Posted by Pjk on August 16, 19100 at 22:22:07:

In Reply to: Setting the record straight so poor James doesn't get the "credit" for my remarks... posted by NOT James on August 16, 19100 at 08:23:16:

: My apologies to everyone. When I signed as Yours Truly I wasn't thinking that people would ume I was James. I'm not. He's probably glad I'm setting the record straight since L. Swilley is so adamantly opposed to the idea of the ideal and the real existing simultaneously in the same work -- though it seems that pjk takes a kind of middle ground in this regard.

: My only response is to ask L. Swilley if he is thinking from the perspective of the "artist" or the "ytical spectator"? Wouldn't that make a difference? For example, would da Vinci or Turner themselves be able to make Swilley's argument?

: NOT J

My point is that Paris as a city that Hemingway knew as of July 21, 1925 when he
began the novel is as important a part of the novel as the bull-fight is. It cannot
be city X, nor could it be...what...Lyons. It is the city in which the crippled and
wounded and blinded were still seen on the streets. More, it was the city in which
outwardly seeming healthy verterens could be seen - veterens who would suffer mental
breakdowns or verterens like Jake with wounds that couldn't be seen but which were
affecting him, none-the-less. These things are not explicitly stated in the novel, but
to not be aware of them is to make understanding the actions of the Jake and Brett et. al.
much harder, if not impossible, to understand.

In the same way, it seems to me, it would lessen the impact of the novel to simply describe
Pedro Romero as a great athlete or even as a great cylist. He *had* to be a bullfighter and
for the reader not to understand the ritualistic nature of the bullfight is to miss a part
of the novel.

I don't think you have to know that Hemingway actually lived in Paris, traveled to Spain and
was an afictionado to appreciate the novel. But the fact that it takes place in Paris and Spain
and involves bull-fighting is critical to it, and it would be diminished if other cities or
events were used.

Is this middle-of-the-road?

Thanks
Pjk

Follow Ups:

• Thanks for the observation about Pedro Romero Zak 02:12:50 8/17/100 (0)
• Not middle of the road L. Swilley 23:03:09 8/16/100 (0)

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