Tuesday, January 27, 2015
The Booze Also Rises
As I finished reading up to Chapter 12, I am perplexed by the constant drinking, talking about drinking, procuring alcohol and references to being, well drunk. Brett is always drunk, Jake and Bill follow suit, and from what I can tell Mike is not far behind. They all have struggles of differing proportions, but I find it unusual that almost every character has a drinking problem, save for Cohn who may be the most complex emotionally of all. Usually we read about one or two characters at most who have extreme struggles and have faced monumental adversity and their drinking is explained by these events. In this story, so far, other than Jake's very little discussed war injury, nothing else is explaining the references. For example, in Chapter 12 Bill says to Jake, "You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex..." So I began to wonder if Jake was homesick and perhaps that started the alcoholism but was promptly shocked by the impotence being brought up directly by Bill and immediately denied by Jake and downplayed to "an accident." So, now I am confused about the drinking, the maybe not impotent Jake and even more, shocked that Brett had an alleged affair with Cohn. Is this simply a case of many unhappy and homesick people running to Paris and other parts of Europe to hide from the pain and alcohol is the anesthesia or is there so much more to this? As an aside, other than the fishing and drinking, I am still struggling to find this a masculine novel and wonder if anyone else is feeling the same way.
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Honestly, I have been considering the time period. It is the 1920s or "The Roaring Twenties." This was a time period, to put it simply, concerned with culture, music, and drinking. I am not saying that this is the only reason the characters drink, but I think the time period is something to keep in mind.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do think their is something somber and desperate to all of the drinking that Brett does. I can tell she is trying to hide some pain, but she is such a mystery.
I think that such heavy intoxication, which is obviously a form of self-medication, belies, as Leah suggests, not only pain and misery but also the inability to cope with reality. Are these seemingly happy party people really all that happy? Is this a reflection of the cubist movement that followed in the wake of the war?
ReplyDeleteAs Kristen mentions, I believe the time period has something to do with the constant drinking. With prohibition happening in the states, the expatriates probably have a special appreciation for being able to go out in public to drink. These are the type of people who see drinking as a means to make any good time an even better time; they feel it enhances their experiences. I also think there can be tension among this group at times, and the alcohol consumption helps to loosen everybody up. I only hope they have plenty of aspirin!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Charlie on his comment that alcohol is a form of "self-medication." Often we hear about people who suffer from PSTD after returning home from war, and alcohol is a way to numb the pain that soldiers feel. I also agree that drinking is something that everyone did during this time. Charlie asked, "Are these seemingly happy party people really all that happy?" I would have to say that I don't believe that they are. Each character is going through their own personal problems, such as Jake is unable to have sex and Brett cannot figure out what man she truly wants. I'd have to say partying is a way that everyone covers up reality.
ReplyDeleteWith the enormous amounts of alcohol consumed by the characters I keep asking myself: how is nobody dead yet?! Not only is there a sort of obsession in the novel about alcohol, but there is also a big focus on food. I too wonder if it is simply a product of the environment or is it a way of, like everyone else has mentioned, a way of self medicating?
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