/lit/ - Literature

I took from it that while the world still has the setup of the old world(romance), it no longer has the meaning(consummation) and that people with true passion for things are the only link to the old world.

>>4641534
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Can you use examples from the book ?

>>4641493
I'm reading it right now (I'm a couple chapters into book 2). So far it seems really familiar to me; I've definitely known and maybe even loved women like Bret (women who are social like that). I really like the book, though.

>>4641553
I can sympathize with Jake quite a bit. Even though he can't have Brett, he still loves her, and their love is pure, and he probably will always love her. I'm sure we all have had at least one woman in our lives who made us feel that way, that no matter what, no matter how long, the feelings stay the same.

The basic idea is what the original anon said. In post-WWI everyone tried to go back to the way things were when they were young adults. They assumed that passing into adulthood would open up this world of responsible freedom. A responsible freedom to engage with the traditional, old world in their own way. What the trip to Spain was supposed to be was a big last hurrah of sorts to celebrate one last time. What happens is they fight and end up hating each other at the end of it. On top of Jake's impotence, he is trying to become this responsible adult and settle down so to speak. Brett is the opposite. She's still languishing in irresponsible freedom.

Jake is trying to find meaning after it was destroyed by settling down. Brett is trying to find meaning at the bottom of a bottle.

I dunno. Someone with a better way with words and a better understanding feel free to tell me if I'm wrong.

>>4641534
Well the most forefront symbol of it is Bret and Jake's relationship, in that he can romance her, but can't have sex with her. To both of them there can be no true fulfillment of the relationship.
Also the passion thing is best symbolized by the bullfighter. He, being the only one with true passion for what he does, is the only one who's life has any meaning.

>>4641579
also this

Bump. I'd like to hear more people's thoughts on this book. So much of it seems to be under the surface.

I thought it was rather honest understanding of what it is like to deal with expectations as far as "men vs. women" are concerned. And in a world before this insecurity over depicting the effects of these expectations on gender roles, where everything is either the patriarchy or genetic, its kinda incredible that Hemingway could be so honest.

Hemingway's depiction of Brett is different. There is disappointment in the lifestyle, from the man's point of view, but it isn't judgmental I don't believe.
You can go around fucking chad's all day but that really doesn't make you worth less. Who is more pathetic the men fawning over you or the lifestyle itself?
But does that lifestyle make you unhappy? No reason why it should or shouldn't, but you get the feeling that for some reason it does.

Is brett unhappy with her life because has depth and wants to love someone else but cannot? Or is it because she's a "wimmen" and confronting expectations that a wimmen can't transcend, i.e. purity and the like is inherently pointless? Could it be that it doesn't matter because its from the perspective of Jake?

Is the idea that Jake is trying to let her be a "free independent woman" dishonest, because love is the opposite of freedom, he obviously doesn't like her lifestyle, is that what makes him emasculated?
Or his emasculation a product of his very real circumstances?

There are so many things and that last line is pretty powerful

Thye are all lost and forget that by drinking a lot.

>>4641493
Women are sluts and men do everything for pretty women who don't give a shit

In case you didn't notice, men do loads of shit for her and she's bored and doesn't give a.shit. and fucks a bull tamer. The meaning literally is "disregard bitches"

>>4642319
I wish we knew more about Brett. She's a fascinating character. Mike mentions in the book that her last husband had a gun and threatened to kill her. So she's had her share of misery.

Sometimes it feels like Hemingway is saying "women don't know what they want". But rather I think he's trying to contrast Jake with Brett. Jake has 0 sex, Brett has infinite sex, but both are miserable. Brett's promiscuity is treasured in men but scorned in women, while Jake's chastity is treasured in women and scorned in men. I think Hemingway really liked breaking down gender barriers to explore human relationships and what they mean.

>>4642319
The thing with Brett though is she doesn't want her life. She's forced into it because men go nuts for her. Men buying shit for her, etc, she never becomes a person. She's a hollow person and it's men's fault

>>4641579
Jake is the least important character in the story and mostly symbolizes a stranger. Read the book more carefully

>>4641564
No. Jake's just as delusional as the other men. Obsessed with physical beauty and unable to keep it.

