The End (At Last!)

“‘Oh, Jake,’ Brett said, ‘we could have had such a damned good time together.’

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 251

I think this is a rather fitting end to The Sun Also Rises. As far as endings go, it was not a particularly exciting ending. It was not overly poetic, nor was it completely pointless. Yet that basically sums up the entire novel. The novel was not overly exciting or poetic; to be honest, I did not like the novel at all. If all of Hemingway’s books are similar to this one, I fail to grasp the reason why Hemingway is considered so great of a writer.

Yet despite this, The Sun Also Rises did have its merits. The struggle between Cohn and Brett was well developed, even if all of the development occurred within a fifty-page section. The setting and depiction of France and Spain were well-detailed and quite accurate. Overall, it seemed that Hemingway was writing a story that quite possibly could have been based on events of his own life. His own life just was not very interesting. Because of the lack of interesting material, the story as a whole suffered immensely.

The Reason behind It All (Motivation)

“‘Ashley, chap she got the title from, was a sailor, you know. Ninth baronet. When he came home he wouldn’t sleep in a bed. Always made Brett sleep on the floor. Finally, when he got really bad, he used to tell her he’d kill her. Always slept with a loaded service revolver. Brett used to take the shells out when he’d gone to sleep. She hasn’t had an absolutely happy life, Brett. Damned shame, too. She enjoys things so.’”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 207

In this passage, we finally learn Brett’s motivation. Before this paragraph, we had to just assume that Brett’s flirting and romantic escapades were simply a result of her flapper personality. Without a background story, we had to guess that Brett acted the way she did because of a 1920s culture that included new freedom for women. Upon reading this passage, though, we can see that this is not the case. Before her engagement to Mike, Brett was involved in an abusive marriage. Perhaps the abuse was not physical, but being told by one’s spouse that he is going to kill you definitely constitutes as abuse. I think Brett’s previous marriage has caused her to become emotionally and romantically unstable. Similarly to Cohn, she falls in love with any man who treats her with respect because she was not given any respect in her previous marriage.

Hemingway finally includes this explanation of Brett’s motivation not only as a commentary on abusive relationships, but also as a twist in our perception of Brett and—because we can now better see the similarity between her and Cohn—of Robert Cohn as well.

Fiesta! Olé! (Mood)

“The dancers did not want me to go out. Three of them were sitting on the high wine-cask beside Brett, teaching her to drink out of the wine-skins. They had hung a wreath of garlics around her neck. Some one [sic] insisted on giving her a glass. Somebody was teaching Bill a song. Singing it into his ear. Beating time on Bill’s back.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 160

The Spanish know how to party, eh? Hemingway’s description of the fiesta is quite a crazy one. I noticed that Hemingway’s sentences are now all relatively short and choppy. Instead of lengthy descriptions of the events within the fiesta, he writes several quick, fast descriptions that jump from one happening to the next at a rapid pace. The sentence fragments particularly encourage a sense of overwhelmed senses. By describing events at allegro tempo, Hemingway creates a mood of carefree, unrestrained frivolity. This mood is continued for quite some time, indicating the length of the fiesta. After 150 pages or so of slow, laidback writing, Hemingway turns up the heat and, in doing so, turns up the mood as well.

Le Francais et l'Espagnol? O la Vache! (Vernacular)

“‘Oh, yes. They’ve never seen a desencajonada.’

… ‘Your friend, is he aficionado, too? …Yes?’ Montoya politely disbelieved. ‘But he’s not aficionado like you.’

…Aficion means passion. An aficionado is one who is passionate about the bull-fights.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 136

One observation which I made earlier in the novel and forgot to mention before was the use of vernacular throughout the book. When Jake & Co. were in Paris, Hemingway made sure to include several French words and phrases to give authenticity to his writing. Now that the characters are in Spain, Hemingway does the same with Spanish words. Hemingway includes the vernacular for a few reasons. Throughout the novel, the characters actually speak very little English; while in France, they spend the majority of the time speaking French, and while in Spain, those who know Spanish use it almost constantly.

Obviously, if Hemingway had opted to write the dialogue in the actual language which he intended his characters to be speaking, his novel would not have appealed to American readers nearly as much as it did. However, by including bits of the vernacular within his writing, Hemingway reminds the reader of his original intent to write his characters as culturally suave. Yet the vernacular also loans an authenticity to the story, indicating that the author is not simply taking an American tale and placing it in Europe, but is actually writing a Europeanized story.

A Stark Contrast (Imagery)

“We packed the lunch and two bottles of wine in the rucksack, and Bill put it on. I carried the rod-case and the landing-nets slung over my back. We started up the road and then went across a meadow and found a path that crossed the fields and went toward the woods on the slope of the first hill. We walked across the fields on the sandy path. The fields were rolling and grassy and the grass was short from the sheep grazing. The cattle were up in the hills. We heard their bells in the woods.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 121

This paragraph, as well as the following few paragraphs, is a prime example of Hemingway’s use of imagery. Throughout the novel, he has sprinkled in bits of imagery and countless details. Now, though, he writes, it seems, for the sole purpose of describing the Basque landscape. Hemingway contrasts the variety of the land with the monotonous streets of Paris. In fact, by taking so much time describing the countryside, Hemingway seems to prefer the Basque country to Paris, which he describes limitedly. He also includes a couple mentions of hearing cowbells as Jake and Bill traverse the countryside. These appeal to the sense of hearing, strengthening the imagery of the passage. By writing to the senses of both sight and hearing, Hemingway presents a strong mental picture of the Basque region.

