In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

AMERICANS IN PARIS 13
sion, to undertake such long and expensive voyages? [see Center = Periphery
(Infinitude)] What do American travelers expect from being in
Paris? Very few among them go to (or through) Paris for a specific
purpose, as do several thousand American soldiers who in the early fall
begin to withdraw from the occupied German Rhineland, along with
French and English troops (New York Times, September 22). The sales
strategies of the tourist industry suggest that, for the well-to-do majority
of American travelers, France and Paris are the locus of ultimate refinement
in lifestyle and culture. Now that technological progress has made
transatlantic voyages relatively safe, first-hand experience of European
culture is becoming a standard element in the education of adolescents
from upper-middle-class families.
In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway's first and already very
successful novel, Jake, the narrator, and his friend Bill meet a family of
American tourists on a railway trip from France to Spain [see Railroads]:
In our compartment were a man and his wife and their young son. "I
suppose you're Americans, aren't you?" the man asked. "Having a
good trip?" "Wonderful," said Bill. "That's what you want to do.
Travel while you're young. Mother and I always wanted to get over,
but we had to wait a while." ... "Say, there's plenty of Americans on
this train," the husband said. "They've got seven cars of them from
Dayton, Ohio. They've been on a pilgrimage to Rome, and now they're
going down to Biarritz and Lourdes." "So, that's what they are. Goddamn
Puritans." "What part of the States you boys from?" "Kansas
City," I said. "He's from Chicago." "You both going to Biarritz?" "No.
We're going fishing in Spain." (87f£')
Having to share a compartment with these fellow Americans is an unwelcome
interference in Jake and Bill's experience of Europe. Although
the family from Dayton is on a cultural rather than religious pilgrimage,
and although even Jake and Bill are merely following the instructions of
the tourist industry to travel from Paris southward ("distances are short
in France"), Hemingway's protagonists lump all other Americans together
as "goddamn Puritans." For puritanism, Prohibition, and speechless
admiration for European refinement are exactly what the characters
in The Sun Also Rises and their real-life models (Hemingway's American
friends in Paris) are trying to escape. Jake Barnes, the author's alter ego,