His love is not pure

>>4642343
What the Fuck is a gender barrier?

The juxtaposition between Brett and Jake is crucial to understanding the book. Do you remember the blatantly symbolic scene regarding the bulls, steers and cows? Bulls are male cattle with their genitalia intact. Steers are male cattle that have been castrated. It is the steer that gets gored to bring the bulls back into the group. The steers are the one that take the bullet for the team. Jake is a steer. He is castrated and ultimately gets his shit kicked by Cohn for the sake of maintaining the cohesion of the group.

Brett, counter-intuitively, is a bull. She takes what she wants, at the expense of the other members of the group. She quite literally has a harem of men in love with her.

So ultimately what Hemminggwwayy is trying to demonstrate with this clever analogy is the perceived emasculation of the lost generation. It is the girl with the harem, the girl that is defined by her sexuality, the girl that will not get together with the guy she loves (Jake) because he cannot please her sexually. And yet because Brett is lacking the traditional, pre-WWI values she is not fulfilled, and never will be. She is the figurehead of the Lost Generation.

Parallel to this, we have the three separate settings/phases of the novel. We have Paris, the nature-fishing interlude, then we have spain. Paris represents the hedonistic, socialite life of the lost generation. Everything is fake there. The conversations are shallow, the friendships trite and fleeting, the drunken nights unfulfilling. In short, this lifestyle offers no solvency to the hollowness of their lives.

The nature interlude, however, is true. In this section Jake hangs out with (I think his name is Nick?). Doesn't matter. The important thing is that THIS is true friendship and fulfillment. The conversations are real, the bond between the two characters run deeper than a mere social relationship. Yet it cannot last. Eventually Jake is forced back to the real world.

Spain represents traditional values such as honor, true passion, and culture. Remember when the hotelkeeper was talking about passion and "true aficionados"? That's another crucial passage to understanding this book. It relates to all the men's relationships with each other and with Brett. I believe that Jake alone shows "true passion" for Brett. The others are mere fans of her, enamoured by her facade of personality--in love with just the idea of her.

But Brett is not capable of respecting a traditional value such as pure love. Her "tainting" of the young bullfighter represents this. She sleeps with him, and as a result he gets fucked up by Cohn. Likewise, the watchers in the bullfight cannot represent true bullfighting prowess when they see it, instead become captivated by the other bullfighter's cheap tricks and diversionary tactics. This also represents the death of the traditional way I believe.

>>4642414
These thoughts are really poorly developed and I ran out of space to type more. It's been a while since I read TSAR but I'll be on if you need someone to bounce ideas off of

The important thing to remember when reading this book is that it's about the lost generation. It's the novels whose epigraph launched the term into popular culture and the one important fact about the lost generation is their loss of purpose. After WW1 everyone attempted to bring the world back to the way it was beforehand, but the value system had changed, and these people needed to learn how to live with that.

Brett spends her time bouncing from guy to guy, looking for meaning. Just as Jake does going from bar to bar getting drunk. Both of them lost something in the war. Jake lost his dick and Brett her first husband and one true love. The main difference between Jake and Brett, however, is Jake recognizes he is without purpose and accepts it. When he says "I did not care what it was all about. I just wanted to know how to live in it" he reveals this. Brett doesn't realize her lack of purpose. She bounces from man to man, and still thinks that a relation with Jake would have worked at the end of the novel. "How good we'd have been together." Yet Jake recognizes that it would not have worked, thus the novel's famous concluding line, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

The novel is the quintessential novel of coming to terms with pointlessness in life.

>>4642414
>The juxtaposition between Brett and Jake is crucial to understanding the book.
No it's not.

>Do you remember the blatantly symbolic scene regarding the bulls, steers and cows? Bulls are male cattle with their genitalia intact. Steers are male cattle that have been castrated. It is the steer that gets gored to bring the bulls back into the group. The steers are the one that take the bullet for the team. Jake is a steer.
No he's not.

>He is castrated and ultimately gets his shit kicked by Cohn for the sake of maintaining the cohesion of the group.
No, that's not why that happened.

