THE SUN ALSO RISES

Hemingway's 1926 novel about expatriates traipsing about post-WWI Europe is considered by many critics to be the author's best novel, however time has not been kind to the Wisconsin writer.

Yesterday I was driving from Sarasota FLA to Palm Beach with my friend Leslie and her 15 year-old son, who had spent the last 3 weeks at a high-level sports camp for soccer.

"Have you done your book reports?" Leslie asked this side of Okeechobee.

"I read about 200 pages of THE SUN ALSO RISES." Her son was a good student. "But I got tired of them getting drunk all the time."

"Yeah, but you were told to read it." Leslie is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that she's losing her hold on her son.

"I liked the first 50 pages and then it got boring." He was looking out the window wishing her was anyplace but the back seat. "It was like all they did was get drunk."

"Nothing wrong with that." I interjected on the side of drunks everywhere. "I see what you're saying about the book. Nothing really happens after the initial introduction of characters other than they're challenging the frontiers of their societies."

"It sucked."

"You can't say it sucked." Leslie was driving erratically on the 2-laner.

"It sucked. I can say it. Hemingway's not God." He had all the answers, even if they were the right ones and this drove his mother crazy. They fought over ascendancy of mother and son without Leslie realizing this was a battle she could not win and her son would not relinquish his attack.

I looked out the window at the dikes entrapping the lake.

It wasn't like that in 1928.

Poor Hemingway.

He sucks to kids in 2008.