Huh?
I have quickly realized that I do not care for early twentieth century American literature. I just don't see what makes these authors so famous. There's no plot, main characters that I can't stand, and paragraphs that drag on and on and on... Seriously, I just don't get it. But one of my BFF's (the same who was disappointed with Forest Born) highly recommended this book for my book club. She described it as 1920s Seinfeld. Who wouldn't want to read THAT? So we all voted for this one and I plowed my way through it. I just couldn't get into it! I realize that if I were more of a literature buff I could pick this book apart and decipher what the characters and story symbolize...but I'm a mother of 2 young kids! Who has time for that? I want a story I can lose myself in, even when I only have 5 minutes to read a few pages.
Jacob Barnes is an American expatriate living in post WWI Paris. He hangs out with the most despicable (and some annoying) friends. The only way he can stand to be with them is to get drunk. So that's what they do EVERY TIME THEY ARE TOGETHER. The characters spend more time drinking than they do in plot. I think drinking IS the plot as a matter of fact. Jake is in love with the worst possible woman - Lady Brett Ashley. She sleeps with every man she meets. I guess that's why every man she meets falls in love with her. Jake introduces her to one of his friends, Robert Cohn, who falls madly in love with her and wants to marry her and make her an honest woman. Never mind that she is engaged to someone else and (I think) still not divorced from her first husband. The whole gang of friends vacation in Spain to watch the bull fights (cementing my determination NEVER to see a bull fight). With all the Brett lovers together, you can imagine that things end up in a fight, especially after Brett leaves her fiance and friends for a bull fighter. That is the basic plot, I guess. There wasn't much room for a plot with all that drinking going on.
I will admit, there were a few humorous moments, but it obviously wasn't enough to make the book worthwhile to me.
Skip this one. Read some Dickens instead.
just reading the title & the authors name made me not interested. :) Guess I wont be picking this one up. However, I have reserved "The Help" from the library, and hope to get it this week.
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