>Brett, counter-intuitively, is a bull.
No she is not.

>She takes what she wants, at the expense of the other members of the group.
She fucks a bull tamer because she doesn't care

>So ultimately what Hemminggwwayy is trying to demonstrate with this clever analogy is the perceived emasculation of the lost generation. It is the girl with the harem, the girl that is defined by her sexuality, the girl that will not get together with the guy she loves (Jake) because he cannot please her sexually. And yet because Brett is lacking the traditional, pre-WWI values she is not fulfilled, and never will be. She is the figurehead of the Lost Generation.
The "lost generation" shit is the least important part of the book. And hardly relevant to the story.

>Parallel to this, we have the three separate settings/phases of the novel. We have Paris, the nature-fishing interlude, then we have spain. Paris represents the hedonistic, socialite life of the lost generation. Everything is fake there. The conversations are shallow, the friendships trite and fleeting, the drunken nights unfulfilling. In short, this lifestyle offers no solvency to the hollowness of their lives.
You're drawing meaningless connections that Hemingway never intended

>Spain represents traditional values such as honor, true passion, and culture. Remember when the hotelkeeper was talking about passion and "true aficionados"? That's another crucial passage to understanding this book. It relates to all the men's relationships with each other and with Brett. I believe that Jake alone shows "true passion" for Brett. The others are mere fans of her, enamoured by her facade of personality--in love with just the idea of her.
Nope

>But Brett is not capable of respecting a traditional value such as pure love. Her "tainting" of the young bullfighter represents this. She sleeps with him, and as a result he gets fucked up by Cohn. Likewise, the watchers in the bullfight cannot represent true bullfighting prowess when they see it, instead become captivated by the other bullfighter's cheap tricks and diversionary tactics. This also represents the death of the traditional way I believe.
No.

>>4642483
Show me where Hemingway backed this up. You're putting too many definitive interpretations in places where I don't think they exist

>>4642576
Uhm, to be fair, all book analyses are contrived. Unless the author says explicitly what the book means, it's all interpretation. It's very arrogant of you to say "nope, wrong" to all of his points without even defending yourself.

>>4642576
QUALITY POST

>>4642606
Some people maintain that even the author's own interpretation is just one of many valid interpretations, and that authorship doesn't actually give one a greater authority of interpretation. In other words, works speak for themselves, and the author is just the conduit through which a work came in to being.

I took a class in college on Hemingway and Faulkner. If I can find any of the notes, I'll post 'em here later (if anyone's interested).

>>4642637
>Some people maintain that even the author's own interpretation is just one of many valid interpretations,
Absolute rubbish. The author knows exactly what the book means because he wrote it and meant it. Anything else is speculation.

>>4642712
>this pleb-tier opinion
Alright, son. Stay ignorant of modern literary analysis.

>>4642756
I'd rather be a pleb than an idiot, and
>the author is just the conduit through which a work came in to being
Is just about the most idiot thing I've read on 4chan, and I've been on /b/.

Wait, nevermind.
>authorship doesn't actually give one a greater authority of interpretation
was worse.

>>4642712
the artist knows what he intended it to mean. but once he writes it, the story and facts exist on their own, for anybody's perception to make sense of. there is no valid interpretation of a novel.

though i tend to lean towards the author's interpretation, since they are clearly an authority on the text.

>>4642779
>I don't understand it so it must be retarded

>>4642606
He's wrong because the analogies he's drawing are weak and contrived. So?

>>4642644
interested

>>4642794
Interpretations of a book can't be "wrong" unless the corpse of Hemingway says so.

>>4642779
I agree with this guy. The whole "Death of the Author" concept is an incredibly convoluted, pseudo-intellectual conceit.

Seriously. Believe it or not, there are times when common sense overrides academic babble

The book is about Cohn. If you read the book with that in mind and have a basic understanding of the post-WWI modernists, it became a much clearer.

>>4642897
elaborate please

>>4642576
Don't put forth an actual argument. That's too much effort. Just say no and we'll give you a medal, champ.

