Final Rant

I can't honestly say I liked the book a whole lot. Aside from all the long travel scenes and obscure bullfights, Hemingway let a lot of themes filter into his work. There was misogyny, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and alcoholism.

Maybe Hemingway was trying to make a point. Maybe he wanted his audience to recognize the negative impact of those issues on the world.

Anyway, without further ado, here's a Boy Meets World clip on the subject:

The various (or mostly unanimous) plights of the characters in the novel were pretty universal. It was easy to relate to the characters, even if I didn't like them a whole lot in most cases. The world has changed a lot since the Roaring Twenties, though, and while the above issues still prevail an unfortunate amount in the world, they do so at a lesser extent. Whether Hemingway helped or hindered this progress, I'm not sure.

In The End

In the end, we come full circle. There's more Brett, more anti-Semitism, and more sunburnt hair.

Also, "Life was so simple in France," is a quote of Jake's that I'd like to contest. He begins by saying he mistrusts frank and simple people, by which I concluded that he mistrusts simplicity, and therefore his feeling foolish for leaving France's simplicity in favor of unpredictable Spain puzzled me. It tempts me to call him a dynamic character.

Then, I remember that in the end, he's still following Brett around like a lost puppy. Jake must be a static character.

Although Jake seems like an idiot to me for remaining so loyal to the fickle Brett, the last words of the novel seem to imply that he recognizes his foolishness and is helpless against it. "Yes, isn't it pretty to think so?" He seems to live with an insatiable optimism about his situation with Brett, but the optimism is not blind.

Also, when I finally titled this post, it reminded me of this song, and I realized the song really does relate to the book.

The Crowd Dwindles....

On page 219, when Jake narrates, "He was not sure that there were any great moments," I wrote "omniscient?" in the margin. In retrospect, I think the antecedent might be Jake rather than Belmonte, but I thought at the time he meant that Belmonte was not sure there were any great moments, and I thought to myself, "Jake, you're not supposed to be omniscient, you jerk!" Maybe he meant that he was not sure himself that Belmonte had any great moments.

Also, on page 215, when the waiter says "I haff a tabul for two for you gentlemen," it reminded me of Harry Potter, as so many things do, because he sounded in my head like Viktor Krum.

Mike gets extraordinarily drunk and carefully avoids slurring his words by speaking very... slowly..., and he says absurd things like "Brett's got a bull-fighter, but her Jew has gone away. Damned good thing, what?" As he lays in bed mumbling these things, it's sort of a defining moment for his character.

At the end of chapter eighteen, though, I'm confused by "The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six people were missing." I tried to list six people, but they seem unlikely. Here they are:

-Cohn

-Brett

-Romero

-Edna

-Harris

-Frances

Maybe it's hyperbole. Maybe the absence of Cohn, Brett and Romero is felt doubly. Perhaps the absence of Cohn and Brett is felt triply. Then again, the whole plot revolves around Brett's apparent irresistibility, so maybe her absence is felt six-fold.

Please Accept this Bull's-Ear....

Who gives a bull's ear as a present?

That sounds like a cross between an elephant ear and a bull's-eye.

We also see the first person who seems to have some moral objection to bullfighting, which I think is nice. I mean, how is it any better than dog fighting? Michael Vick's life was ruined because of dog fighting.

Also, the full story of the Robert>Brett>Mike love triangle emerges, and Robert's craziness peaks, then evaporates into Sad Robert. I think it's interesting that Jake shook his hand, but he clearly hasn't legitimately forgiven him. He's just so eager to be rid of the situation that he would do anything to get away, and he doesn't really fancy inflicting more pain on Sad Robert anyway.

Double Standards and Drinking All the Time

"'My God!* The things a woman goes through!'"

Oh, Brett--just when I was saying how you're such a rebel for defying the stereotype**....

Cohn whines, and everybody "hates his suffering." When Brett whines, it's a real tragedy. Also, they tell Cohn to start drinking more, he does, and they still yell at him.

