The Sun Also Rises - Background

Background

In the 1920s Hemingway lived in Paris, was foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, and traveled to places such as Smyrna to report about the Greco–Turkish War. He wanted to use his journalism experience to write fiction, believing that a story could be based on real events when a writer distilled his own experiences in such a way that, according to biographer Jeffrey Meyers, "what he made up was truer than what he remembered".

With his wife Hadley, Hemingway first visited the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain in 1923, where he became fascinated by bullfighting. The Hemingways returned to Pamplona in 1924—enjoying the trip immensely—this time accompanied by Chink Dorman-Smith, John Dos Passos, and Donald Ogden Stewart and his wife. The couple returned a third time in June 1925; that year they brought with them a different group of American and British expatriates: Hemingway's Michigan boyhood friend Bill Smith, Stewart, Lady Duff Twysden (recently divorced), her lover Pat Guthrie, and Harold Loeb. In Pamplona the group quickly disintegrated. Hemingway, attracted to Lady Duff, was jealous of Loeb, who had recently been on a romantic getaway with her; by the end of the week the two men had a public fistfight. Against this background was the influence of the young matador from Ronda, Cayetano Ordóñez, whose brilliance in the bullring affected the spectators. Ordóñez honored Hemingway's wife Hadley by presenting her, from the bullring, with the ear of a bull he killed. Outside of Pamplona, the fishing trip to the Irati River (near Burguete in Navarre) was marred by polluted water.

Hemingway intended to write a non-fiction book about bullfighting but thought that the week's experiences had presented him with enough material for a novel. A few days after the fiesta ended, on his birthday (21 July), he began to write the draft of what would become The Sun Also Rises, finishing eight weeks later. By 17 August, with 14 chapters written and a working title of Fiesta chosen, Hemingway returned to Paris. He finished the draft on 21 September 1925, writing a foreword the following weekend and changing the title to The Lost Generation.

A few months later, in December 1925, the Hemingways left to spend the winter in Schruns, Austria, where Hemingway began revising the manuscript extensively. Pauline Pfeiffer joined them in January and against Hadley's advice urged him to sign a contract with Scribner's. He left Austria for a quick trip to New York to meet with the publishers, and on his return, during a stop in Paris, began an affair with Pauline, before returning to Schruns to finish the revisions in March. In June, he was in Pamplona with Hadley and Pauline. On their return to Paris, Hadley asked for a separation and left for the south of France. In August, alone in Paris, he completed the proofs, and dedicated the novel to his wife and son. After the publication of the book in October, Hadley asked for a divorce, and he gave her the royalties from The Sun Also Rises.