THE SUN ALSO RISES So Stop Complaining A Classic Self-Help Book
This book is dedicated to the Lost Generation of overeducated and underemployed Post-Industrial Revolution cry babies. If you are “On The Road”, a “Rebel Without a Cause”, on an “Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”, “Less than Zero”, or full of “Teen Spirit”, this book is for you. Whether you are making up for a bad childhood, drowning your losses in a bottle, feeling sorry for your wounds, waiting for your inheritance, or dealing with unrequited love, this book is for you. This book can essentially help any generation.
This self-help book will look at the problems of the characters in The Sun Also Rises and reveal what not to do or how not to behave. It is a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking; however, these late 20 somethings behave like teenagers. They all have their reasons but none of them are very good, except perhaps the narrator, Jake Barnes, who is forever physically changed by his war wounds.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 “The Catholic Church says just don’t think about it” JB pg102
Jake Barnes: Even though Jake was injured during the war and was left impotent, he still saw a positive side of life. He worked, lived in Paris, hung out with the artist not the journalist, fished, liked bullfights, and had many friends. His life was full. Was it because he was impotent and had nothing else to do? He was trying to live an exemplary life; however, the people he hung around began to make him “sore”.
This chapter looks at the concept that you might only be as good or as righteous as the people you hang out with.
Learning Point:
Chapter 2 Someone making up for a bad childhood is not fun to be around.
Robert Cohn: Cohn was described as an “Arrested Development”. Late Bloomer, Insecure man and as “He is a nice guy but he is also a jerk.” When Jake introduces him he speaks of his Jewish background and how he was made to feel insecure while at Princeton. However on paper he was handsome, a boxing champ, a published writer, had left his wife and kids behind in the US, this is obviously not a good thing but in the group of expats it made him a bit of an independent bad ass. He had a beautiful pal-amore but always was looking for something better. That made everyone feel like he is a weasel, and fueled their pre WWII anti semitism. His is the cautionary tail of nerdy kid turn handsome successful adult but still has a chip on his shoulder. Don’t be like Robert Cohn.
Chapter 3 Beauty is only skin deep, you need to work on your inside too!
Lady Brett Ashley: Brett wanted Jake even though he could not reciprocate maybe that is why, just because he couldn’t. She was still upset that her husband died in the war and was never able to evolve into an adult because of this. Her alcoholism and needed for money made her unbalanced. Her life beat her and used her and her looks to perpetuated this situation. She is the embodiment of the need to change your paradigm.
Chapter 4 Holding it in and then exploding is not the answer.
Bill Gorton: Bill seems like he is a cool lose guy but under the surface he is on fire. Alcohol cools his flames but makes him unbalanced. He is easily angered and is a ship adrift. His antipathy towards others is evident with his casual racism. This chapter is a great example that a quick fix, or shot is not a long term cure to what ails you.
Chapter 5 Passive aggressive behavior is not fooling anyone, it’s ugly.
Mike Campbell: He is the poster child for passive aggressive behavior. He is jealous of Robert Cohn for good reasons. Mike is a drunk, bankrupt and a fool. He was a great man when he was young but now is just sad. He was an early boomer and a bust there after. He is almost the opposite as Cohn yet they are both in lust with the same woman. They think she is beautiful and being with her will improve their situation.
Chapter 6 Don’t eat in front of the hungry.
Frances: “Robert will not marry me” she says, She needs money and I wants children and now he doesn't want to get married, and she feels that her youth is gone and she is stuck. It is a hard situation however she is coming to Jake with her problems. She like everyone else in the book come to Jake with their petty self created problem that they could solve with hard, self control and a bit of honesty. Unlike Jake who is doomed to a life without physical love.
Chapter 7 The youth don’t know how good they have got it.
These characters are from a younger generation but they all have issues that they want Jake to help them with and he doesn’t quite respond, they are in a triage his other friends need him more.