>>4643012
Robert Cohn represents the old romantic views. He's silly and chivalric and wants to shake people's hands for no reason. The novel is about Cohn reacting and adapting to the more 'modern' people around him.

>>4643077
This. Also, Cohen wasn't in WW1, unlike the other main characters. The book is about the end of he romantic age.

>>4642897
>first person to have an inkling of where the focus of the story is

How many of you completely forgot that the first chapter is 100% about Robert Cohn and not the narrator?

Again, I assert that the main characters of the sun also rises are Cohn and Brett

>>4643046
What can proposed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. His interpretations are shit. Like he says Brett is the bull, yeah? No. Brett is clueless and bored. Are bulls clueless and bored? No, they're fucking mad and they charge you. The descriptions for bulls matches Cohns behavior far more than Bretts. And his other interpretations are not much better.

If his interpretation is shit right off the bat, then I have no reason to take seriously his argument.

>>4643098
No it's fucking not, you fucking shithead. That's a theme, a scenario surrounding the plot. It's literally not what the book is "about", the book is "about" fucking retards acting fucking retarded.

One element of a story isn't "what the story is about"

Don't get your dick shot off in a war or you'll never find true love. Also Jews are shitheads.

>>4643104
Be that as it may, Cohn is severely marginalized for the remainder of the book. Save the Pedro Romero incident, he barely has any lines or is in the scene. The main characters are plainly Brett and Jake. It even ends with them the same way it started in the taxi.

>>4643124
The theme /is/ what the book is about. Plot is irrelevant. In this case it's just a vehicle for theme.

>>4643133
Jake is really tertiary to the plot and literally has no meaning and says nothing of worth in the story. Cohn is far more interesting

Honestly people pay far too much attention to the final lines because they're digging deep to find closure to an uncomfortable plot. But the point of the ending was absolutely not about Jake and Brett, it was to solidify the fucked-up-ness of the plot - in the end, no one gets the beautiful slut Brett.

Double reminder that Jake has almost zero feelings and talks about himself almost zero. He's insignificant

>>4643141
>theme is what the book is

What? No

>>4643175
While I agree that Cohn is the most important character thematically, Jake not talking about himself isn't evidence of this. He's a deflective narrator. We learn a lot about him from what he says about others. He's still a very important character even if almost everything we know about him is implied.

>>4643116
>>4643124
The epigraphs: "You are all a lost generation." and "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh... The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose..."
From these we can gain that the "lost generation" and the changing of culture/ society are major components of this book.
Reread the opening paragraph of chapter 4. Notice the use of light & dark, old & new, and smooth & broken. On the old road Jake and Brett are bumped together, as they should be because they love each other. But Jake kisses her (in the dark) and she moves as far away from him as she can.
I can go on, if you'd like.
I feel so bad because some people never learn how to read.

>>4643175
Jake is in literally every scene. You experience the book from his eyes. That's the definition of the main character.
>Jake has almost zero feelings and talks about himself almost zero
Wow. Did you even read the book man?

>>4643124
>no it's not you fucking shithead

I hear this is the most convincing way to start off an argument.

>>4643141
So Hemingway wrote the book so he could literally say WW1 was shit and fucked up the romantic culture?

I highly doubt that bro. Seriously fucking doubt that. Is Jurassic Park about how scientific progress can suck balls, too?

>>4643182
What's To Kill A Mockingbird about, racism and empathy or a little girl growing up with a wise lawyer dad? What's Taipei about, the blurred line between affectation and sincerity in the digital age or some drugged up writer dicking around and going to Taiwan?

>>4643200
It's more nuanced than that. He doesn't blame World War I for killing the romantic era, he blames unrealistic romantic ideals a glorification of "chivalric ideals" like brave soldiers and valiant wars that led to kids being excited to go to war.

>>4643209
All of them and more. Stop thinking so staticly, bro.

>>4643209
Why are they mutually exclusive ?

>>4643214
Yes

>>4643216
Exactly. All I'm saying is that guy saying the novel is just a plot study and the themes are secondary is a naive reader.

