The sun also rises
(Book)

This novel about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. On the surface the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes and the promiscuous divorcee Lady Brett Ashley. Brett's affair with Robert Cohn causes Jake to be upset and break off his friendship with Cohn; her seduction of the 19-year-old matador Romero causes Jake to lose his good reputation among the Spaniards in Pamplona. The novel is a roman a clef ; the characters are based on real people and the action is based on real events. The novel presents the author's notion that the Lost Generation, considered to have been decadent, dissolute and irretrievably damaged by World War I, was resilient and strong. This novel also investigates the themes of love, death, renewal in nature, and the nature of masculinity.