Robert Cohn, or, Good God What Is This Guy’s Problem, Can’t He Take A Hint?
No matter what events are taking place, whether Jake is calm or in the midst of a fight, whether Brett is asking for a drink or professing her misery, whether the group is in Paris or Spain, there is always one thing that is true (and no, it’s not Brett being drunk.)
Everybody hates Robert Cohn.
And it’s not just a little. It’s not just a bit of dislike, a slight annoyance when he’s around. No, everyone despises this man. More than once, multiple people express that they’re glad he’s gone, that they wish he could take a hint, that they want to deck him in the face. At first glance, this seems unwarranted--Cohn is just trying to have fun like the rest of them, isn’t he? But he is undeniably separate from the group of friends Jake enjoys the company of, and why is that?
He doesn’t drink.
The book is full of scenes of the group getting drunk, intentionally or not, enjoyable or not. It’s a running joke that Brett always wants a drink. Jake drinks three bottles of wine at one meal. Nearly every page has a description of how drunk someone is, or what they are sipping on, or a flashback to how drunk they once were. And in the middle of it all? Totally sober Cohn.
A sober Cohn means a serious Cohn. So while everyone around him is making jokes and ironic statements, things that shouldn’t be taken to heart, much less acted upon, Cohn is being hurt, personally and emotionally, by statements no one really means (or if they do, they wouldn’t normally say to his face).
Slowly but surely, this distances him from the group, from him thinking his little fling with Brett means something to actually beating up Romero and Jake. And well, when you do that, nobody’s gonna like you.
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ReplyDeleteI really like you post and think that it provides a lot to think about regarding Cohn. He is the only sober one and when everyone else is joking he takes great offense. I think the not drinking and the fact that he wasn't in the war are reasons he is separate from the group. He is also Jewish which is what his friends mention from time to time so that could be another factor. I think some of the things they say to him they mean and would say even if they weren't drunk. Cohn definitely is an outcast by the end after he beats up the other 2 guys though so I agree on your last sentence. Great post!
ReplyDeleteIt remains interesting to me, though, that the big complaint about Cohn initially seems to be that he is insufficiently masculine--women "take him in hand" and "lead him quite a life," and he's not a "real" boxer, just an insecure Jew who is a "pupil" of a boxing teacher at Princeton. But by the end of the book, he's going around knocking dudes out with his fists, and Jake in particular does not seem particularly noble or competent in his "fight" with Cohn (he's drunk, he gets knocked on his ass and then has trouble standing back up so he just lies down and passes out--not a very dramatic action scene!). It might appear that Cohn is the manly man, talking with his fists, taking no crap. But everyone just laughs at him anyway, and they seem especially offended that he's so violent with Romero. There is an interesting take on masculinity here, where certain conventionally masculine domains light fist-fights have become meaningless in the postwar era. When Robert threatens to fight Harvey Stone, Stone retorts by stating that Cohn "doesn't mean anything" to him. For Cohn, fighting is a way to insist that something means something to him--he is "defending his honor" or "Brett's honor" or whatever. But the pervasive irony can always deflate this prewar version of masculinity: "Sit down, Robert. No one cares but you."
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