Georgette: Drunken french girl, who finds Paris dirty. She’s a drunk and probably a prostitute. Snobby and rude to the Americans and everyone else, she needs Jakes strength. She has colorful language at the time. A “Wonderful command of the idiom”
Robert Prentice: He was a bit of a poser, pretended to be British and was a fool to Jake. He wanted to be in Jake’s crew but Jake had seen his kind before and could not stand to see it again.
Pedro Romero: A great young bullfighter, but is as insecure as anyone, giving up a life’s work for a woman (Brett) he just met. Grass is always greener kind of problem.
Concierge: at Jake’s building who judged people by their family and politeness, but it was just because Brett and a Count gave her money she changed her opinion of Brett. She was very shallow
Chapter 1 The Jake Barn’s Mistake
Jake barnes the narrator of The Sun Also Rises is dealing with an abbreviated future. He can never have sex again because of a war wound. He is seemingly healthy in every other way. He is responsible, he has a job that he is respected in and has many friends. However it is his friends that are causing him pain and will not let him move on with still a meaningful life. This is the Jake Barnes Mistake, you are only as good as the company you keep, and you are completely responsible for being friends with these people.
Jake hangs out with alcoholics, insecure war veterans, board royalty and a destructive man-child. There is a passage when he is hanging around another journalist (who was a family man) inquiring what Jake does after work.
"What do you do nights, Jake?" asked Krum. (Journalist)
"I never see you around."
"Oh, I'm over in the Quarter." Jake
"I'm coming over some night. The Dingo. That's the great place, isn't it?"
"Yes. That, or this new dive, the Select."
"I've meant to get over," said Krum.
"You know how it is, though, with a wife and kids."
"Come in and have a drink."
"Thanks, old man," Krum said. Woolsey shook his head.
"I've got to file that line he got off this morning."
"See you at the lunch on Wednesday."
"You bet." Pg.45 SAR
He has options but he doesn't take them, perhaps he feels that he will long for a family life that he will never have. As the Italian Officer told him in the hospital;
"You, a foreigner, an Englishman" (any foreigner was an Englishman) "have given more than your life." What a speech! I would like to have it illuminated to hang in the office. He never laughed. He was putting himself in my place, I guess. "Che mala fortuna! Che mala fortuna!"
Pg. 37 SAR
As I am 48 year old man with a wife of 21 years and two kids, it is hard for me to remember the weight of the sexual aspect of relationships, and how important that is to a 24 year old. How ever Jake has married friends that don’t go out to wild places to drink and they have families, Jake can’t but this should have been a wake up call to grow up. He wants to hang with the partiers and he too slowly realizes they are not having a good time anymore they are running away from reality.
Leaning Point:
If someone thinks you drink too much that is your same age and gender, you need to stop. No excuses, just stop.
The grass is always greener, always. Really.
Jake’s friend-enemy is Robert Cohn. Jake likes him because Jake likes anyone who wants to hang out. Robert is a boxer and Jake thinks that is cool, and Robert is in his group of friends that he used to like, and now not so much.
Robert is Jake's enemy because Robert went to ivy league college while Jake was being mutilated during the war. Robert is a Jew, he left his wife and family in the states. Robert is a fairly successful novelist and Jake is jealous of that, that a man child is more successful than he. Robert is with a nice woman but lusts for Jake’s ex, Lady Brett.
The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?" Pg. 14 SAR
This is the biggest problem he has with Robert, he follows her around Paris and Spain like a puppy. Jake loved her at one point but his inability to have sex destroyed their relationship. So in makes Jake sick that this guy is so interested in his ex girl friend At one point Robert beats up Brett finance and Jake too. This passage sums it all up.
"What do you know about Lady Brett Ashley, Jake?"
"Her name's Lady Ashley. Brett's her own name. She's a nice girl," I said. "She's getting a divorce and she's
going to marry Mike Campbell. He's over in Scotland now. Why?"
"She's a remarkably attractive woman."
"Isn't she?"
"There's a certain quality about her, a certain fineness. She seems to be absolutely fine and straight."
"She's a drunk,"
"She's in love with Mike Campbell, and she's going to marry him. He's going to be rich as hell some day."
"I don't believe she'll ever marry him."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. I just don't believe it.
