I have not yet finished reading "The Sun Also Rises." At this stage of reading, I have some guesses and possible suggestions as to why Hemmingway split the novel into two books. I don't guarantee that any of these may be correct, but I just wanted to write them down somewhere:
- He envisioned Book 1 as a sort of introduction to Book 2, in terms of solidifying character relationships in the reader's mind before moving on to the actual meat of the story. In Book 1, he shows all of the characters and gives some insight into Jake's thoughts about the characters' personalities and lifestyles.
- There may simply be a difference in setting: Book 1 largely takes place in France, whereas Book 2 largely takes place in Spain. (I don't know if this is correct or not because I have not finished the book yet.)
- In Book 2, he might try and make a broader point about society that covers more than just specific people and their relations (With a little commentary about society that can be garnered from what he says.) He sets up for all of the major characters to be grouped together in one place a the same time: a confrontation will occur.
- In Book 1, Hemmingway shows Jake's relationship with Brett, with their relationships to other characters thrown in on the side. In Book 2, Hemmingway might be planning to show how the relationship between Brett and Jake changes when Brett is with the person she will actually marry. This could partly explain why Hemmingway chose to split Books 1 and 2 between Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 closes with Brett leaving the next day. Chapter 8 opens, "I did not see Brett again until..." Hemmingway gives more background, setting the stage for when Jake sees Brett in the taxi a few pages later, about to get ready for when Mike, her fiance, arrives in Paris at 9 pm that night.
I plan to come back to this idea, assuming I remember, once I have finished the book, and write a blog on my theory as to why there is Book 1 and Book 2, and why the split occurs between Chapters 7 and 8.
1 comment:
Interesting stuff. Note that there is a short Book 3 as well--chapter 19 only. I have some ideas about how that fits into this schema--sort of an epilogue or coda--and I'll be curious to see how you view it. I like this "structural" line of thought, because, at first glance, this can seem like a rather "loose" novel in terms of structure--it doesn't follow a traditional "three-act" pattern, but it also doesn't have the inherent unity of Woolf's single-day structure (or Baker's single-hour structure). It's not easy to tell, based on the mood and pace of a particular scene, whether we're at the start of a story or near its climax. It's not even totally clear where the "climax" even is in this novel.
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