I don't like Cohn's whining any more than the rest of them do, but I hardly think yelling at him is going to help. I think it says something about human nature that we don't like to hear about other people's suffering. I mean... sometimes, we care a great deal about other people, but in the end, there's often an ulterior motive. In the absence of such a motive, unless the suffering is particularly tragic, or the sufferer is a particularly close friend... sometimes, it's dismissed as mere whining. It's unlikely that this is what Hemingway wanted me to get from chapter sixteen, but... that's what I got, nonetheless.

*another invocation

**more stereotype-talk

Festival Shenanigans

On page 160, when Jake "explain[s] to them that [he] would be back," I felt some doubt in the accuracy of the statement. Those guys were not in a state to be listening to anybody's explanations.

From that, I concur with my original assessment of his narration style. He is subjective and far from omniscient, although later in the novel--I had to start reading ahead--there were moments when he seemed to know more than he could have. I'll get to that later.

It's as good a time as any to say that Jake is the main protagonist of the story. If there's any hero, it's him. His hubris would have to be his tendency to let Brett do as she pleases. She claims she loves him, and he claims to love her, and he lets her use him repeatedly, and it's terrible.

Now, I want to talk about Brett. Even though I'll probably complain later about how ridiculously fickle she is, I like that she defies the gender stereotype for her time. She refers to her friends as "gents" and "chaps," and she doesn't swoon at the sight of goring bulls (and there was a lot of that in this chapter).

Chapter Fourteen (is really short.)

If I'm to talk about literary devices, a lot of stretching is going to have to happen. For instance, "To hell with women, anyway. To hell with you, Brett Ashley," could be, aside from misogynistic, an apostrophe. Brett isn't there; Jake is just expressing his frustration with her to his audience.

More schadenfreude occurs, as well, which isn't something this class is studying, but it's an important quality in Hemingway's characterization process, I believe. "I liked to see him hurt Cohn. I wished he would not do it, though, because afterward it made me disgusted at myself." This set of emotions is even more complex than just the schadenfreude on its own. Instead of creating the reaction "This character is evil," it makes the reader somewhat more sympathetic.

I also found it interesting that Brett wants, on page 154, to listen to Jake's confession. Nobody wants someone else listening in on their confession! That's the point; the confession is the first part of the penance. I made that up, but it seems right; the confession itself is often harder than the penance, in any case.

I Forgot to Give This Chapter a Title

It's funny to me that Jake feels the need to explain to his audience what an aficionado is, but he expects them to know what "getting tight" means.

In any case, when Brett says, "My God, isn't he beautiful?" in reference to Romero on page 144, it's an invocation. She is talking to God, although she can't see Him and is not religious, so she is unlikely to believe that God is always everywhere. It's worth noting, I suppose, that some people use the phrase more as an interjection than as an appeal.

Additionally, Mike mocks Robert for his allusion to Circe, mythological daughter of the Sun who turns men to pigs. While I can certainly see Mike's point, Robert's allusion makes an astute excuse for his behavior. He simultaneously implies that Brett is supernaturally beautiful and pleads for forgiveness for his pigheadedness. This also serves as a reminder from Hemingway that Robert writes for a living, and the audience recalls the beginning of the novel for a moment.

Irony and Pity

"'Irony and Pity. When you're feeling... Oh, Give them Irony and Give them Pity. Oh, Give them Irony. When they're feeling... Just a little irony. Just a little pity...' He kept on singing until he came down-stairs."

I suspect that "Irony and Pity" is the name of that song as well as the refrain because that's generally what people remember of a song, and it looks as though Bill has forgotten most of the rest of the words. Bill wants Jake to use more irony and pity, but it's not natural to Jake, so Bill is... singing about it. I suppose this is more indirect characterization, as it doesn't do much for the plot.

Chapter twelve contains a significant amount of imagery, as well, which mostly appears on pages 122 and 124. The wild strawberries and tumbling river paint a vivid picture in the readers' minds, which seems to be appreciated in the world of literary classics.