"I don't believe she would marry anybody she didn't love."
"Well," I said. "She's done it twice."
"I don't believe it."
"Well," I said, "don't ask me a lot of fool questions if you don't like the answers." "I didn't ask you that."
"You asked me what I knew about Brett Ashley."
"I didn't ask you to insult her."
"Oh, go to hell."
He stood up from the table his face white, and stood there white and angry behind the little plates of hors
d'ceuvres.
"Sit down," I said. "Don't be a fool."
"You've got to take that back."
"Oh, cut out the prep-school stuff."
"Take it back."
"Sure. Anything. I never heard of Brett Ashley. How's that?"
"No. Not that. About me going to hell."
"Oh, don't go to hell," I said. "Stick around. We're just starting lunch."
Cohn smiled again and sat down. He seemed glad to sit down. What the hell would he have done if he hadn't
sat down? "You say such damned insulting things, Jake." Pg. 47 SAR
This shows the childish nature of Robert Cohn. He thinks that his crush is perfect and that she should not be insulted. He even gets upset that Jake tells him to go to hell. Jake is harassed by this guy, he is just bringing him down. Jake needs to get away from this guy, Robert is a teenager and his lust for Brett puts Jake in a tough position.
Leaning Point:
Abandon your friends that will not grow up. They are anchors to childhood.
If your friends are fools you are too.
Lady Brett Ashley is Jake's’ ex-lover. They met in the hospital after Jake was wounded and her husband had died. She is heartbroken but she did not handle it so well. She fell in love with Jake because she could not have him. He stayed strong with a stiff upper lip and she became his de facto drunk daughter.
Jake bailed her out from uncomfortable situation. Two marriages, she ran with young wild homosexuals that at the time was not socially acceptable. They were the only demographic that danced and drank as much as she did. She had a deep flirtation with an older count Mippipopolous, an affair with Robert Cohn, then leading him around for a month which lead to Jake, Bill and Pedro getting their asses kicked. Which lead to a broken engagements with Mike Campbell and the coup de gras, the affair with Pedro Romero a 18 year old matador. She was a mess.
After the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, where Brett left with the matador and everyone else was hurt emotionally and physically and it was pretty much Brett's fault she sent a telegram, which is like a modern day email;
"Here's another telegram for you, sir." "Thank you," I said.
I opened it. It was forwarded from Pamplona. Pg.211 SAR
COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.
And of course Jake drops everything and goes to her, and she then breaks his heart again saying
"I'm going back to Mike." I could feel her crying as I held her close. "He's so damned nice and he's so awful.
He's my sort of thing." Pg.160 SAR
She called Jake because he would come. Even Mike wouldn’t do that. Then the book ends and Jake I assume takes her back to Paris and she marries Mike, but Jake is always going to be there for her.
Leaning Point:
There is only one kind of relationship, a reciprocal. If the other persons a user it is never healthy.
Bill Gorton, is a drunk. We get introduced to him and he had just been in Budapest and had been forced to leave the country but can’t remember why. He is a writer and a veteran and a good friend to Jake. He might be the only friend Jake has, he just needs to keep his distance.
"And as for this Robert Cohn," Bill said, "he makes me sick, and he can go to hell, and I'm damn glad he's staying here so we won't have him fishing with us."
"You're damn right."
"We're going trout-fishing. We're going trout-fishing in the Irati River, and we're going to get tight now at lunch on the wine of the country, and then take a swell bus ride." Pg.87 SAR
Bill and Jake have this interchange and you can see Bill is a little rough but he has Jake’s best interest in hand. He wants to make the best of a hard situation. He is ancholic and likes to fight. At one point he joins the bandwagon against Robert and wants to beat him up, but he was left battered and hurt. Robert was a wimpy man, but he could box.
Leaning Point:
You can have crazy friends but don’t hang out with them everyday.
Mike Campbell is a “Bankrupt”, vetren, possible hero, alcoholic and a sad character. He is engaged to a cheating woman.
"This is Bill Gorton. This drunkard is Mike Campbell. Mr. Campbell is an undischarged bankrupt."
