In the footsteps of a giant ...

I just got finished reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

I don't know why I got on that kick other than I had seen a PBS broadcast about Hemingway's coverage of the Spanish Civil War and his work during WWII as a war correspondent.

This was the first of three books by Papa Hemingway that I planned to read. The other two are A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls . But in this work, Hemingway wrote like a lost soul.

It fit the subject matter - the Lost Generation after WWI, in Paris and especially in Pamplona, Spain. It was a quick read, primarily because it doesn't have too many run-on sentences. The writing is compact, declarative and to the point. The imagery paints definite pictures in your mind, and it does what my professor said once all good writing does - take you there.

But I must confess, my ignorance of history - particularly Europe in the 1920s - and Paris geography probably deprived me of some of the emotional impact of the work. But it was a joy to read Papa again.