Peaceful Thoughts (Local Color)

“The drinker waggled his little finger at him and smiled at us with his eyes. Then he bit the stream off sharp, made a quick lift with the wine-bag and lowered it down to the owner. He winked at us. The owner shook the wine-skin sadly….We were going through farming country with rocky hills that sloped down into the fields. The grain-fields went up the hillsides…The road was white and dusty, and the dust rose under the wheels and hung in the air behind us…We turned sharply out to the side of the road to give room to pass to a long string of six mules, following one after the other, hauling a high-hooded wagon loaded with freight. The wagon and the mules were covered with dust…This was loaded with lumber, and the arriero driving the mules leaned back and put on the thick wooden brakes as we passed. Up here the country was quite barren and the hills were rocky and hard-baked clay furrowed by the rain.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 111

I have decided to temporarily refrain from discussing the pointlessness of Hemingway’s writing in order to discuss the one useful aspect of his writing—namely, that it contains the literary devices I need to discuss for the assignment. This passage contains a bit of the local color that has been evident throughout the novel. The biography on the back of the book mentions that Hemingway lived in France, and his knowledge of European culture and land is evident. At the beginning of the novel, Hemingway described Parisian night life. Now he contrasts that life with the slow, easygoing, friendly lifestyle of the Basque people along the Pyrenees Mountains. His vivid descriptions and attention to detail help emphasize the simplicity and beauty of the land. He thoroughly describes the innocent, trusting playfulness of the Basque people, which greatly contrasts the pessimistic, untrusting attitudes of the expatriates while in Paris. I think perhaps Hemingway is describing the life he would like to live: a life of simplicity, free from excessive stress and worry. Hemingway is describing everything his life was not.

This Passage Has No Point

“He was the archivist, and all the archives of the town were in his office. That has nothing to do with the story. Anyway, his office had a green baize door and a big wooden door, and when I went out I left him sitting among the archives that covered all the walls, and I shut both the doors, and as I went out of the building into the street the porter stopped me to brush off my coat.

‘You must have been in a motor-car,’ he said. The back of the collar and the upper part of the shoulders were gray with dust.

‘From Bayonne.’

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘I knew you were in a motor-car from the way the dust was.’ So I gave him two copper coins.”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 102

That also has nothing to do with the story. Actually, it seems that over half this story has nothing to do with the story. This passage occurs about two-fifths of the way through the novel, yet it is still unclear thus far what the actual conflict is. Hemingway has basically written pages and pages of mundane, mindless descriptions of everyday life with the hope that the quantity of writing might distract the reader from realizing that the quality of the writing is virtually nonexistent. Honestly, I would not complain if Hemingway chose to be overly descriptive if he actually progressed the plot occasionally. He seems to have hinted that whatever happened between Cohn and Brett in San Sebastian will likely cause some sort of conflict later in the novel. Thus far, though, that is all that we have learned concerning the actual plot; the rest of the writing has been consumed by mindless drivel about painfully ordinary events.

Perhaps if it is revealed that this porter who brushed off Jake’s coat outside the archivist’s office with two doors and apparently deserves two copper coins for his guess that Jake was in a motor-car—if you pay attention, he does not receive the coins for the service, but for his guess that Jake was in a car—perhaps if this man turns out to be Robert Cohn’s long-lost biological father, who will finally mend Cohn’s emotional wounds and give him a spine, then this passage will actually have some semblance of meaning. Otherwise, Hemingway is simply wasting space.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

“‘How about Vienna?’

‘Not so good, Jake. Not so good. It seemed better than it was.’

‘How do you mean?’ I was getting glasses and a siphon.

‘Tight, Jake. I was tight.’

‘That’s strange. Better have a drink.’

Bill rubbed his forehead. ‘Remarkable thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t know how it happened. Suddenly it happened.’

‘Last long?’

‘Four days, Jake. Lasted just four days.’”

-The Sun Also Rises, p 77

This passage reminded me of another observation that I have made while reading this novel: it seems that every character in this novel is either drunk or on their way to being drunk. Wherever two or three are gathered, there alcohol is in the midst of them. Now I understand that there is nothing wrong with adults drinking alcohol, and I am not condemning it. What I am noticing, however, is that each person consumes far more than what would be considered safe by today’s standards. Hemingway makes it seem that the bottles and glasses are emptying within minutes of each other. Considering that alcoholic drinks likely were much stronger in 1920s France than in 2010 America, where the alcohol content has likely been weakened for economic and health reasons, the fact that each person is consuming bottle after bottle is rather distressing, especially because none of them seem to have much control over their actions while “tight.”

Perhaps this was just the atmosphere du jour back then, but I have another theory, as well. It seems that Hemingway progresses the plot most when his characters are drunk. Perhaps Hemingway is simply using alcohol as a literary crutch.