"It's a lovely nose. Go on, point it at me. Isn't she a lovely piece?" Pg.106 SAR Says Mike about
He goes on to quite rightly giving Robert Cohn a hard time for skulking around his fiance.
"I'm not drunk. I'm quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?"
Mike is a man living larger than he should, drinking like a college boy, spending like he is rich, engaged to the hottest gal around and he is not the best of anything. He is a sad drunk man, and he brings Jake down too.
"Where's Cohn?"
"Up-stairs in his room."
"How does he feel?"
"Like hell, naturally. Mike was awful. He's terrible when he's tight." Pg.167 SAR
Mike is like the Bulls running through the streets, mean and out of control, but it’s the only way he knows how to be.
Leaning Point:
Self destructive friends will destroy you too.
Georgette is just a woman Jake picked up, he bought her dinner, drinks and went dancing. She was so boojwah, hated Paris “It is the dirtiest city in the world” she hated pretty much everything, very French. And then she got drinks in her and she was an dancing, fighting, and partying. She was the extreme example of dysfunctional friend. She had everything and was wasting it. More than just taking things for granite. She was destroying something beautiful, her life. This is Georgette talking to Jak’s friends.
"No, I don't like Paris. It's expensive and dirty."
"Really? I find it so extraordinarily clean. One of the cleanest cities in all Europe."
"I find it dirty."
"How strange! But perhaps you have not been here very long."
"I've been here long enough." Pg.26 SAR
She is oddly negative for someone that just parties. This behavior is especially acute when you have the affliction Jake has, what he would do not to be impotent and have what Georgette has.
Leaning Point:
It is rude to eat in front of the hungry and say the food is not good.
Robert, Brett, Bill, Mike and Georgette and not positive people. Does Jake hangout with them because they make him feel better about himself? Or maybe they once made him feel better but now the stink of their immaturity, insecurity and sadness has polluted Jake. The Sun Also Rise, to me means everything doesn’t have to go wrong it is a choice and everyone can make or change if they want to.
This self-help book will look at the problems of the characters in The Sun Also Rises and reveal what not to do or how not to behave. It is a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking; however, these late 20 somethings behave like teenagers. They all have their reasons but none of them are very good, except perhaps the narrator, Jake Barnes, who is forever physically changed by his war wounds.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 “The Catholic Church says just don’t think about it” JB pg102
Jake Barnes: Even though Jake was injured during the war and was left impotent, he still saw a positive side of life. He worked, lived in Paris, hung out with the artist not the journalist, fished, liked bullfights, and had many friends. His life was full. Was it because he was impotent and had nothing else to do? He was trying to live an exemplary life; however, the people he hung around began to make him “sore”.
This chapter looks at the concept that you might only be as good or as righteous as the people you hang out with.
Learning Point:
- If someone thinks you drink too much that is your same age and gender, you need to stop. No excuses, just stop.
- The grass is always greener, always. Really.
- Abandon your friends that will not grow up. They are anchors to childhood.
- If your friends are fools, you are too.
- There is only one kind of relationship, a reciprocal. If the other person is a user, it is never healthy.
- You can have crazy friends but don’t hang out with them every day.
- Self destructive friends will destroy you too.
- It is rude to eat in front of the hungry and say the food is not good.
Chapter 2 Someone making up for a bad childhood is not fun to be around.
Robert Cohn: Cohn was described as an “Arrested Development”. Late Bloomer, Insecure man and as “He is a nice guy but he is also a jerk.” When Jake introduces him he speaks of his Jewish background and how he was made to feel insecure while at Princeton. However on paper he was handsome, a boxing champ, a published writer, had left his wife and kids behind in the US, this is obviously not a good thing but in the group of expats it made him a bit of an independent bad ass. He had a beautiful pal-amore but always was looking for something better. That made everyone feel like he is a weasel, and fueled their pre WWII anti semitism. His is the cautionary tail of nerdy kid turn handsome successful adult but still has a chip on his shoulder. Don’t be like Robert Cohn.
Chapter 3 Beauty is only skin deep, you need to work on your inside too!
