The Game

I do not understand Brett and Jake's relationship at all.

That she uses him is blatant. He will bend over backwards to accommodate her emotional needs, letting her up to his apartment in the wee hours of the morn and even trekking down to Madrid because she is "rather in trouble." All that meant, of course, is that she didn't get things to go quite her way and wanted to throw a pity party, the kind at which Jake is a regular. And yet Brett doesn't know how to handle her tools very wisely; instead of letting Jake repair her damage, she stops by for a quick fix and then is back to her reckless, downright destructive lifestyle.

What's funny is that Jake doesn't see it that way. He says, "Women made such swell friends...in the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing" (152). What exactly are you "getting," Jake, my friend? Not sex, you're impotent. And not really emotional gratification, either, unless you're some kind of Marla Singer-esque sadist who gets off of listening to other peoples' woes. But he insists that "I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman who pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution of punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else" (152). I understand completely what Jake is giving up to Brett- his independence, manhood (despite his attempt to distinguish himself from the woman who pays and pays and pays), unfettered mobility. I want to know the value he thinks he gains from a continued association with her.

Jake displays the same kind of sick fascination I witnessed when I went to a bullfight in Spain. The flashing cape beguiles not just the bull, but the crowd as well. We sat there bobbing and weaving our heads like charmed cobras. Just so, Jake observes Brett's manipulations of various men (including an actual bullfighter, oh the irony). And just like a well-trained crowd, he puts a thumb up for her performance at the end so that she may take a trophy- only this time it's not just an ear, but a full-on man.

I guess my final point of perplexity is this: who the Hell do these people think they are? This dream team duo in the game of love...what right have they to make prizes out of people? Or play with their victims before rubbing in the poor men's faces how foolish they looked as they chased the illusion of Brett's affections (ahem Cohn)? Everyone keeps saying Jake is detached- but perhaps he and Brett are in league behind the scenes, pulling strings and breaking hearts.

-Becca

P.S. Hemingway is my jam- or at least, he would be if someone rapped his words to a sick beat, maybe. Any takers?