>>4643192
Or maybe he was emphasizing how meaningless and petty the fighting was and how none of any of it matters

I fucking said the lost generation shit is a theme, but it's incredibly small and there's nothing interesting to say about it. It's a minor fucking detail. The characters are far more relevant to what makes it a good story

If you write about any group of people, you could argue that the theme is whatever culture they arise from and they are defined by whatever significant events happen in their life. Write about an Auschwitz surviving Jew in 1949 and the memory of the holocaust will be a theme of that work

Point being, it's not the sole reason Hemingway wrote the goddamn book and it's the least interesting to fucking talk about

>>4643195
Are you fucking retarded? The narrator doesn't have to be the most important character. Is the Indian chief the most important character in one flew over the cuckoo's nest? Fuck no and if you say so you are a goddamn idiot

>>4643224
It's not the sole reason. Character study and interesting plots are important. But to imply that Hemingway didn't build the novel around the post-war Lost Generation theme would be naive.

>>4643200
This is a better line of thinking, far better than BRETT IS A BULL AND WW1 SUCKED DIK LOL

>>4643221
Yes but the lost generation shit is a cheesy, tiny and irrelevant theme to the book. The characters themselves represent far more deep and interesting themes

>>4643238
Care to list these themes?

>>4643235
Yes in the same way that I could build a character around any one topic. That doesn't mean that one topic will be the interesting or even relevant topics the work reveals

>>4643244
How men act like fucking retards around a pretty woman and how this affects culture and social interactions

>>4643232
Maybe the narrator isn't ALWAYS the main character but 99% of the time it is and in this book it sure as shit is. Honestly man arguing that Cohn is the main character is foolish. It makes 0 sense.

>>4643251
Yes, because the greatest war mankind had ever seen transforming the entire moral and cultural compass of a generation is much less interesting than "lel pussy runs the world amirite fellas barkeep can we get another round of lite beer?"

>>4643224
>Or maybe he was emphasizing how meaningless and petty the fight was and how none of any of it matters.
The war was a climax of romantic anticipation. When the war began, soldiers where running off to the front line and all the pretty girls were running out to give one a kiss. It all ties in.

>>4643251
>How men act like fucking retards around pretty women and how this affects culture and social interactions.
Romantic ideals fell apart after WW1, but people desperately tried to cling to them. That's the lost generation.

ITT: everyone says the same thing. Everyone argues with each other. Everyone's mad
except me

>>4643257
What if I told you Julius Caesar was about Brutus and not the title character.

>>4643263
Stop confusing the issue. This is a thread about the Sun Also Rises. Where Jake is the main character.

>>4643259
It would be if it had any goddamn relevance to the book. It doesn't. Maybe Hemingway thought that people acted like apes because WW1 fucked everything up, I don't know. But if that's what he meant, then that theme is wholly irrelevant because it clearly doesn't take a drastic war to make people act like they do in the novel. We see and experience that kind of shit all the time.

And yes, how men and women interact is a thousand times more interesting than how WW1 effected a generation

>>4643276
>if it had any goddamn relevance to the book
You can't mean that. Obviously the war isn't central to the book but it's still very important and explain why some of these characters feel and act the way they do.

>>4643276
You understand that Jake not having a penis was meant as a symbol of the war destroying traditional values about masculinity, and not (at least primarily) about how men without sexual aspirations interacting with women, right?

>>4643282
>some
Literally every character is defined in some way by the war. Brett's true love died in it. Jake lost his dick to it. Almost everyone else fought in it. The one who didn't fight, Cohn, is ostracized for not understanding the how the war he stayed out of made his entire worldview obsolete.

>>4643261
>Romantic ideals fell apart after WW1, but people desperately tried to cling to them. That's the lost generation.
Thats fucking today too. You don't thinking internet whiteknights bitch about women not appreciating their chivalry? Do people not get drunk and do dumb shit? Was the romantic age some magical time in human history when shit like this did not happen?

NO. That can't possible be true, if anything, the sun also rises is a better example of how PEOPLE ARE ALL THE SAME AND NEVER CHANGE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.

>>4643288
It's symbolic. He isn't saying World War I made people act stupid around women.

>>4643287
>>4643282
Are you saying that a woman "losing the love of her life" in a war and not being able to find true love isn't romantic horse shit, or do you really think that's how people function?

