Alcohol

I honestly don’t really know how I feel about this book and what I have to say about it. I mean liked it; I actually really enjoyed reading it. The description of this somewhat decadent lifestyle of these writers getting drunk everyday at the most chic cafés across Paris and Spain, really drew me into the world that Hemingway describes. And I guess that’s what I really want to focus on. Is Jake’s lifestyle a reaction to his injury? Why is there excessive use of alcohol, and what does it represent?  

To me Jake seems very detached from the people around him and the world around him. Clearly his injury detaches him from the world of relationships and sex, but what causes him to seem like an outsider in every single social interaction he has? Is it the alcohol? Maybe the alcohol is a wall that Jake puts up to keep space between him and everyone else; he’s afraid to let anybody in. Maybe it’s just for fun? Maybe Jake is just a party animal who loves the nightlife. Is it because everyone else is constantly drinking that Jake does too? Maybe his injury causing him to be so detached that he uses alcohol as a way to get in rather than put up a wall. I can’t really figure it out, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe there’s not that much more to it and it’s just what people of Jake’s social class did at those times. Maybe the drunkenness brings out the emotions that need to come out but are unable to do so when one is sober.

As Hemingway said “write drunk, edit sober.”

-Ameet