I am reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. There are two main characters so far in this story, Robert and Jake. First is Robert Cohn, which this story is mainly about his life. Roberts family was a very wealthy family in New York, in fact they were one of the wealthiest Jewish families there. Robert attended Princeton University and while he was there he often got picked on because he is Jewish. Because of this he threw himself into boxing. He was very good. His trainer, Spider Kelly, thought he was so good that he wanted to take him on himself. This did not turn out very good for Robert though. Kelly won the battle and permanently flattened Roberts nose. At one point in time Cohn was also the middleweight champion in Princeton. Soon after he graduated from college he got married to a woman who was basically his rebound because of his other girlfriend in college since that one didn't work out so well. From that they had three children. Cohn inherited fifty thousand dollars from his parents. Things did't go so well for them and after five years he had his mind set that he was going to leave his wife, she left him before he got that chance. Robert also lost nearly all his money he had and was pretty much broke. After the break up he packed his things and moved to California to become a writer. Once he was there awhile he met another girl named Frances. Soon later she convinced him to take her to Paris and live there for awhile. Jake and Robert meet and they go out to eat. Robert talks about how he wants to go to South America with him.
This is where his friend Jake comes in, Jake is one of Roberts good friends. This story is also all taken from Jake's point of view. Which means that Jake is the narrator. So far in the story I don't know much about Jake yet because he likes to talk about other people instead of himself.
I found it quite ironic how he was going to leave his wife and then she decides to leave him first. As much as that probably sucked, they were probably both happy because of it. I would have just been very pissed off if that was me and I would have lost nearly fifty thousand dollars. I'm not really too into this book, I haven't read quite a whole lot yet but so far I'm not very interested in it. There just seems to not be a whole lot going on yet, if it doesn't start to pick up pretty soon I'm just going to choose a different book that will hopefully be a little more interesting. I do have a couple questions about this book though. First of all, I want to know how much money Robert has left from the fifty thousand dollars. Second, how long will Robert and Frances last together? And third, how is Roberts writing carrier going?
You're right-- it's all of Jake's perceptions of these people, but in the end, it's about Jake. I think it comes down to him and Brett. Have you met her yet?
ReplyDeleteIt's like a crowd of people-- in high school-- you meet everyone, and what's going on with them, but in the end, you've got to know the one who's telling the story.
I think it gets better as it goes, but it's up to you.
The summary was really long, but it was very easy to follow, and to me, it sounds like a pretty good book. I'm sure we have different tastes, but I think most books only start to get good at least halfway through. Like you said, you should keep reading it and see if you start to like it more.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as getting to know Jake, you can probably pick up on a lot of his personality just by the way he talks about others. You can also usually tell his opinion of the characters he's talking about.