Or maybe you're just putting far too much relevance on irrelevance

>>4643288
Bingo.

>>4643283
Where do you understand that?

>>4643295
Isn't it obvious ? For one, Jake's story (wounded in italy) is the same as Hemingway's, except he cut off Jake's dick. Why would he do this ? For kicks ?

>>4643293
Then what his point is, is that WW1 didn't change anyone at all! So that theme isn't part of the book

>>4643299
Did Hemingway have masculinity issues?

>>4643290
Then what is he saying?

>>4643301
The themes of the book can change depending on when it's read I suppose.
>PEOPLE ARE ALL THE SAME AND NEVER CHANGE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.
makes a lot of sense reading it in 2014. Obviously I wouldn't feel this way reading it in 1926.
>>4643306
Maybe. Obviously the missing dick is a commentary. It allows him to comment on relationships and sexuality, but it's also referring to how the entire generation felt. They couldn't get it up.

It's really quite clever.

>>4643288
What you're thinking of is called postmodernism. World War I shocked all the artists. They all thought chivalric fallacies tricked everyone into being enthusiastic for war only to find that war wasn't all valiant knights and swords now that trench warfare existed. They thought that by rejecting Romantic ideals, they could avoid this. Then World War II happened. They didn't prevent shit. What they thought was unimaginably awful was just the tip of the iceberg. The Holocaust happened. Atomic bombs happened. That's where postmodernism comes in. The postmodernists realized that boundless destruction and the absurdity of the world were unavoidable truths and no amount of reevaluation could prevent these. So basically they all went fucking nuts and decided "well, if rejecting Romanticism won't fix anything, let's take it back, combine it with all the things modernism got right, and create a new artistic truth in which the world is simultaneously insane and paradoxically self-aware." Read Catch-22 for more information. But yeah, you're spot-on about the inevitability of all this stuff throughout any generation, but Hemingway and the gang weren't there yet.

>>4643288
Now you're just saying words.

>>4643320
This guy gets it

>>4643320
This needs to be on the fucking sticky.

>>4643320
Okay, well, in retrospect since we can establish that what Hemingway intended as the theme doesn't properly apply, that meaning should be expressed in its proper context

>>4643316
Agreed. I don't think the missing dick has zero relevance, I guess meanings just change with tjne

What would you say the time-adjusted theme of TSAR is?

>>4643345
Eh. You're confusing reliability with truth. The Sun Also Rises might not be an effective measurement of the effects of World War I on society, but it's invaluable as an insight into what people at the time thought World War I did to society.

>>4643326
No, literally, what I mean is that the shit that goes down isn't new, unique, or specific to that generation. People are people and have always acted like people. Do you see slits banging random dudes and white knights and guys fighting over chicks today? Go hang out at a bar for a month and you'll have enough content for two TSAR books. My point is that their generation isn't far off from ours, meaning that world war 1 can't have been the cause and Hemingway aimed his sights wrong when trying to explain human interactions

Of course, given the speech about generations, it seems to me that Hemingway was aware that none of these actions were new. Surely Hemingway read Dostoevsky and looked at the world of alcohol and new that none of it was new

Was Hemingway lamenting the death of romanticism, in a sense making Cohn the right man in the wrong generation?

>>4643352
Then in my opinion the theme shouldn't be expressed without that caveat. Because I was very fucking frustrated

>>4643364
>Was Hemingway lamenting the death of romanticism
I don't think that was the point. I think the point was coming to terms with and accepting the new society, because they know in their hearts that they can't go back.

I think the book is full of people just trying to cope.

>>4643263

Cohn isn't even in the end of the book. There's a reason the book starts with Cohn and ends with Brett and Jake. And no, Cohn isn't THE main character, he is one of the main characters. If the book ended with Cohn, your argument might have some validity. But Cohn is phased the fuck out right after the celebration, and the rest of the book is just Jake and Brett.

>>4643236

You sound like a fucking asshole. All you've done this entire thread is bash other people's speculations with offering literally no counterpoint or substance of your own. You sound and type like you're still in high school. If you want to be seriously treated like an adult, fucking act like it.

