still got it

Patting myself on the back this morning because it's been one of those weeks where I have been way too hard on myself. The kind of week where I just couldn't seem to find my footing. The good news is that I found it yesterday, and not surprisingly, by reading Hemingway. I picked up The Sun Also Rises out of obligation; I'm teaching AP English for the first time next year and it's on my re-reading list this summer. A novel I once had a strong attachment to and then lost in favor of A Farewell to Arms. Quite honestly, I was not looking forward to reading about despair and aimlessness and loss (my short-sighted way of shrinking down a work that is so much more). Yet without even realizing what was happening, I fell completely into the process of reading and analyzing that novel. At some point I was grappling for a pen; at some point lunch was made and dinner attended to; but the business of loving and listening to good writing consumed me entirely. It is what I love to do - my touchstone - and I'm grateful that I get to do it for a living.

The character I'm most fascinated with on this reading is Robert Cohn. He first struck me as a Malvolio figure: he can't laugh at himself, and thus finds himself continually on the outside. Cohn's obsession with Brett Ashley is on one level farcical, and yet on the other hand...doesn't it suggest a desire for order and for sense? He can't conceive that the affair meant nothing to Brett, can't seem to exist/function in a world where actions are so meaningless. He tries to restore order through violence by beating up Jake and Mike (and Romero, who is innocent), but the rules of the boxing ring can't cure their sordid crowd. Thus, he's on the train out by the end, a la Malvolio. The irony is that there is some crazy standard of "behaving" in their world; Jake and Brett talk about it constantly:

"Was I rude enough to him?" Brett asked. Cohn was gone.
"My God! I'm so sick of him!"
"He doesn't add much gayety."
"He depresses me so."
"He's behaved very badly."
"Damned badly. He had a chance to behave so well."
"He's probably waiting just outside the door now."
"Yes. He would. You know I do know how he feels. He can't believe it didn't mean anything."
"I know."
"Nobody else would behave as badly. Oh, I'm so sick of the whole thing. And Michael. Michael's been lovely, too."
"It's been damned hard on Mike."
"Yes. But he needn't be a swine."
"Everybody behaves badly," I said. "Give them the proper chance."