Alchemy in the Sun Also Rises. Hidden Gold in Hemingway's Narrative
| Author: | Rudat, Wolfgang | |
| Year: | 1992 | |
| Pages: | 288 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-9579-7 978-0-7734-9579-1 | |
| Price: | $199.95 + shipping | |
| (Click the PayPal button to buy) | ||
This study provides an intense examination of textual details of The Sun Also Rises, specifically addressing the fact that the novel is filled with wordplay, jokes, and allusions. It also devotes space to Hemingway's concern with sexual identity, sexual crossover, and androgyny. It intends to liberate Hemingway from the "legend of himself".
Reviews
"His book brings one the rare and rewarding experience of witnessing a first-rate mind deal rigorously and at length with a complete text. . . . The great value of his book on The Sun Also Rises is that it confronts a standard text that has received enormous attention with utter freshness of approach and utter integrity of reading technique. . . . it proves how unread a seemingly well-read text may be, how superficial often are our accepted understandings, how necessary it is to turn to a work like this, one that once again proposes a painstakingly intricate and rigorously penetrating re-reading." - Robin Gajdusek
"Rudat explores the seven-eighths of the iceberg which has until now remained under water. . . . Besides tracing literary allusions, Rudat extensively explores linguistic allusions, underlying ironies, symbolism, multi-level meanings, and religious implications. His reading of gender-role and sex-role reversals is convincing. . ." - Robert Phillips
" . . . he is able to bring to bear in his analysis his knowledge of languages, Classical literature and myth, and the masterpieces of English literature, as well as a mastery of previous Hemingway criticism. . . . Through the commentary of this critic we come to glimpse, as never before, the dimensions of another Hemingway, a Hemingway just the opposite of the "dumb ox" label, a writer of undoubted intelligence, of vast reading, and very subtle writing skills. . . . His is criticism of expansion, rather than reduction or destruction, and even though we may not always agree with the connections he draws or the conclusions he reaches, we are grateful for the efforts of this perceptive analyst. For even in disagreeing, we find that he has led us across the boundaries that previously closed our minds.." - Jackson Benson
"Rudat explores the seven-eighths of the iceberg which has until now remained under water. . . . Besides tracing literary allusions, Rudat extensively explores linguistic allusions, underlying ironies, symbolism, multi-level meanings, and religious implications. His reading of gender-role and sex-role reversals is convincing. . ." - Robert Phillips
" . . . he is able to bring to bear in his analysis his knowledge of languages, Classical literature and myth, and the masterpieces of English literature, as well as a mastery of previous Hemingway criticism. . . . Through the commentary of this critic we come to glimpse, as never before, the dimensions of another Hemingway, a Hemingway just the opposite of the "dumb ox" label, a writer of undoubted intelligence, of vast reading, and very subtle writing skills. . . . His is criticism of expansion, rather than reduction or destruction, and even though we may not always agree with the connections he draws or the conclusions he reaches, we are grateful for the efforts of this perceptive analyst. For even in disagreeing, we find that he has led us across the boundaries that previously closed our minds.." - Jackson Benson