>>4643238

Yes, which is why Hemingway chose to open up the book with Stein's lost generation quote.

>>4643364
It's more subtle than how people act. It's how people think about how they act. People have always and will always act shitty towards each other for stupid reasons. The difference is there was a time when people would rationalize it in their minds and do shit like try to shake hands (which is really just a symbol for reconciling human shiftiness with Romantic idealism). The Lost Generation had just become more aware than the previous generations and went a little crazy over it. Postmodernism is basically this entire theme of self-awareness overload to the 8th power. Cohn isn't any less shitty than the more 'modern' characters, but he perceives his shiftiness differently than the others. THAT is the point of the novel. Not that Hemingway was "born in le rong generashun," but that his generation had outgrown the previous generation's ideals.

>>4643364
I'm talking about the book The Sun Also Rises. Of course that shit goes on all the time, but that's not what I'm talking about. Ultimately, Hemingway is just trying to learn how to get by because his dick got rocked by WW1. Don't get so mad; grace under pressure.

>>4643388
>and the rest of the book is just Jake and Brett.
A measly what, ten pages where literally nothing happens? Brett fucks a bull tamer, loses her boyfriend guy, Cohn kicks the shit out of Jake and the bull tamer, Brett gets abandoned by everyone, then goes crying to Jake for help. And then Jake says wouldn't it be great if my dick weren't broken because I'd really like to fuck you, and she agrees. The end.

So what did I miss?

>>4643382
But what new society?

Surely romanticism never actually was a significant force. do you if you really think men were all polite before WW1 and assailed after? Did romanticism have no start? Like I said, there's no way Hemingway couldn't have known that people always have been, always will be, and still were airbags even during the romantic era

I don't understand Hemingway's emphasis on this "lost generation". Did he just think he was a special snowflake or something and he really thought his generation was different?

>>4643392
Okay, so there I agree, because you admit that WW1 is a plot element that helps drive the themes about human interaction, not that the lost generation itself was the theme

>>4643451
We have to think about the book as if we were reading it in 1926. In 2014, all that romantic bullshit is just that, bullshit. We are very self-aware now.

I think it's been explored higher up in the thread but it's not as much the "death" of romanticism but rather the perceived death of romanticism. Hemingway may have been aware that it was all a facade but that doesn't mean society did.

>>4643451
>airbags
Douchebags*

>>4643459
Yes, but it has contextual power because WWI was the defining event of the entire generation. If the impetus for everyone's behavior were a bad fishing trip it wouldn't have the same reach.

>>4643468
So then, again, I ask what are the relevant themes today? Reading an entire novel to understand one incorrect perspective doesn't seem worth it.

I think the book matters more in making the reader feel the emptiness of life, and appeals to character tropes that we still understand today. We've all known a Cohn and we've all known a Brett, in my opinion the theme of chivalry and it's general conflict with human interactions is a more relevant theme than what Hemingway intended and thus will lead to better discussion s about the book

>>4643488
Each generation though has defining traits. Not all as dramatic. but they do. Vietnam? The depression? The housing bubble and Iraq?

I mean, I think Hemingway may be projecting his personal attitudes about the war onto a generation, which is simply narcissistic and reads poorly in this day and age

FUCK THIS BOOK.

>>4643493
But the incompatibility of chivalry and natural human interaction is Hemingway's point. It's just one of many.

>>4643493
It's not an incorrect perspective. It's history. This book is important for understanding how people felt back then (someone already said this I believe).

Some of the themes are limited, like the one above, but most of them are quite timeless and reading it in 2014 is very natural. It's really striking how people haven't changed very much. It's also very impressive just how well Hemingway understood people, men & women, relationships and friendships.

>>4643504
I think we can agree that the generations that experienced the world wars had a harder go at it than the generation that experienced the housing bubble.

>>4643527
Millenials aren't defined by the housing bubble or Iraq. They're defined by being born with the Internet and therefore becoming self-aware way too soon, giving everyone crippling Tao Lin-level self-awareness. Also, degradation of privacy and security and drones and the devaluing of knowledge due to its abundant accessibility and Twitter. Taipei is our TSAR.

