To recap: The Sun Also Rises opens with exposition on a character other than the book's protagonist (about whom we're never offered much background at all), followed by a relatively late introduction of action and then — finally — a conflict, but one that has already been resolved. Two hundred pages remain. Why read them?
The answer: Hemingway bombards us with the results of his informal but intensive education in the writing craft. Just as abstract artists, deprived of the tool of representation, must wow us with composition, line, color, and perhaps sheer originality, Hemingway made up for his lack of a traditional story structure by means of characterization, description, dialogue, and style.
From the very first line of The Sun Also Rises, the writer introduces us to characters who are unique and sympathetic, and therefore unforgettable. The novel features not one or two, but five fully three-dimensional figures at its center: Jake, Brett, Cohn, Bill Gorton, Mike Campbell, and Pedro Romero. (Secondary characters include Frances, Georgette, the Count, Harris, and Montoya.) They are different enough from each other that there's never any confusion as to who's who, even in scenes featuring nearly all of these characters at once. (This is partly due to the fact that Hemingway brings his ensemble cast onstage one at a time, allowing us to "meet" each player before the next one is introduced.)
Moreover, not one of the characters we encounter in The Sun Also Rises is a "type" we've seen before onstage, onscreen, or in another book — though we may recognize Bill or Frances from our real lives. Each of them behaves badly in one way or another, and some do so again and again. And yet we understand the human failings of these imaginary people. As a result, we care about what happens to each of them; when the gang splits up near novel's end, we're sorry to see them go.
