I’m back home from a long day of teaching Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. All in all, I think both classes went well. I brought a different perspective to TSAR than I have in the past. One of the points that has often troubled me about this novel is the seeming anti-Semitism associated with the character of Robert Cohen. The abuse heaped upon Robert never added quite up; it seemed quite out of character for Hemingway.

I recently read The Living Moment: Modernism in a Broken World by Jeffrey Hart, and I think Hart has developed a theory that works for me, at least. He examines TSAR in context with The Great Gatsby and The Wasteland. In any case, he concludes that while Cohen’s biography may have been taken from someone else, Cohen’s personality is that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.  It does make some sense. Cohen’s overt romanticism and sentimentality parallels those of FSF. Cohen is an outcast and outsider at WASP Princeton, much like FSF. Cohen is browbeaten by the woman he is pursuing, much like FSF. Hemingway, Hart concludes, was frustrated by the success of GG and found it overly romantic. TSAR is the response. It is definitely an argument worth considering. (The Living Moment: Modernism in a Broken World: Jeffrey Hart: 9780810128217: Amazon.com: Books)