>>4643527
Sure, but I don't see what hardness has to do with anything, except Jake's dick.

>>4643518
I agdee, it was fun to read static characters meet and explode cataclysmically. Hemingway wrote interesting characters simply because of the self awareness of the writing, like you said, the actions are hardly justified, it's written just as, " yeah, this is how people are. Doesn't it suck? The end" and robs you of every satisfaction and ends with nothing resolved

In this sense, the idea that we are broken and humans ultimately do not and cannot abide by an ideal, is a sort of existentialist rhetoric that makes TSAR fun to read

And I think if you look at the book as an existentialist work, so minus the garbage about the lost generation, you're left with a great book.

There's another philosophical principle that I think would fit, about people and idealism, but I just can't remember it

>>4643527
Oh fuck off

>>4643557
>And I think if you look at the book as an existentialist work, so minus the garbage about the lost generation, you're left with a great book.
And that's basically what it means to read it in 2014. Like a fine wine, this book will improve with age because every year we are further distanced from the 20s but the themes and behaviour stays modern. That's borderline masterpiece if you ask me.

OC inspired by this thread

>>4641493
The takeaway?
You understand what what Hemingway and his friends felt and thought about the world post WWI when all the disillusioned and scarred men came home....or, kinda came home. It became popular because the public echoed the same emotions. The reason that Fitzgerald and Hemingway and the rest of the Lost Generation are still so popular today is because they became an outlet for everyone who couldn't express their emotions towards the world. Nothing the likes of WWI had ever been witnessed. It changed everything. It affected/advanced/evolved warfare more drastically than any other war in history. Horrors that many thought couldn't have ever been imagined were witnessed. After it was over there were still a lot of things left unsaid. There wasn't any real closure. All of a sudden one day "hey, the war is over. Go home and start your life where you left off. Go back to normal everyone, it's over." The Lost Generation, and The Sun Also Rises in particular, said what everyone was thinking in one way or another.
Hope that answered your question.

Anyone know if there are any intentional links between Fiesta and Bataille's story of the eye?

I haven't read Hemmmingway in years but the talk about the bull scene is a very direct parallel, I'd be interested to know more if anyone here has already done the work for me

>>4643306
Yes. The public image was very much posturing. His dad was nice but ineffectual up until he killed himself and his mother was domineering and a social butterfly. He had four wives, and he was too insecure to keep any but the last of them as he kept marrying stronger women than himself and entering power struggles rather than love affairs.

Anyhow,

1. The structure of the book is circular / follows a chain-link terza rima sort of style. It ends and it's not like anybody's learned anything or accomplished anything.
2. Brett's the real bullfighter in the story. She manages everybody. Jake's a steer, of course, and Cohn's a bull.
3. She's also built into an image by all the men in the story. She's aware of it, but she doesn't know any other way of being. So she gets associated with pagan imagery (sitting on wine casks, people dancing around her), and is kinda a Siren.
4. This is a good post >>4643320 but it's a bit presumptuous regarding Hemingway. I'd say he qualifies as more than a modernist. The existentialist movement in France was something of a giant extended fan club of his works wherein the philosophers basically did what he did all over again. Artists of influence tend to predate/remain relevant through various movements, and Hemingway, having touched on the basic concerns, remains relevant. Anyhow, we're both presuming metanarratives, so shame on both of us.
5. Cohn is the classical protagonist of the story, but he's kinda manipulated into his actions by the inaction of everybody else. Brett's the character who's really being studied (Jake's in love with her, after all), and it's coming from Jake, who consistently tries to provide a proper feeling of the people he associates with. Cohn pisses him off, but he's still sympathetic (which is more obvious towards the beginning of the book than the end). He knows they're letting a bad situation develop but he doesn't do a damn thing to stop it because he's sitting still while watching the stars shift across the sky.

Most of the notes weren't very interesting regarding this. We spent less time on the book than I thought we had (two days). Then again, we'd been reading a lot of short stories prior to that and had hit on a lot of the thematic ideas, so the isolated information doesn't quite provide to context in which we received it.