The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway follows Jake Barnes, an American war veteran and journalist living in Paris, and his doomed love for Lady Brett Ashley, a beautiful, independent woman. Wounded in World War I, Jake can never consummate their relationship, leaving them in eternal emotional limbo. The novel follows Jake and his circle of disillusioned expatriate friends—including Brett's fiancé Mike, the boastful Robert Cohn, and the young matador Pedro Romero—as they travel to Pamplona, Spain, for the bullfighting fiesta. Amid drinking, jealousy, and fleeting affairs, Hemingway portrays the "Lost Generation": restless souls drifting through a postwar world, searching for meaning that seems forever out of reach.