake recounts the goings on to us, in between working the odd hour in his job as a reporter for ...
...sitting round in cafes having lunch, then moving on to brandies, then pre dinner drinks, then dinner, then dancing. Various degenerate characters come and go from this rather fluid social circle, the days and nights pass in a seemingly endless gin haze and apart from Jake, not a single mention of any kind of employment for any of them.

However, underneath this whirl of drinks and dinners and dancing all is not well. Jake is in love ... more

“I mistrust all frank and simple people” declares Jake Barnes, the cynical narrator of this torrid tale of dissolute expats. Luckily for Jake there aren’t that many frank and simple people in this story.

Set in Paris in an undetermined period after the First World War the novel follows the lives of a group of American and British expats. Jake recounts the goings on to us, in between working the odd hour in his job as a reporter for an American newspaper. Mostly there’s an awful lot of sitting round in cafes having lunch, then moving on to brandies, then pre dinner drinks, then dinner, then dancing. Various degenerate characters come and go from this rather fluid social circle, the days and nights pass in a seemingly endless gin haze and apart from Jake, not a single mention of any kind of employment for any of them.

However, underneath this whirl of drinks and dinners and dancing all is not well. Jake is in love with the gin supping, English aristocrat Lady Brett Ashley, she’s in love with him too but it can never be for reasons I’ll leave you to discover for yourself. Brett has her own problems, awaiting her divorce and having several affairs during the course of the book, she’s deeply unhappy with her shallow romances and endless free time. There’s no pleasing some people.

The action really kicks off when they all head down to Pamplona for the bull running fiesta. Seven days of all night and all day drinking in a small town in the north of Spain leads to a lot of bickering, drama and drunken recriminations. All this interspersed with the high drama of the bullfight

Although somewhat dated in terms of the language used, there’s lots of talk of “chaps” and “Oh I say..” type phrases, this is a brilliantly crafted novel. Hemingway writes in a sparse style and allows his characters to speak for themselves, showing rather than telling the reader. Whilst the characters might not sound terribly sympathetic your opinion of them changes as you read, and you also have to take into account that this is set in the aftermath of the First World War and there’s an air of general malaise anyway. However, the themes overall are timeless – the search for happiness and meaning, the problems of love, and what’s life all about. As one character comments to Jake, “Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”.

This was Hemingway’s first really “big” novel, published in 1926. (t was published as "Fiesta" in England and "The Sun Also Rises" elsewhere, so don't get confused it's the same novel. Some editions are titled "Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises".) He spent the early 20’s living in Paris writing for the Toronto Star and working on this novel, so he knows what he’s talking about. There is no doubt a degree of real life in The Sun Also Rises.

I’ve read a few comments about this book in which people have said they thought it was stupid and the characters were all horrible. I feel that’s somewhat missing the point. You may or may not like the characters, but let’s face it that’s a lot like life. Any novel where all the characters are lovely is clearly a work of fantasy. Personally I think it puts many modern novels in the shade. As much a comment on the times as a poignant look at the human condition and at the same time stylistically unsurpassable.
 

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