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: I should prolly make this a separate topic but I : disagree with whomever said that the wound is symbolic of : unrealized freedom. (Was it Wilson of "Not-J?) Anyway, I : think it is at the end of a book about The Sun Also Rises : that Mike Reynolds makes the point that when Brett says : "We could have had such a wonderful time together," and : Jake says, "Wouldn't it be nice to think so," they mean that : there is no way they *could* have been together. But to think that : it is becasue of the wound is to miss the point. They could not : have been together - formed a commitment one to the other - : becasue in the post-war years commitments to anything were dead; : commitments to forms of authority (the church, the state) or to one : another. The war killed commitment. This is why the characters are : presented as aimless and drinking heavily and, outside of Jake and : Georgette (the prostitute) none of them appear to have s. Why have a : if the future has been shown to be so uncertain? They are a lost generation : in several senses; lost in the sense that they don't know where they are nor : where they are going. But lost in the sense that they have lost faith in the : pre-war institutions that used to support people. See, if you can, a small : book entitled Hemingway and the Post-narrative Condition. A narrative for the : essayist is something that is pasted on from one generation to another and which : sustains them - laws, commandments, traditions. The Sun Also Rises describes a : post-narrative condition. : As to Paris ("We'll always have Paris," Rick says to Ilsa). If there is anything to the : above, then certainly Paris is cannot be temporally ambiguous. It cannot be the Paris : of 11 years earlier, 1914 say, and you can see why in terms of at least half of the characters. : And, I think, it cannot be 11 years later when, historically, the post-war era was over and : the pre-war era had just begun. And The Sun Also Rises is definately a post-war novel. : And geographically and discriptively, "Why does The Sun Also Rises continue to intrigue : readers?" "The answer to this question resides in Hemingway's extraordinary ability to : create the ambiance of a special time and place. When Jake walks down the Boulevard to the : rue Souffet for coffee and brioche, we walk with him and agree that it is a fine morning. : If we have been to Paris, then the flower women coming up from the market, the students on their : way to the Sorbonne, the buses on the boulevards all RING TRUE. If we have not been to paris, : of course we want to go there even before reading the novel. Everyone wants to go to Paris. Jake's : ambles along the boulevards serve to increase our appitite, and we walk with him past the men with : jumping frogs and toy boxers, and with him we follow the man puching a roller that printed the name : CINZANO on the sde walk in damp letters." (Mike Reynolds) : My contention is that if Hemingway did not describe a realistic Paris : would his description of the disaffection of his characters be more or less : realistic? Does he establish himself as an expert on some things so as to : make the reader believe he is expert on all things? Could Jake and Brett : have ambled down a made-up or unnamed boulevard? IMO, no. : hth : Pjk : :

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