The Sun Also Rises: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Jake doesn't see Brett or Cohn for a good long while. He receives one brief, appropriately warm postcard from Brett in San Sebastian, and a note from Cohn, who says he's left Paris for the countryside. Meanwhile, Jake's friend and fellow veteran Bill Gorton arrives from the U.S. with plans to visit Budapest and Vienna and then to go to Spain with Jake to go fishing and to the Pamplona fiesta. Bill is full of good spirits in his descriptions of the U.S., but when returns from Vienna three weeks later he is less cheerful.

Bill reports that he got so drunk in Vienna that he can't remember any of the four days he spent there. Then he does remember one thing: a boxing match, in which a "wonderful nigger" knocked out a local boy, and its aftermath.

As they walk around Paris looking for a restaurant, Bill tells Jake about a man he was drinking with earlier in the day whose secret is never being "daunted." Jake says Harvey Stone was daunted, and now doesn't sleep and goes off like a cat all the time. They agree not to get daunted.

Suddenly they see Brett in a passing taxi. She stops the cab and gets out, reporting that she's just back from San Sebastian and that Mike is following later in the day. Jake insists they all meet that night. Brett says she was an ass to leave and that she didn't do anything in San Sebastian. After Brett leaves, Jake comments that she is soon going to marry Mike and Bill jokes that he always meets girls in that stage of life.

Bill and Jake eat dinner at a restaurant that's full of Americans, mainly because it has a review calling it "untouched by Americans." Bill had eaten there in 1918 just after the war ended and the owner fusses over him. She also asks Jake why he never comes to eat there. He replies that there are too many of his compatriots.

Before going to meet Brett and Mike, Jake and Bill go for a walk. They cross the Seine and see Notre Dame cathedral from the river. Bill says that he loves to get back to Paris. They pass a bar, but Bill says he doesn't need a drink so they just keep on walking.

When Jake and Bill get to the bar, Brett introduces Mike as a drunkard. Mike is, in fact, drunk, and he keeps commenting about how beautiful and wonderful Brett is. Conversation turns to a boxing match going on that night, but Mike says he'd prefer not to go, as he "has a date." Jake and Bill head off to the fight, and as they leave Jake notices Brett looking happy as she scolds Mike and takes him home.