A Brief Review of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - February 10, 2026 - Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) was published 100 years ago, and yet, I found myself reading a story that could’ve been written yesterday—that is, if you could pretend that 30 years of excessive busyness and screen time didn’t dumb down America, unplugging human connection and erasing any semblance of what we used to call “community.” The premise of the story is extraordinarily simple—a group of friends travel from France to Spain to enjoy a week-long festival in Pamplona; however, each of Hemingway’s main characters is complicated, self-defeating, and deeply flawed—just like me and anyone else who doesn’t lie to themselves.  

 

Set in Europe at a time when the populace was beginning to feel far enough away from the aftermath of WW1 to begin enjoying life again, The Sun Also Rises offers a firsthand account of the author’s adventurous and tumultuous life as an overseas expatriate. Of course, the book is categorized as literary fiction, but how could it not be autobiographical when he describes everything in such vivid detail? I kept saying to myself, “He had to have been there—doing those things—with those people.” And sure enough, after a brief internet search, I found pictures of Hemingway sitting with friends in a crowded Spanish café and tempting fate as an amateur bullfighter in Pamplona—both from 1925. But that isn’t why I loved his first novel.

 

I connected with The Sun Also Rises because I could see my own flaws in not only one or two of his main characters but in all of them, reducing me from a passive reader to a hapless voyeur, devouring a hedonistic storyline chock full of debauchery, impulsiveness, insecurity, pettiness, and promiscuity. Hemingway is famous for his signature narrative style, but he was a master at understanding base human nature, which, apparently, hasn’t changed much—if at all—in the last 100 years or so.

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - January 26, 2026 - As a teen in the 1970s, I distinctly recall reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952) during my sophomore or junior year. Back then, I was old enough to appreciate the story of a Cuban fisherman’s struggle against nature to catch a massive marlin but too young to grasp the deeper meaning of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novella. After reading it again 45 years later, I’m both awed and humbled by Hemingway’s signature writing style, which, in this case, is mostly limited to Santiago’s thoughts and conversations he has with himself. However, once I understood the Nobel Prize-winning author’s underlying message buried within a simple story of enduring hardship, I had to ask myself, “Why would high school English teachers think The Old Man and the Sea is a book for 16-year-olds?”

Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve appreciated Hemingway’s cautionary reminder that dignity can still be had in failure during my 30s, 40s, or even my 50s. What I’m trying to say is that I believe one needs to have come up short many times in life before the sentient message behind The Old Man and the Sea can be properly acknowledged and valued. “Is it possible to fail with dignity?” Hemingway had an answer. “Yes, it’s the only way to fail.” 

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - January 7, 2026 - A Farewell to Arms (1929) by Ernest Hemingway is one of those books that most people have heard of but haven’t read. Up until a few days ago, I was one of those people. Set in the ravaged countryside of Italy during WW1, the book wasn’t anything I had expected. Of course, it was written in the author’s signature style—direct, minimalistic, and unapologetically masculine—but it was less about the horrors of a senseless war and more about a budding love affair that had me rooting for the couple as soon as they met. Normally, I stay away from romance novels, but this one checked all the boxes for me.

Although the story takes place on another continent more than 100 years ago, the polite discourse between all the characters—no matter their role in the novel—is a sad reminder of how today’s public spaces lack any semblance of manners that help create a sense of community. Obviously, life was harder back then, and yet, while reading A Farewell to Arms, I found myself wishing I was born much earlier than I was—not just to meet and fall in love with Catherine, but to enjoy a time when discovering and befriending people meant something.

All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).