Lady Brett Ashley: Brett wanted Jake even though he could not reciprocate maybe that is why, just because he couldn’t. She was still upset that her husband died in the war and was never able to evolve into an adult because of this. Her alcoholism and needed for money made her unbalanced. Her life beat her and used her and her looks to perpetuated this situation. She is the embodiment of the need to change your paradigm.
Chapter 4 Holding it in and then exploding is not the answer.
Bill Gorton: Bill seems like he is a cool lose guy but under the surface he is on fire. Alcohol cools his flames but makes him unbalanced. He is easily angered and is a ship adrift. His antipathy towards others is evident with his casual racism. This chapter is a great example that a quick fix, or shot is not a long term cure to what ails you.
Chapter 5 Passive aggressive behavior is not fooling anyone, it’s ugly.
Mike Campbell: He is the poster child for passive aggressive behavior. He is jealous of Robert Cohn for good reasons. Mike is a drunk, bankrupt and a fool. He was a great man when he was young but now is just sad. He was an early boomer and a bust there after. He is almost the opposite as Cohn yet they are both in lust with the same woman. They think she is beautiful and being with her will improve their situation.
Chapter 6 Don’t eat in front of the hungry.
Frances: “Robert will not marry me” she says, She needs money and I wants children and now he doesn't want to get married, and she feels that her youth is gone and she is stuck. It is a hard situation however she is coming to Jake with her problems. She like everyone else in the book come to Jake with their petty self created problem that they could solve with hard, self control and a bit of honesty. Unlike Jake who is doomed to a life without physical love.
Chapter 7 The youth don’t know how good they have got it.
These characters are from a younger generation but they all have issues that they want Jake to help them with and he doesn’t quite respond, they are in a triage his other friends need him more.
Georgette: Drunken french girl, who finds Paris dirty. She’s a drunk and probably a prostitute. Snobby and rude to the Americans and everyone else, she needs Jakes strength. She has colorful language at the time. A “Wonderful command of the idiom”
Robert Prentice: He was a bit of a poser, pretended to be British and was a fool to Jake. He wanted to be in Jake’s crew but Jake had seen his kind before and could not stand to see it again.
Pedro Romero: A great young bullfighter, but is as insecure as anyone, giving up a life’s work for a woman (Brett) he just met. Grass is always greener kind of problem.
Concierge: at Jake’s building who judged people by their family and politeness, but it was just because Brett and a Count gave her money she changed her opinion of Brett. She was very shallow
Chapter 1 The Jake Barn’s Mistake
Jake barnes the narrator of The Sun Also Rises is dealing with an abbreviated future. He can never have sex again because of a war wound. He is seemingly healthy in every other way. He is responsible, he has a job that he is respected in and has many friends. However it is his friends that are causing him pain and will not let him move on with still a meaningful life. This is the Jake Barnes Mistake, you are only as good as the company you keep, and you are completely responsible for being friends with these people.
Jake hangs out with alcoholics, insecure war veterans, board royalty and a destructive man-child. There is a passage when he is hanging around another journalist (who was a family man) inquiring what Jake does after work.
"What do you do nights, Jake?" asked Krum. (Journalist)
"I never see you around."
"Oh, I'm over in the Quarter." Jake
"I'm coming over some night. The Dingo. That's the great place, isn't it?"
"Yes. That, or this new dive, the Select."
"I've meant to get over," said Krum.
"You know how it is, though, with a wife and kids."
"Come in and have a drink."
"Thanks, old man," Krum said. Woolsey shook his head.
"I've got to file that line he got off this morning."
"See you at the lunch on Wednesday."
"You bet." Pg.45 SAR
He has options but he doesn't take them, perhaps he feels that he will long for a family life that he will never have. As the Italian Officer told him in the hospital;
"You, a foreigner, an Englishman" (any foreigner was an Englishman) "have given more than your life." What a speech! I would like to have it illuminated to hang in the office. He never laughed. He was putting himself in my place, I guess. "Che mala fortuna! Che mala fortuna!"
