Lovely Literature

Ahh the final lines of the novel make the book slightly worth it. While I did not like this book much at all, I loved the ending.

"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?"

That's just a wonderful line to end on. I feel encouraged after Jake's last line because he seems to have seen somewhat of a new light. I think he is saying to her, well it's your fault we aren't together so don't complain to me. At the same time, he sounds somewhat like Bogart in an old time movie. "Isn't it pretty to think so?" It can mean so much, but it's up to the reader to interpret what would come next. Yes, it's a beautiful vision to pretend like they are in love, but if they were still in love they would not be having that conversation. Brett must have not been loved enough as a child because I don't think she is fully capable of true love.

All in all, I am extremely happy that I am finished with this book because it was kind of torturous to read this. I loved O'Brien's book, but Hemingway...not my style. My favorite part of the entire book was the ending--not just because it's over, but because of that final line.

Thank you, Jake, for making my reading experience a bit more worthwhile.

:] Seeya on Monday Costello!

As I see it, the major conflict in this entire story is love, namely so-and-so in love with Brett.

Let's count up Brett's mentioned lovers!

Jake Barnes: Our bleeding heart protagonist. He's a struggling writer/journalist who was changed permanently from the war. He met Brett during the war while she was a nurse and he was wounded.

Michael: A lovely man who is constantly drunk, but who isn't in this story! He is engaged to Brett, but he definitely knows what he is in for. He knows that Brett fools around with other men and that she is not going to change any time soon. He even comments on how she is cheating on him with other men right in front of him.

Count M: A random Count who buys Brett some alcohol and takes her out every once in a while in Paris. Apparently she has told him that she still loves Jake and yet he is perfectly fine with fooling around with her.

Robert Cohn: Hopelessly in love with Brett--unrequited love that is. He went away with Brett for a weekend or so in San Sebastian, and he has been hooked ever since. He even beat up Romero because of his jealousy!

Romero: The young, suave bull fighter. This may be the only guy besides Jake and her previous husband that she has actually been in love with. Believe it or not, Brett suddenly was unselfish and let him go so she would not interfere with his career.

Those are the important lovers among possibly hundreds not mentioned.

"Why didn't you keep him?"
"I don't know. It isn't the sort of thing one does. I don't think I hurt him any." [page 245].

Brett never thinks she hurts her men any, but I'm pretty sure she leaves a much larger impact than what she thinks. I'm kind of over her at this point. Stop abusing love, Brett.

"I know. Please don't remember it. I was crazy."
"That's all right."
He was crying. His voice was funny. He lay there in his white shirt on the bed in the dark. His polo shirt. [page 198].

I like the sense of parallelism that these sentences are written in-- He/His/He/His. Cohn has a major break down at this point in the story after he beats up Romero. He finally realizes that Brett will never love him no matter what he does. He breaks down to Jake and says he is going away. I believe his pain would be too much to bear if he stayed around Brett any longer. It can't be easy to hear that the love of his love does not love him, and yet he does not even know that Jake is in the same boat. Jake, though, is good at hiding it and not even thinking about his loving emotions toward Brett. Come to think of it, he only thinks toward Brett in an angry matter and not in a very loving manner even though he will do anything for her.

These characters are all fickle and it's kind of annoying after a while. I want to yell at them, "Get a back bone!"

Lady Brett and Jake Barnes share a difficult love. He definitely loves her and wants to spend his life with her, but she pushes him away. She is extremely contradictory though because she often expresses her love for him.

"Told him I was in love with you. True too. Don't look like that. He was damn nice about it. Wants to drive us out to dinner to-morrow night. Like to go?" [page 41].

She just baffles me. I mean, I'm a girl and she truly confuses me. She acts like it's not her fault that she is promiscuous and that she cannot control her cheating...but she definitely can. And there is no good reason why she shouldn't get married to Jake. Ever since her "true" lover died, she seems to have been a mess. I think it's a call for attention. Not that I'm a psychologist or anything. Brett is obviously a beautiful woman who has a lot going for her, but she is also quite the alcoholic. It's crazy how people who look like they have it all together on the outside are usually the ones the most screwed up on the inside. Everyone has a past, and that past is not always an enjoyable one.

Characters, characters, characters!

There are not twenty main characters in this book, but there are many that are mentioned fleetingly with a bit of a story with them.

"Do you still love me Jake?"
"Yes," I said.
"Because I'm a goner...I'm a goner. I'm mad about the Romero boy. I'm in love with him, I think." [page 187].

The bull-fighting Romero foils the protagonist Jake Barnes.
Here's a little breakdown of both characters that I have come up with.

"It's funny," I said. "it's very funny. And it's a lot of fun, too, to be in love."
"Do you think so?" her eyes looked flat again.
"I don't mean fun that way. In a way it's an enjoyable feeling."
"No," she said. "I think it's hell on earth." [page 35]

That's quite a contradictory view on love, especially coming from a woman who usually holds the optimistic view on love while the man is pessimistic. Lady Brett Ashley is obviously a very independent woman who does not appreciate weakness in herself. I think her weakness is that she is in love with this man [Jake Barnes] who she is telling herself that she cannot have.

After I finished the book, I wanted to reread the chapter summaries for certain things I did not immediately understand. One of the things I paid close attention to was Brett's love for Jake. She is such a sex-crazed, independent woman, but she is also very selfish. She refuses to allow herself to be in relationship with Jake because his injury from the war prevents him from having sex. If that's what is holding her back from marrying him...well I think that's a lame excuse. She is struggling with this internal conflict constantly, and the audience becomes aware of this at the end of chapter 2.

While this is her internal conflict, I also believe there is an external conflict between Lady Brett, Jake, and Lady Brett's lovers. There is an obvious uncertainty at whom Lady Brett actually "loves" because she has been married and divorced and now engaged to Michael, but she has all these lovers and "men on the side," and then of course Jake is a complicated situation. The relationship problems along with alcoholism definitely comes up as the big elephant in the room.