What's wrong with Pride and Prejudice? I think it's a witty persepective on 19th century social mores. Perhaps it's not as appealing to men though.
What's wrong with Pride and Prejudice? I think it's a witty persepective on 19th century social mores. Perhaps it's not as appealing to men though.
Exactly. I feel more pity for HSS having to read Hemingway!Originally Posted by kelby_lake
There is nothing wrong with Pride and Prejudice but I was thinking that it's going to be a bit disorienting as a study subject after The Sun Also Rises.
Rather like having to study Samuel Beckett after Terence Rattigan.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
This may sound cliche, but people who enjoy Hemingway usually don't highly appreciate Austen - and vice versa. They are very different writers who oddly enough are rather similar, in that with both of them, what is of importance is not what is said, but rather what is unsaid.
As for Hemingways prose, I am not a huge fan of minimalism, I much prefer writers like Fitzgerald and Conrad and Proust - but Hemingway has such craft that he takes a style which I don't like and makes it beautiful.
I think that TSAR and Gatsby are the two novels which best capture the new age, the new century if you will. They are the two novels which understood best what was to come and what was for the 20th century.
Much like Werther and Renne and Childe Harold were the 3 books which best captured the new age coming with the 19th century.
Check out my blog it has basically nothing to do with literature.
http://slingsandarrowsandtheproudman.blogspot.com/
There is truth in that statement, although Rattigan and Beckett were contemporaries. It would be more accurate to say: it would be like reading Beckett, and then reading Tolstoy.
Although the subject matter may be disliked by males, it is impossible to dislike one of the first few novels that employed free indirect speech. Of course that would only compel critics to read it.
It's not that there's something wrong with Austen, it's just that they're going from one "boring" classic to another. It would have been nice to mix things up a bit with something more contemporary or exciting, even just a short story.
Hello HS!
I wish I had seen your thread sooner [would that I were on Litnet more frequently!]
I have taught 'The Sun Also Rises' to my high school students, and they all expressed similar sentiments as you. You must remember the times in which the novel is set. Once you have this historical time-set, which is post world war, coupled with the loss of belief in love and faith, you will understand that the characters are basically waiting to die.
The novel doesn't tell a story, rather it portrays a static situation. It's almost as if you are looking at a still picture - you have to interpret what the characters are thinking and feeling. All this is portrayed by the relationship between Bret and Jake: it's a stagnant relationship: she's a nymphomaniac, but he's impotent, in other words, she needs sex - a lot, and he will never be able to 'rise' to the occasion. They love eachother, but they can never truly satisfy one another.
Sad to say, the characters' lives - the nothingness, the hopelessness, the loss - are a reflection of the modern western society. Due to the loss felt by millions of people around the world after the world wars, people can no longer believe in god, or in love. And this is what the novel seeks to tell us: that love is as satiating as the drinks they have [it's never enough], and that faith is given as much regard as Jake's acknowledgement of the church in pamploma - which isn't much!
If there is anything to really call a plot, one can claim that the characters are perhaps unconsciously trying to find that love and faith that they had lost. However, they are afraid to find it, because they know that it will only lead to disappointment once more. This is why we feel so sorry for Cohn at the end of the novel - he's the only one who didn't get the memo - that love and faith are old news - he still believed in both, and what did it get him? Disappointment. Loss.
I know it may be too late, but I hope this little interpretation was of interest and of assistance.
Last edited by Tournesol; 08-13-2011 at 06:08 AM.
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