GEORGE MONTEIRO
Cohn's Descent
Seventy years after the publication of
The Sun Also Rises
the import of
Robert Cohn's "jewishness" remains an open question. Does the anti–
Semitism directed at Cohn by his companions constitute evidence that
Hemingway is himself an anti-Semite? Because the pertinent facts are not
self-evident, or, when determined, easily interpreted, the question contin–
ues to vex readers of Hemingway's first novel. A good deal of evidence
external to
The Sun Also Rises
can be assembled for pretty much whatever
case one wishes to make on either side.
But the question of Hemingway's anti-Semitism is not the focus here.
Rather I take it as clearly reflective of the times that when Hemingway's
characters are most virulent about Cohn's "jewishness"-whether they
refer to his acting "superior" ("Well, let him not get superior and Jewish,"
says Bill Gorton) or his showing forth his suffering-it is because they are
keenly annoyed at
him
for not "fitting in" with their rather narrow little
band of self-defined "insiders." He is incapable of
aficion
when it comes to
bullfighting nor can he be--unlike Count Mippipopulous-"quite one of
us" (to quote Brett Ashley).
Despite Jake Barnes's annoyance at Cohn-who bothers him at work
(he does not know he is not wanted at the office, going down with Jake
for a drink but either missing or ignoring the hint that he is to go away
when Jake excuses himself to go back to his work, returning with him only
to fall asleep on a couch)-and his disapproving remark that a Cohn-in–
love is a man who lets his good tennis game go to pieces, it is not until the
coterie of tourist would-be-aficionados go to Spain that Cohn perfects his
unwelcome self. His gaffs are telling. He does not bother to pick out his
own fishing gear, preferring that Jake do it for him, and then fails to show
up for the fishing itself, preferring to intercept Brett at Biarritz and send–
ing Jake an abbreviated telegram that offers inadequate information, failing
to wri te up to the number of words allotted him for the price he pays for
the ambiguous and cryptic telegram he chooses to send. He foregoes the
opportuni ty for new experience in a new country, preferring to tag after
Brett and Mike. To adapt one of Hemingway's favorite quotations, from
Christopher Marlowe by way of
T.
S. Eliot: "Thou has committed forni–
cation but that was in another country; besides the wench is with another
man." He makes known that he expects that the bullfights will bore him,
