Ambiguity

The end of the novel is ambiguous. Although Brett says on page 247 that she's "going back to Mike," she and Jake seem to be having a lot of fun together in the last few pages. I can't tell at the end if Jake and Brett are about to "hook up" or if they're just having another one of their flirting episodes. The fact that Brett had Jake travel to Madrid on a whim is really annoying. That part also contributes to the ambiguity. Did she really ask him top come to Madrid because she was in trouble? I don't think she did. I think that she is reconsidering her love for Jake, and she wanted to test his love for her. She truly has come full circle from "Don't touch me" to kissing him in her room.

Again?!

As soon as Jake begins to relax and forget his troubles, Brett has to go and bother him again. Her telegram "Could you come Hotel Montana Madrid am rather in trouble Brett" on page 242 probably made his heart skip a beat, but I'm sure he rolled his eyes at the same time. She just can't let him be. I truly feel sorry for him since he cannot escape her. He wants to love her, but she won't allow it, and she keeps taunting him with it anyway. It's not fair to him, and, as the reader, it's frustrating for me. But he gives in and even signs his response with "love Jake." She's taunting him, but he's the one who keeps falling for it. I feel somewhat bad for him, but they're both contributing to their own problems. Jake's suggestion on page 34 of "stay[ing] away from each other" would have been better for both of them.

Chapter 18

Okay so this chapter has me really confused. Why did Brett leave with Romero when she's supposed to marry Mike? Did I miss the break-up, or did she just decide to leave? Her relationship issues really bug me a lot. Why can't she just stay with one guy? She doesn't have to be with every man on the face of the earth to be happy, and she doesn't seem to understand that all it's doing is making her life worse. She complains about her life with "British aristocracy" on page 207, but she's just blaming them for her own problems. It really becomes apparent in chapter 18 that she needs to take responsibility for herself. Sure, Romero might love her, but she probably doesn't love him. She might pretend to, but she doesn't. Chapter 18: definitely annoying.

Foil! But Not the Math Kind...Or the Kitchen Kind.

For hating Cohn so much, I sure do talk about him a lot, but all he's good for is being analyzed. He and Jake are foils, especially when it comes to Brett. Brett and Jake clearly have a past together. All their talk of "Don't you love me?...Isn't there anything we can do about it?" (p. 34) makes that very obvious for the reader. However, Cohn seems to fall in love with Brett immediately upon seeing her, and feels the need to know everything about her. Idiot makes the mistake of asking Jake, and that sets the jealousy ball rolling. As a side note, did Cohn's reaction to Jake's less-than-nice explanation of Brett make anyone else think "Hey! She's a nice lady!"? A Hangover quote is always necessary...lightens the mood. Kind of like "Why so serious?". Who can be serious after that? But seriously, both Jake and Cohn want Brett. They use different methods to show that, though. Jake is thoughtful and careful about the feelings of his and Brett's friends, so he's quiet about his "relationship" with Brett. Cohn, however, brags to everyone about San Sebastian, beats up a bull-fighter, and publicly worries/asks/talks about Brett. Jake's behavior makes Cohn seem incredibly annoying and overbearing while Cohn's actions make Jake seem too shy and soft-spoken.

Why Didn't I Think of This Before?!

Cohn and Brett are actually really similar! At first, it seemed as though Brett and Cohn weren't very similar at all. Brett liked to party with whomever she pleased, and Cohn was "whipped" and following Frances around like a duckling follows its mother. They really are alike, though! Okay, so both of them had failed marriages. Robert Cohn's wife left him "just as he had made up his mind to leave his wife" (p. 12), and on page 207, we learn that Brett's ex-husband "used to tell her he'd kill her." So that explains part of their messed-up-ness. Additionally, (check out that transition! it's pretty, right?) they've found new significant others with whom they appear to be happy. But at the beginning of the novel, Cohn and Frances fall apart, and towards the end, Brett and Mike begin to fall apart. While they come from similar pasts, they both act very different, but they still have serious issues when it comes to relationships.

Brett and Mike

Brett and Mike have a peculiar relationship. Brett sleeps with every man she meets and is in love with Jake and possibly Pedro Romero. A real classy woman, right? Anyway, her attitude toward men doesn't appear to have an adverse effect on Mike at the beginning of the novel. He seems almost oblivious, and I think he truly was oblivious to Brett and Jake's relationship. However, later in the novel, Mike becomes sensitive to Brett's promiscuous habits, and an external conflict develops. On page 210, a drunken Mike makes the distasteful comment "How's your boy friend?...Brett's got a bull-fighter...She had a Jew named Cohn, but he turned out badly." Mike's relationship with Brett appears to be falling apart toward the end of the novel, and Brett's attitude doesn't help anything. She doesn't seem like the type to get married. She'd be cheating like crazy. She can't control herself at all as she says on page 187: "I can't help it. I'm a goner now anyway...I've got to do something I really want to do. I've lost my self-respect."

Lady Brett Ashley

Firstly, isn't Brett a guy's name? I'm just saying... Okay, so Brett is another one of those characters that really gets on my nerves. Her constant flirting is annoying, and her attitude toward relationships makes no sense to me, specifically her relationship with Jake. In chapter three, as cited in my last post, Brett turns Cohn down to dance with Jake. However, in chapter four, the true nature of Brett and Jake's relationship is revealed, and Brett seems to want to put a great distance between herself and Jake as she demonstrates in the cab on page 33: "...and then she turned away and pressed against the corner of the seat, as far away as she could get." Jake is almost like Brett's kryptonite. A masochistic Brett keeps coming back to him because she feels she has to see Jake, but she still refuses to settle for being in love with him although she freely admits that she is. She's almost bipolar. In one cab ride, she goes from "Don't touch me" (33) to "Kiss me just once more before we get there" (35). If she loves him so much, why can't she just be with him and try to be happy? Flirting and sleeping with every man she meets can't be truly satisfying if she's really experienced love with Jake. To me, it seems that Brett's idea of love is skewed. She appears to be confusing love with any sense of attraction.