Honors Exposition of Images

Honors Map of Paris

Honors Reading Response: Novel Three

The Crazy Years: Paris In the Twenties....By: William Wiser

After reading two books already that focused on Earnest Hemingway’s time in Paris in the 1920’s, I wanted to read a novel that had a more broad focus that described the other well-known icons from the era and their time spent in Paris.

The Crazy Years, Paris In the Twenties by William Wiser is a fountain of knowledge about Paris and it’s icons during the 1920’s. It achieves the goal of giving the reader a broad, in depth understanding of what life was like living in Paris, France in the twenties while still providing important facts about members of the “lost generation, and maintaining a story line for the reader to enjoy.

The Crazy Years touched on the subject of bisexuality and lesbianism during the Paris 1920s as well. Because of France’s Napoleonic Code, which did not “criminalize homosexual practices” when they were private, licensed this way of life. This and the fact that Paris was a populous city with everything to do was what formed Paris in the 1920’s into being a place for bisexuality and lesbianism to flourish.

There were historical images dispersed throughout this novel. This was very useful to me as I was reading because it added yet another element to describing vividly what Paris was like during the time period. The photos were sometimes of famous pieces of art that were relevant or were first created during the time, and sometimes the photos were of relevant people or places in Paris as well.

While this book by itself was extremely informative and useful, I felt that virtually all the tales of alcoholism and artistic squabbles that were in the book, I had read before in the other two books so the new information I was gaining was not very much. However I would recommend this book to someone who was maybe looking for his or her first 1920’s Paris-focused book to read.

Honors Reading Response: Novel Two

The Sun Also Rises....By: Ernest Hemingway

I strategically chose to read this book in hopes that not only would I enjoy it, but also that it may provide an additional perspective that could prove useful after reading, "The Paris Wife" written by Paula McLain about Hemingway's first wife's life with Earnest. The Paris Wife was set during the time period when Hemingway wrote this book, The Sun Also Rises.

The Sun Also Rises is a novel written by Earnest Hemingway during the 1920's. It is about a group of American friends who travel to Paris to watch the Running of the Bulls festival. The way that the story is written is, in my opinion, very beautiful and it makes me want to do the same as what the characters are doing. The characters are constantly eating at the various cafes, watching the bullfights, and just enjoying each other’s company while meeting new people as well.

One of the first things that I noticed about the book was the title. Right away, I wondered what it meant or the relevance it held in relation to the books story line. This lead me to take it upon myself to research and find out just what the deeper meaning of the title is. What I found was that the title of, The Sun Also Rises was very strategic. The meaning behind it is that the title suggests an importance of time and main idea with many "cycles". At the same time is has a sort of upbeat or hopeful feeling to it because of its reference to the "sun rising" and in synonymy, new beginnings rather than endings.

These "cycling" themes were shown through for example one of the most prevalent themes, which were the bullfights. Bull Fights were almost constantly being described or mentioned throughout the story line. Also, whenever bullfights would be described in the book in some way, it was almost always a precursor to something else that would soon be occurring in the story. For example, the killing of the steer by the bull at the start of the fiesta seemed as though it was a clue or a sign of Mike’s later attack on Cohn.

There were definitely many connections and similarities between The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, which described the life Earnest Hemingway, was living during the time that he wrote this book. The relationships between the characters in this novel reflected those of the members of "the lost generation". Another connection that is shown in this book is when the main female character, Brett, is given the ear of a slain bull by the handsome matador who killed it and with whom she would later have an affair with. This exact event happened (without the affair) to Earnest Hemmingway’s wife in real life.

Overall, I enjoyed this book however I did not quite enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed reading the Paris Wife. I did however thoroughly enjoy reading about what it was like to live in Paris for a sizable amount of time, which was included in both of the novels. In the end, despite not having enjoyed it quite as much as the Paris Wife, I would still recommend it to someone who is interested in any form of Parisian culture, just maybe not quite as enthusiastically.