Aside from "Les Miserables," which I read around age 12, the first very serious novel I recall reading is Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises."

    Although most readers are familiar with his shorter "The Old Man and the Sea," this novel is considered by some to be Hemingway's best. It is one of two works by Hemingway on the list of the "100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." "A Farewell to Arms" is the other.

    The characters in the book are members of the so-called "Lost Generation," those mostly British and American expats living in Paris between the wars. The book details a trip taken to Spain to witness the running of the bulls in Pamplona, a hyper-testosterone-driven event that has become a symbol of masculinity.

    This theme--the question of what makes a man--is borne out in such details as the fact that the protagonist, Jake Barnes, is impotent, and that his love interest, Lady Brett Ashley, sleeps with a bullfighter, among others. The middle section of the book is occupied by a fishing trip--another of Hemingway's common metaphors for manhood.

    At the center of all threads of the plot is Brett, whose body count seems to include every named male in the story. She is twice-divorced, and appears to be more in control than the men are, a symbol of the emerging power of women in the 1920s.

    The meaning of the title is not as clear as that of "The Old Man and the Sea." It comes from a passage in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, given as an epigraph to the book: "One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever... The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rose..."

    The reference is to the cyclical nature of all things, without progress, and the connection of the verse to the idea of the "Lost Generation" is inescapable, as it is given in another epigraph, above this one. Yes, Jake Barnes's love is hopeless; Lady Brett's behavior is self-defeating; the bulls run, and the weary pace of life goes on.

    The task, Hemingway hints, is for us to find happiness against this backdrop.

    Vocabulary: Which word above means:

    1. hurries

    2. the male hormone

    3. background, especially the painted scene at the back of a stage

    4. causing harm to one's own interests

    5. unable to function sexually

    6. maleness

    7. short saying or quotation at the start of a book or chapter

    8. tired

    9. endures, lasts

    10. coming out

    ANSWERS: 1. hastens 2. testosterone 3. backdrop 4. self-defeating 5. impotent 6. masculinity 7. epigraph 8. weary 9. abides 10. emerging