The Sun Also Rises (Chapters 18 & 19)

Chapters 18 & 19 Summaries

Then Robert leaves Pamplona and Brett meets everyone else at a cafe. She tells them that Romero looks quite bad after his beating from the bull, but that he plans to get back into bullfighting right away. Mike then remarks that Brett has cheated on him with a Robert who is a Jew and Romero who is a bullfighter. He remarks that both of them have turned away from her and now she is left with neither of them. Brett then draws Jake away from the cafe as Mike overturns the table, dumping beer and food all over the floor. Brett asks Jake if he will take her to a church because she wants to pray for Romero, but she becomes nervous and wants to leave not long after they enter. They both return to the hotel and Montoya bows to Jake and Brett, but does not smile. Brett retires to Romero's room, and Jake checks on Mike. Mike is laying on his bed totally drunk and miserable. Bill and Jake eat lunch before they meet Brett for the last bullfight of the fiesta. When Jake, Bill, and Brett all arrive at the arena, Romero sends his cape to Brett for her to hold during the fights. Belmonte, one of the three bullfighters, has come out of retirement to fight. His reputation for working dangerously close to the bull is legendary. The crowd thus expects more from him than he could ever achieve, even at the height of his career. However, they love Romero's calm, smooth style and natural talent. Romero faces the bull that killed the man running in the street that morning. He leads the bull with a grace that appeals to the crowd. After he kills the bull, its notched ear is cut off. He brings the ear over to Brett and tells her that it is hers to keep. Jake and Bill drink in a cafe afterward. Jake is depressed, so Bill urges him to drink three shots in a row. He finds Mike sitting in his hotel room in the process of getting drunk. Then Bill finds out that Brett has just left Pamplona on a train with Romero. He tells Jake and Mike the news and Mike increases his amounts of drinks he was having, until he passes out cold. Then chapter 19 begins the next day in Pamplona and there last day. Mike, Bill, and Jake share a car ride together to Bayonne. They get drunk again and drive to Saint Jean de Luz to drop Mike off. Jake says goodbye to Bill at the train station in Bayonne and tells him that they will have to get together sometime soon. Jake spends time making friends in Bayonne by tipping people generously. He takes a morning train to San Sebastian for a few days of relaxation. Not long after his arrival, however, he receives two telegrams, one forwarded from Paris and one forwarded from Pamplona. Both are from Brett. She wants him to come to the Hotel Montana in Madrid because she is in major trouble and she needs his help. He immediately makes arrangements to leave San Sebastian and meet her. When Jake arrives in Madrid, Brett greets him with a kiss. Jake shocked that she was alone and even more shocked that she had kissed him. She told him that she has sent Romero away. She said that she had to send for Jake to come to Madrid because she was not sure if she could make Romero leave, and she did not have money to get away. Romero offered her money, but she would not take it. Jake told her that he was ashamed of her at first and wanted her to grow up and act like a women. Then she told him that Romero wanted to marry her so that she would never leave him. But she forced Romero to leave because she did not want to ruin him. She adds that she wants to go back to Mike. She and Jake go to a bar and have three martinis each before having lunch in a nice restaurant, where Jake drinks three bottles of wine. He then orders two more bottles of wine and downs a couple of glasses. Brett asks Jake not to get drunk and assures him that he will be fine. Though when he had said that, she could tell that he was already drunk. Then they got a taxi to drive around town. Jake puts his arm around her, and Brett tells him that she and him had have such great times together and have stuck together all the way from the beginning of there friendship. Jake agrees with her and tells her that she is absolutely right.

Chapters 18 & 19 Personal Comments

I felt that these to chapters could have been a lot better. I think that they were good, but I just wished that the end of the book would have been better then what it was. I think that chapter 18 had a lot of distrust between characters and friendships were being broken. Though I really do like how the book was ended with how ironic Jake would go back to Brett and she would draw him in and then tell him that she was interested in someone else. I believe that this book that I had to read was a very confusing and difficult book to read, but when I had gotten through the difficulty parts, I enjoyed reading the rest. Chapters 18 & 19 as an overview, were a great finish of a great novel.