Posted by OddipusRex on August 18, 2002, at 14:46:04
In reply to Re: Come on guys! » Dinah, posted by Ritch on August 17, 2002, at 10:24:18
That's exactly what bothered me about it-the lack of idealism. But after I read that comment something clicked and I went back and looked at it again. Nobody believed in much of anything-it was post WWI and most of them were veterans. Even Brett was a former nurse and had lost her first true love in the war.. It seemed like to me the lot of them were suffering from PTSD. At the bullfight Nick mentions having spent six months with the lights on at night because things seem different in the dark. The fireworks at the bullfight were compared to combat explosions. Was the bullfighting some way to recapture the intensity of combat or relive it or just a way of replacing the numbness with some kind of emotion? There was also the religous aspect. H says "San ferme was also a religous festival" and Nick goes to mass several times. He tells Brett that he is technically a Catholic. The idea of bloody sacrifice of the bull sort of reflects the bloody sacrifice at mass.What is this aficion this passion that he finds attractive? They all seem detached and adrift. In some ways it reminds me of the disillusionment and drifting and loss of common values after Vietnam.
It's a really uncomfortable book to read.
And what happens with Nick and Brett at the end? Nick seems to have been disillusioned with her also?>
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> My book was borrowed from the library as well. I am more of a music freak than a book freak. Perhaps what bugs a lot of people about Hemingway is his *lack* of idealism-or his *idealism* is far removed from most other people's conception of how the world should be. There is a fatalistic attitude in his stuff that kind of says: "Here's the world-it can be quite cruel, and if you want to feel alive you are going to have to make things happen for yourself, sorry". I saw a humorous tee-shirt once that said: "Exercise, eat right, die anyway." Perhaps his own philosophy contributed to his depressions.
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> Mitch
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poster:OddipusRex
thread:548
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20020616/msgs/617.html