Is it just me?



My first thought about Jake et Gang was, What a great care-free life! All they seemed to do was eating great meals and going out for a drink or dance. Jake and others, despite their flaws, seemed to be harmless, and I enjoyed their antics and banter as I loved their ability to never take anything too seriously. However, I began to despise them as I witnessed how they, the so-called friends, aggravated and brought out the worst in each other.

I felt disgusted when in Spain Jake started to purposefully make fun and provoke Cohen, punishing him for his infatuation with Brett. Jake no longer was the pitiful scarred lovesick man but a bully intent on pushing his enemy into mental misery. I extremely disliked this powerplay and the intentional harm Jake inflicted on Cohen. I hated the drama and the fake friendships.  Rather than having honest moments, the characters always put a facade of civility and pretend they are getting along when everything is going to hell.

The characters’ lives are aimless and miserable because they are, in my opinion, too egocentric. They are reactionary to their emotional and physical desires, rather than meditative and contemplative. As they lack logical open dialogue, they are in cycles of perpetual destructive relationships instead of finding a path forward. One might think that being drunken and impulsive in a quest for love is a rite of passage we all go through, but they are in their thirties! It is pathetic, and it is sad that people in their thirties cannot communicate their feelings in their relationships. In addition, when they are together they bring out the worst in each other, evidenced by Jake’s enhanced mental well being and productivity during the times he separates from his friends.  Don’t all these petty self-absorbing behaviors make you appreciate your “normal” life? Maybe it’s just me but I certainly cherish the normalcy of my life, observing myself in this world with clarity instead of through drunken distorted glasses.  

Comments

  1. HadiyahSeptember 27, 2018 at 8:00 PM

    I agree, our "normal" lives are a lot better than theirs. Their constant drinking and partying isn't actually fun, it's destructive. They're not trying to have fun, they're trying to forget so that they don't have to deal with their problems. Instead of focusing on their issues and getting through them like civilized adults, they chose to ignore it and are just rude to each other. Their friendship is toxic.

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  2. RaineOctober 11, 2018 at 12:12 PM

    On the one hand, I think that having it seem like everything is going so badly is intentional on Hemingway's part. He tries to make a point about how after the war, these facades are incredibly hard to keep up as a result of the varied backgrounds (one reason Jake and Brett work together so well is their shared backgrounds of loss during the war). I can also forgive them for partying and not being able to totally communicate well in their thirties because much of their younger life was taken up by the war. On the other hand, I can totally see where you're coming from. Their constant dodging of questions is annoying, as well as their petty fights and being drunk all the time.

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  3. UnknownOctober 13, 2018 at 10:19 PM

    Jake's group of friends reminds me of a group of teenage boys. Since this group isn't mature enough to show true compassion, they just toss around "light-hearted" insults. When one of the insults goes a little too far or someone (usually Cohn) is particularly discomforted by the harmful words, they call the person too sensitive or they resort to saying "go to hell". I think this comparison between Jake's clique and teenage boys reinforces the sense of aimlessness and miserable nature of these people's lives.

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