The Sun Sets

" 'Oh Jake,' Brett said, 'we could have had such a damned good time together.' ... The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.  'Yes.' I said. 'Isn't it pretty to think so?' "

This last line blew me away.  All through out the novel, Jake was hanging on to his subsurface hope that things would work out between him and Brett.  Albeit the line could be taken as just another brush, I think that there are stronger indications in the work that this is the final thrust to end things.

The bullfighting parallels the relationships in the group.  Mike, Cohn, Brett, and Romero are bulls.  One knows that ultimately things are not going to work out for them.  They charge through life, especially as the novel escalates during the fiesta.  And of course, occasionally some one gets gored or dies from the infighting.  Bill and Jake are somewhat different from the two.  Bill has too much sense and self-respect to really be categorized that way.  He somewhat plays the role of a picador, intensifying issues, but never finishing them.  There is one character who will bend but never break, that is Jake.  I was not sure how it would end for him, it seemed fairly anticlimactic after the fiesta when Jake seems to accept the problems he faces.  However, in the bullfight metaphor he would be the matador.  He does orchestrate much of what goes on in the novel plot wise, and often fights in the "terrain of the bulls".  What makes it so clear that he is the matador is how he finishes Brett in that last line.  That completely surprised me.  Things are done and mentally he knows that things are not going to work out between him and Brett.  Brett had her chance, but that opportunity has passed.  That is what the matador does, when things are over, he shuts the show down; he is the closer.

The bullfight concept does represent some spec of human experience.  One does have a choice of whether or not he or she will live up to their full potential.  Risk is inherent whether one is a bull or a matador, but it is not as much about the final result so much as how one goes about it.  Grace and dignity are emphasized over one's pure strength.  It is a thinking man's game after all.  The social dimension of the audience also can represent how one's life fits in with the procedures society expects to be met.  In this novel, most of the time the spectators want the fight to be passionate and for every opportunity to be taken.  They simply want excellence, which can be achieved.  This differs from some other novels in which society is hindering the protagonist from reaching his or her full potential.

What seems to matter most in this novel is one's own dignity and being able to live with oneself.  No one in the novel is perfect, but the more honest types tend to be more at peace with themselves.  Personal problems inevitably become group problems, which happens to people in all walks of life.  There also seems to be a certain flux at work between good times and bad, wealth and poverty, drunkenness and sobriety, and life and death.  The right balance needs to be met for one to live up to his or her full potential; ultimately something that one cannot do alone.

The Sun Also Rises...Again

"'It's no life being a steer,' Robert Cohn said."

The portion of Book II of The Sun Also Rises that I have read so far deals mostly with the vacation to Pamplona plot-wise.  The primary reason the group goes there is to see the bullfights, which are Jake's passion.  The quote refers to the part of the ritual of the bullfight in which the bulls are unloaded in the days preceding the fight.  As the bulls are released from their cages into the pen, there are steers which stand there and get gored to calm the bulls down so they do not hurt each other before the fight.

My first reaction was that Cohn was the steer, but at second glance, Jake is closer to that role.  Jake is quiet and a more restrained than the other men on the vacation.  Bill is nice and happy most of the time, but occasionally he can erupt on people.  Cohn and Mike fight each other in an animal sort of way.  They are driven by animal instinct more than conscious decisions, whereas with Jake one can tell he has more dignity than the others at times.

Jake is also different because of his attempt at religion.  He is very humble and knows that he isn't the perfect Catholic, but yet paradoxically to admit to one's weaknesses and see oneself truly leads to perfection.  There is something about Jake that makes him different.  He is a simpler man and his taste is emphasized.  He lives a balanced life and finds more rest than other characters do in the novel.  The trip to Pamplona is a retreat of sorts for Jake.  There is an attempt to escape to a simpler sort of existence.  The fishing portion is very calm.  It varies between the imagery of the countryside and the light banter and joking that goes on between Bill and Jake.  The cathedral is a sanctuary for Jake in almost every way.  

None the less, Jake is most passionate about the bulls.  Even the locals attest to his aficion or passion for the bullfights and all the news about them.  Jake can appreciate what is beautiful, he has a critical mind.  For the most part that factors in why he acts the way he does.  He evaluates and observes more than he actually jumps in the fray.  He is the spectator, and in some ways the judge.  The reader sees from his perspective and although Jake does not know everything about the others, he thinks clearly enough that it is fairly easy to follow.  Its not stream of consciousness that's for sure.