Pg. 37 SAR
As I am 48 year old man with a wife of 21 years and two kids, it is hard for me to remember the weight of the sexual aspect of relationships, and how important that is to a 24 year old. How ever Jake has married friends that don’t go out to wild places to drink and they have families, Jake can’t but this should have been a wake up call to grow up. He wants to hang with the partiers and he too slowly realizes they are not having a good time anymore they are running away from reality.
Leaning Point:
If someone thinks you drink too much that is your same age and gender, you need to stop. No excuses, just stop.
The grass is always greener, always. Really.
Jake’s friend-enemy is Robert Cohn. Jake likes him because Jake likes anyone who wants to hang out. Robert is a boxer and Jake thinks that is cool, and Robert is in his group of friends that he used to like, and now not so much.
Robert is Jake's enemy because Robert went to ivy league college while Jake was being mutilated during the war. Robert is a Jew, he left his wife and family in the states. Robert is a fairly successful novelist and Jake is jealous of that, that a man child is more successful than he. Robert is with a nice woman but lusts for Jake’s ex, Lady Brett.
The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?" Pg. 14 SAR
This is the biggest problem he has with Robert, he follows her around Paris and Spain like a puppy. Jake loved her at one point but his inability to have sex destroyed their relationship. So in makes Jake sick that this guy is so interested in his ex girl friend At one point Robert beats up Brett finance and Jake too. This passage sums it all up.
"What do you know about Lady Brett Ashley, Jake?"
"Her name's Lady Ashley. Brett's her own name. She's a nice girl," I said. "She's getting a divorce and she's
going to marry Mike Campbell. He's over in Scotland now. Why?"
"She's a remarkably attractive woman."
"Isn't she?"
"There's a certain quality about her, a certain fineness. She seems to be absolutely fine and straight."
"She's a drunk,"
"She's in love with Mike Campbell, and she's going to marry him. He's going to be rich as hell some day."
"I don't believe she'll ever marry him."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. I just don't believe it.
"I don't believe she would marry anybody she didn't love."
"Well," I said. "She's done it twice."
"I don't believe it."
"Well," I said, "don't ask me a lot of fool questions if you don't like the answers." "I didn't ask you that."
"You asked me what I knew about Brett Ashley."
"I didn't ask you to insult her."
"Oh, go to hell."
He stood up from the table his face white, and stood there white and angry behind the little plates of hors
d'ceuvres.
"Sit down," I said. "Don't be a fool."
"You've got to take that back."
"Oh, cut out the prep-school stuff."
"Take it back."
"Sure. Anything. I never heard of Brett Ashley. How's that?"
"No. Not that. About me going to hell."
"Oh, don't go to hell," I said. "Stick around. We're just starting lunch."
Cohn smiled again and sat down. He seemed glad to sit down. What the hell would he have done if he hadn't
sat down? "You say such damned insulting things, Jake." Pg. 47 SAR
This shows the childish nature of Robert Cohn. He thinks that his crush is perfect and that she should not be insulted. He even gets upset that Jake tells him to go to hell. Jake is harassed by this guy, he is just bringing him down. Jake needs to get away from this guy, Robert is a teenager and his lust for Brett puts Jake in a tough position.
Leaning Point:
Abandon your friends that will not grow up. They are anchors to childhood.
If your friends are fools you are too.
Lady Brett Ashley is Jake's’ ex-lover. They met in the hospital after Jake was wounded and her husband had died. She is heartbroken but she did not handle it so well. She fell in love with Jake because she could not have him. He stayed strong with a stiff upper lip and she became his de facto drunk daughter.
Jake bailed her out from uncomfortable situation. Two marriages, she ran with young wild homosexuals that at the time was not socially acceptable. They were the only demographic that danced and drank as much as she did. She had a deep flirtation with an older count Mippipopolous, an affair with Robert Cohn, then leading him around for a month which lead to Jake, Bill and Pedro getting their asses kicked. Which lead to a broken engagements with Mike Campbell and the coup de gras, the affair with Pedro Romero a 18 year old matador. She was a mess.
