You couldn’t stand or even sit, but you could get a fag alight, and only then could you breath. The packet was passed on and someone knelt by you and pressed one between your trembling lips and you somehow found some air to suck through it, and all of a sudden it was okay. You stopped shaking, started to get yourself into a sitting position as if lured on by the diaphanous spirit of the smoke that seemed to draw all the panic from you, allowing your body to function again. And now you hurt everywhere, from a hundred bruises and a thousand scratches.

Ernest Hemingway’s first important novel was Fiesta, otherwise titled The Sun Also Rises, which deals with rich Yanks in Europe – the so called lost generation. Jake Barnes got his dick shot off in the war and therefore cannot consumate his love for Brett (Lady Ashley) and must sadly watch her affairs with other men which she does as a sort of revenge against fate. When his best mate falls for her, it is the end. They go to Spain and get chased by the bulls. They drink a lot. It’s hard to care for anyone except Jake who has nowhere to go. Really, the only important thing about the book was that Hemingway was able to force critics to take his bland, journalistic style as serious literature. You have to wonder what they were thinking…