Also, I talked to Mary yesterday and the day before, and she put me on the lookout for an allusion to the Scopes trial that she caught, and I think I found it. "'First the egg,' said Bill. 'Then the chicken. Even Bryan could see that.'" President William Jennings Bryan opposed the teaching of evolution in schools, and Bill means that even Bryan knew that the egg must come before the chicken, even if he didn't believe in the evolution of various eggs.... I don't think I said that clearly, so I will link to this page, which I just tried to read after looking back at my copy of the book, in which I cryptically circled "Bryan" repeatedly.

Mostly Just Getting Tight

These people sure do drink a lot.

"'Arriba! Arriba!' he said. 'Lift it up.'" That pertains to drinking and shows a transition of diction that accompanies the transition of setting. It's vernacular, local color, and tone all thrown in together again.

Then, on page 111, a definite rhetorical question is asked. "'Whose wine is that?'" He knows it's his own wine; he just wants it back. It's a small step up in decorum from Gimme my wine.

Stream of Consciousness, Schadenfreude, and Getting "Tight"

Chapter ten seems at first like a giant stream of consciousness in which Jake Barnes tells the reader, in detail, every single event that transpires in his lackluster life with terse sentences. It is as though he has kept a travel log for himself. I rather like Jake and would prefer to think he would not inflict that kind of detail on outsiders intentionally.

However, through this stream of consciousness, we do get considerable insight into the round character that is Jake Barnes. Most characters in Hemingway's novel seem round, which rather impresses me. The concierge is one character I could argue to be a flat character because we only really learn that she is judgmental. I think the primary function of a flat character is to form subplots and minor details that make the book worth reading. Even though The Sun Also Rises comes from the point of view of just one main protagonist--Jake Barnes--the supporting characters each have a story. We have now seen Jake, Robert, Bill, and Brett each at their most arrogant and most vulnerable, and this allows us to imagine them complexly, whereas the rest of the characters fail to gain our full attention. It's sort of overwhelming to care about all of them at once, so I have semiconsciously chosen to care almost exclusively about Jake, who is, after, the main protagonist.

On a different note, "'I slept like a log'" is a simile. When the reader imagines the hypothetical slumber of a log, he or she understands that Jake means his sleep was undisturbed. A simile is like a metaphor. I am inclined to believe that the cockroach on page 97 is a metaphor for something--maybe for Robert--because why else could its mention have been necessary? Part of me thinks it's just part of Jake's stream of consciousness, though.

I also wanted to mention that when Jake enjoys Robert's nervousness on page 104, that joy in his friend's pain is called "schadenfreude." There is no word for that feeling in English.... It's a german word I read in the novel An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.

Finally, you'll be excited to know that I believe I've uncovered the meaning of becoming "tight." "'...and we're going to get tight now at lunch on the wine of the country....'" Perhaps tight means drunk, in which case it is a euphemism!

Traveling and Receptions and Stuff

"'We have got the loveliest hotel,' Mike said. 'I think it's a brothel!'"

I'm confused. Such is irony, I am inclined to believe. In this case, it would be irony of the verbal variety. He's making a little joke, I think. On a related note, if you've ever been confused about what is and is not ironic, you should check out this link.

Also, not to beat a dead horse, but I think the diction in this novel is its most interesting facet. If I were to preface a statement of mild importance with "I say," today, somebody would mock me relentlessly. Also again, I don't know what it means to be "a little tight." This is why I prefer reading Harry Potter relentlessly to actually picking up much that's new; I know what all of the words mean, and it makes me feel smart because that's a lot of words, even if I have recently discovered that the local library shelves them with the juvenile books.

I believe there is an allusion to the Ku Klux Klan on page 93. "'It's enough to make a man join the Klan,' Bill said." I don't trust that Bill character. He says it because he's irritated with the service on the train and believes it to be the product of his religious beliefs--Protestantism. This angers him, but joining the Klan seems a rather non sequitur course of action. It's like he's saying the Catholics are being mean to him, so he's going to join a gang of white supremacists, of whom many are probably Catholic, and secretly kill everybody who's black, gay, Jewish, or otherwise different. I think that's probably enough for now.

Those wishy-washy in-between terms

The epistrophe is one of those terms that I never imagine myself identifying without first having it pointed out to me. However....

