Sometimes Hot, Sometimes Cold, Always Drunk

At this second way point in my reading of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway--the thirteenth chapter, specifically--I feel obligated to make a point of the fact that, even for Europeans, Hemingway's characters drink an astounding amount of alcohol. They go about their lives all the same, it being quite acceptable and apparently inconsequential for them to have a drink or three with every meal and at least one in between, but the fact remains that every drop of alcohol they consume is a another drop Hemingway has written. All that alcohol, and its only occasionally accompanying intoxication--it leaves me wondering.

Passing that thoroughly pervasive theme that I don't yet know how to handle, I've noticed a good deal more patterns and themes throughout this latest batch of chapters. The recurrence and tendencies of various descriptions held my attention with this reading, mostly because once I noticed the first I had a hard time avoiding the rest. That first pattern I found presents itself in the 12th chapter, during Jake Barnes' and his recently (as of the beginning of the 8th chapter, where this stretch of reading started) arrived friend Bill Gorton's fishing trip. I should interrupt myself for context's sake to say that the narrative of chapters 8-13 centers  itself on this fishing trip, but since the fishing itself lasts less than the entirety of chapter 12 the text affords much more weight to the travel and internal squabbling of the characters. As far as the description of the fishing itself, however, I quickly noticed that Hemingway describes things as hot or cold nearly every fifth line. The water is freezing, the sun is hot, the wind blows and the air begins to chill the pair of fishermen, and so on and so forth for the duration of the chapter. In addition, I noticed afterwards that the same chapter is full of words and phrases dealing with shade and light--though I picked up more shade than light--and I wonder if these two descriptive themes haven't got anything to do with the temperamental nature of the goings on of Jake's group at large.

I have to interrupt myself once more for the same purpose as before, which I suppose is quite inevitable given that I left off at my last post at a turning point of a chapter--in fact this section I've started is designated Book II of III, the third beginning with chapter 19. Anyways, I mean to inform you that "Jake's group," as I referred to it, consists at this point of Jake, Bill, Robert Cohn, Lady Brett, and Sir Michael (Brett's fiance). 

While I will undoubtedly return to this group's internal bickering at a later time because of its combined prevalence and relevance, for now I'll only say that it seems like a potential parallel for the repetition of the hot/cold mantra in Hemingway's description of Jake and Bill's fishing experience. Then again, I really don't have much to go off of with that claim because there I haven't noticed any direct connections between the two other than their similarity in vacillation. A better supposition might be that the hot to cold to hot represents Jake's overall experience in Europe, or perhaps even his experience with alcohol. Both have similar tendencies to fluctuate and both tie into the various scenes of the relevant chapter. The alcohol comes into action while the two are fishing, no less, and Jake cools it down from the ambient heat by setting the bottles in the frigid river. There's at least a direct connection; whether or not it ties the two themes inextricably, I wouldn't care much to gamble on. The other possibility of a connection to Jake's European experience, I'd say it's valid in the sense that the fishing trip and weather are a part of Jake's experience, but it's probably too general a relationship to mean much.

What does make sense to me at this particular juncture, however, is to consider in exactly what ways Jake's life fluctuates in an effort to tie together more of the symbolic patterns with specific issues Jake faces. I see alcohol affecting his interactions with his peers, I see Brett affecting his heart and sensibility, and I see Robert affecting his mood and inciting a degree of malice within him.

In parallel with that I see shifts between hot and cold temperatures during the fishermen's stay in the mountains, shifts between barren and fertile land as they travel to Spain from Paris, shifts between shadow and light especially in the woods where the two men go fishing, and not quite shifts, but a flux in the tone with which Hemingway portrays religion through the various characters' eyes.

I've got to bring this one to a close, but I think that definite connections exist between these themes I've found. I'm far and away keener to spot trends than analyze them, which will catch up to me with the last post for this book, but until then I'm satisfied to notice the details. I'll have time to synthesize later once I've taken everything in, and if that brings this blog down in the meantime, I'll take that detriment. What I won't do, however, is ignore feedback. I'd rather hear a critique and learn from someone else than try and judge myself on habits that will, for the time being, take me where I need to end up.

With that I bid you good readings and good writings--and myself the same for the upcoming addition.