The Sun Also Rises-- I haven't thought of this novel for a long time. I read it in my student days and didn't pay much attention to ideas Hemingway put in the title. Nor did I think of relation between me and the turning world than today.
After the pandemic (of COVID-19) broke out, any news from the world can be a part of change in my thoughts and life. First, how long do we have to continue the social distancing? Second, can we return to the normal life just as before?
Trying to get rid of those questions, I worked in my garden day after day, and found new lives of Campanula ,or Canterberry bell, poking out of the ground. They are lovely things that exist in my garden for many years. They reminded me this morning of the 2nd epigraph of the novel, The Sun Also Rises. Then, I tried to look up the passage on the Web and found the following:
4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. 5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. 6 The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. 7 All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again.
The quote, I think, is suggesting the most the way I should take in my life now.
Noriaki Gentsu
Reference
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has two epigraphs. The first quotes Gertrude Stein's words "You are all a lost generation." This refers to the lost and drifting generation that had resulted due to the preceding World War as well as the rapid technological changes in the world. The second has been taken from Ecclesiastes: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever . . . The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose . . . The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to its circuits . . . All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again." This epigraph serves to highlight the impermanence of humans but the abiding and constant nature of "nature" itself.
Campanula in my garden, summer 2019