"Ought not to daunt you. Never be daunted. Secret of my success. Never been daunted. Never been daunted in public."

It's confusing, though, because they aren't totally consecutive, and they're not all exactly at the end of the sentence. I also think it's more an example of Hemingway's indirect characterization through a unique syntactical style for each character. Bill has a rather infuriating aversion to complete sentences, and he repeats himself. I don't know what he means by this. Maybe I'm supposed to glean from that that Bill doesn't believe anyone listens to him the first time around, and it's some sort of obnoxious defense mechanism.

Anyway, I spotted a bit of consonance on page 84. "I'm frightfully fit." I think the consonance there sort of lightens the tone of the statement. Mike's sort of trying to avoid sounding too egotistical. If he had said "I am quite fit," he'd have sounded more pompous, in my opinion. Personally, I still wouldn't have said it at all, but I digress.

Oh, yes! Bill also repeats the phrase "wonderful nigger" and "splendid nigger." To use such an offensive term and couple it with a flattering adjective is oxymoronic. Maybe at the time, it wasn't, because at the time, I believe the word was still widely in circulation.

Also, I haven't the faintest idea what being "pie-eyed" means. Maybe it has something to do with being gluttonous. In any case, that must be part of the vernacular.

Intriguing Gestures

I think... I found... a nonverbal euphemism. "'Last night she was, perhaps, a little--' She put her head on one hand and rocked it up and down." We've been informed that Brett was, in fact, drunk. Thusly, we can infer that in 1920's terms, putting one's head on one's hand and rocking it up and down implies intoxication.

This chapter is full of colloquialisms as well. "She is of a very good family." I believe that means the concierge thinks Brett has been raised well, but no one says that in the contemporary times. I mean, what is a "good family," anyway?

Boatloads of indirect characterization crop up in this chapter as well. The Count brings roses and further illustrates his sophistication with his knowledge of wines and champaignes. Brett solidifies her role as a "flapper" with her uncouth language and men's hats. (Well, the men's hat thing happened a few chapters ago, but she curses like a sailor.) Jake makes himself look pretty desperate, in my opinion. Oh yes, let me just go put on some clothes. Come on in. I think Brett likes it, which is why I'm not a fan of Brett, myself. She's got this secret husband, and this fiancée of whom she allegedly never thinks, and then there are poor old Jake and Robert and more or less every other male character she meets. It's irritating.

I'm ranting now, so I guess I'll move on to the next chapter.

Frances PWNS Robert

In the middle of her tirade directed toward Robert Cohn for his reversal of plans to marry her, Frances alludes to the Bible:

"I suppose that we that live by the sword shall perish by the sword." -page 57

This haughty declaration comes amidst what I would call one-half soliloquy and one-half stream of consciousness. Since this isn't a play, there will mostly always be someone else "on-stage," so... Frances wasn't really making a soliloquy. However, her rant at Robert is so explosive and long-winded that I think it ought to half-qualify. In order for her to continue for so long, I believe she must have been spouting a stream of consciousness. She cuts into Robert for a good three pages with little interruption, so I doubt she was conscious of much that went unsaid.

Conflict

In chapter five, we begin to see that the Jake Barnes faces a conflict that is largely within himself--in other words, an internal conflict. He does not reveal his feelings for Lady Ashley/Brett to Robert Cohn, to whom he is apparently close, as Cohn describes Barnes as "really about the best friend [he has]."

The frustrating part of this is that we don't quite know what the big deal is yet. Barnes alleges that Brett is engaged to a man named Mike Campbell, when in fact she claims to be in love with Barnes, who in return loves her, but she has been married twice before. It's all very complicated and makes Barnes "say nasty things," even though he never means them. My best guess as of now is that Brett is married to Barnes, and Barnes is her second husband, but now Brett is marrying this Campbell fellow instead for financial purposes, which would lend credence to Barnes' resentment. Also, I now know, having read the back cover of the novel, that it takes place during the Roaring Twenties, when this kind of ordeal first began to occur. Scratch that, actually. Brett's married to a man whose surname is Ashley.

