The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers

Alas, here it is, the first of some beauteous blog entries. Do enjoy.

The Sun Also Rises


Well, Earnest Hemingway, you wrote quite a first chapter. So quite, in fact, that it left me with a few questions, which I suppose every good first chapter of a book should or else the reader may clock out early (On a side note, I just used an apostrophe in my blog! I'm such a good little Lit student).

The first of these questions though is, "Okay, you told me about Robert Cohn and his boxing, rich, jewy-ness, but why should I care?" I guess I better read on (as if I had a choice).

Also, I wanted to know exactly who Spider Kelly is in order to know if Hemingway is alluding to anything important. So kids, here's what the all-knowing Wikipedia has to say,
"Billy "Spider" Kelly (April 21, 1932 – May 7, 2010) was an Irish boxer from Derry, Northern Ireland whose career highlight was winning the Commonwealth (British Empire) featherweight title in 1954. He went on to win the British featherweight title in 1955."


Riveting.


So, I guess we're not really missing out. But he did die recently. Jeopardy question, anyone?


Anyway, let's get to that whole analyzing thing. ZOOOOOOOM!


What really jumped out at me the first time through this chapter was Hemingway's use of "rise," which happens to be the verb of choice of the title of this particular book. Coincidence? I think not. (Or maybe it is...) What I'm crazily referring to is "He had been taken in hand by a lady who hoped to rise with the magazine." and "When this lady saw that the magazine was not going to rise, she became a little disgusted with Cohn and decided that she might as well get what there was to get while there was still something available, so she urged that they go to Europe, where Cohn could write." pg. 13, 1st full paragraph.


Here, I believe, Hemingway makes a relationship between Cohn's writing career and his love life, both brutal and unforgiving, yet covetous of his time, in addition to "The Sun Also Ris[ing]," which still baffles me as to what that actually means.


Good day!