After the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, where Brett left with the matador and everyone else was hurt emotionally and physically and it was pretty much Brett's fault she sent a telegram, which is like a modern day email;
"Here's another telegram for you, sir." "Thank you," I said.
I opened it. It was forwarded from Pamplona. Pg.211 SAR
COULD YOU COME HOTEL MONTANA MADRID AM RATHER IN TROUBLE BRETT.
And of course Jake drops everything and goes to her, and she then breaks his heart again saying
"I'm going back to Mike." I could feel her crying as I held her close. "He's so damned nice and he's so awful.
He's my sort of thing." Pg.160 SAR
She called Jake because he would come. Even Mike wouldn’t do that. Then the book ends and Jake I assume takes her back to Paris and she marries Mike, but Jake is always going to be there for her.
Leaning Point:
There is only one kind of relationship, a reciprocal. If the other persons a user it is never healthy.
Bill Gorton, is a drunk. We get introduced to him and he had just been in Budapest and had been forced to leave the country but can’t remember why. He is a writer and a veteran and a good friend to Jake. He might be the only friend Jake has, he just needs to keep his distance.
"And as for this Robert Cohn," Bill said, "he makes me sick, and he can go to hell, and I'm damn glad he's staying here so we won't have him fishing with us."
"You're damn right."
"We're going trout-fishing. We're going trout-fishing in the Irati River, and we're going to get tight now at lunch on the wine of the country, and then take a swell bus ride." Pg.87 SAR
Bill and Jake have this interchange and you can see Bill is a little rough but he has Jake’s best interest in hand. He wants to make the best of a hard situation. He is ancholic and likes to fight. At one point he joins the bandwagon against Robert and wants to beat him up, but he was left battered and hurt. Robert was a wimpy man, but he could box.
Leaning Point:
You can have crazy friends but don’t hang out with them everyday.
Mike Campbell is a “Bankrupt”, vetren, possible hero, alcoholic and a sad character. He is engaged to a cheating woman.
"This is Bill Gorton. This drunkard is Mike Campbell. Mr. Campbell is an undischarged bankrupt."
"It's a lovely nose. Go on, point it at me. Isn't she a lovely piece?" Pg.106 SAR Says Mike about
He goes on to quite rightly giving Robert Cohn a hard time for skulking around his fiance.
"I'm not drunk. I'm quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?"
Mike is a man living larger than he should, drinking like a college boy, spending like he is rich, engaged to the hottest gal around and he is not the best of anything. He is a sad drunk man, and he brings Jake down too.
"Where's Cohn?"
"Up-stairs in his room."
"How does he feel?"
"Like hell, naturally. Mike was awful. He's terrible when he's tight." Pg.167 SAR
Mike is like the Bulls running through the streets, mean and out of control, but it’s the only way he knows how to be.
Leaning Point:
Self destructive friends will destroy you too.
Georgette is just a woman Jake picked up, he bought her dinner, drinks and went dancing. She was so boojwah, hated Paris “It is the dirtiest city in the world” she hated pretty much everything, very French. And then she got drinks in her and she was an dancing, fighting, and partying. She was the extreme example of dysfunctional friend. She had everything and was wasting it. More than just taking things for granite. She was destroying something beautiful, her life. This is Georgette talking to Jak’s friends.
"No, I don't like Paris. It's expensive and dirty."
"Really? I find it so extraordinarily clean. One of the cleanest cities in all Europe."
"I find it dirty."
"How strange! But perhaps you have not been here very long."
"I've been here long enough." Pg.26 SAR
She is oddly negative for someone that just parties. This behavior is especially acute when you have the affliction Jake has, what he would do not to be impotent and have what Georgette has.
Leaning Point:
It is rude to eat in front of the hungry and say the food is not good.
Robert, Brett, Bill, Mike and Georgette and not positive people. Does Jake hangout with them because they make him feel better about himself? Or maybe they once made him feel better but now the stink of their immaturity, insecurity and sadness has polluted Jake. The Sun Also Rise, to me means everything doesn’t have to go wrong it is a choice and everyone can make or change if they want to.