The plot gathers steam as Jake's love interest (Brett Ashley) enters the novel. And by chapter's end it is clear (by means of each character's jealousy of the other's companions) that Jake and Brett have a past, yet apparently they are unattached at the moment. Having introduced his narrator/protagonist, the hero's foil (Cohn), and a mysterious woman whom both seem drawn to, Hemingway has arranged the fundamental components of his story. The result: We read on eagerly, somewhat confused — but definitely intrigued — by this odd love triangle.
Regarding his famous style, examine Hemingway's introduction of Brett: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey." Note first of all the sparseness of the writer's description, despite the fact that Brett will occupy the very center of the story to come. (Generally, Hemingway was uninterested in cataloguing the physical appearance of his characters.) Secondly, repetition ("She . . . She . . . She . . .") creates a trancelike effect. (Hemingway learned this technique from the writer Gertrude Stein, an American expatriate in France who is quoted in one of this novel's epigraphs.) Finally, like his response to Cohn, this reaction characterizes Jake as much as it does the character he describes. Far from being indifferent to Brett's allure, our narrator feels a powerful sexual attraction to her.
The irony of Jake's condition will soon become clear, though piecing it together can challenge a reader, especially a contemporary reader accustomed to candor and explicitness in regard to matters of sexuality. But as you read on, keep in mind Jake's rebuffing of the prostitute Georgette's physical advances, and his explanation for his indifference to her ("I got hurt in the war") as well as his seemingly irrational anger at the gay men who accompany Brett to the club and then dance with the women.