Anyway, there's also the external conflict to be considered. The love hovering between Brett and Jake seems to be the main conflict, but there is also the conflict between Robert and Frances. Robert, in turn, is trying to decide if and how and with whom to go to South Africa, which would seem to be an internal conflict.

Also, I think there's a euphemism in this chapter. "Her own true love had just kicked off with the dysentery." People don't much say that in my neck of the woods.

Oachlove?

My conclusion upon the conclusion of chapter three seems to be correct.... Mr. Barnes, who I would personally really like to encounter a character with the last name "Nobles," is indeed apparently in love with Lady Ashley/Brett, and this love is inexplicably painful.

Anyway, Hemingway seems to be employing indirect characterization. Aside from Barnes' chronic oversimplifications of others by phrases like:

"(any foreigner was an Englishman)." which I rather suspect is supposed to be (verbally) ironic,

and Brett's comments, like

"I shouldn't wonder. Greek, you know,"

Hemingway seems to desire that his audience draw its own conclusions about the characters. He shows us rather than telling us.

For example, we now know that Barnes cries at night in his hotel(?) room from the inexplicable pain of loving Lady Ashley and that his bank balance, after deductions, is $1832.60. I don't know if that's good or not, especially since I don't know when this story takes place, which I should rectify, but maybe with a bit of research, I can decide. We also know that Braddocks values prowess in idiom expression, which seems unusual. What could he mean by "wonderful command of the idiom"? I can only imagine.

I think Ernest may have done a bit of foreshadowing, as well, on page 37. "Don't worry," Brett said. "I've never let yo down, have I?" She's going to let him down, somehow.

But we won't know unless we read on, will we? I don't know why I'm using "we" repeatedly.

In Which Scandals Seem to be Revealed

Jake flags down a random pretty girl with bad teeth and claims she is his fiancée. She does not deny being his fiancée, though they don't seem to have come to any prior agreement about this. She does, however, contest his made-up last name for her. My feeling is that she doesn't want to make him look like a complete idiot, but she's putting out the alert: "No tomfoolery beyond this point!" I also think one or both of those two were lying about being sick.

Also, this "Lady Brett," who has a disconcerting name, seems to have caught the eye of Robert Cohn, who I thought was married or engaged to Frances.

Now, I think Jake is potentially secretly in a serious relationship with the Brett Lady. It's either that, or I have a terrible understanding of the type of English these people speak. "Oh darling, I've been so miserable," Brett says, as soon as the two are finally alone, right at the end of the chapter where authors think it's funny to leave "cliff-hangers." The implication seems to be that she is no longer miserable now that she is with her darling. I suppose I'll find out later.

More stereotyping ensues as well.

"Good, I detest Flamands." - page 24 (Georgette Hobin)

"She was a Canadian and had all their easy social graces." - page 25 (Jacob Barnes)

Additionally, I'd like to complain about the abundance of French words. I try to pronounce them all in my head, and they make me feel ridiculous. However, since they're in France, I suppose it's all part of the vernacular, which contributes to Hemingway's style a bit as well. His syntax is fairly simple, and he uses the French language in an attempt to add flourish to his diction and encompass the local color.

Roman Numeral Two (See What I Did There???)

I have decided that on page 17, there's a sort of rhetorical question:

"Hello Robert," I said. "Did you come to cheer me up?"

I only suspect this is a rhetorical question. I think we would have to ask Jake to be sure, but in any case, Robert did not answer, and he did not come to "cheer [Jake] up."

The rhythm of the conversation is sort of noteworthy as well, I think. It follows the pattern of question, irritable answer, question, irritable answer, question, irritable answer. Sometimes there's some narration/commentary in between, but that's the essence of that conversation. I believe I've been told that Hemingway has a very sparse method of writing, and maybe that's what I'm noticing here.

Also, on page 18, "He had a hard, Jewish, stubborn streak" seems significant as well. Is that satirical, perhaps? Actually, I think it's stereotyping because Hemingway doesn't seem to be aiming for change, and it's pinning all Jewish people with one characteristic.

Anyway, I think that's all for now. I'll be back when I've read chapter three!