Drinking. And?

Alternatives to discussing alcoholism after reading The Sun Also Rises:

• Like the sun, wind, and rivers in Ecclesiastes 1:5, the characters in The Sun Also Rises are paradoxically both always changing and always the same, “returning again according to [their] circuits.”

• What was originally meant by Gertrude Stein’s term “the lost generation”? What shift in meaning might have led Hemingway to reject the term later in life?

• While much of Hemingway’s work is known for its hyper-masculinity, The Sun Also Rises stands out as a divergence from this pattern. Beginning with Jake Barnes’ impotence, male characters throughout the text are repeatedly humiliated and emasculated. Lady Brett Ashley, in contrast, wields tremendous power.
• Although Lady Brett uses her mythic beauty for gain, her body functions as a ‘gilded cage’, entrapping and isolating her rather than offering real liberation.
• While Hemingway seemingly strips his characters bare for the reader, exposing their weaknesses and inadequacies, the novel is dominated by a recurring theme of ‘appearances.’ In fact, “nothing is as it seems.”
• The lack of social grace of Jack’s crew notwithstanding, can The Sun Also Rises be read as a guide to American expatriate and traveling etiquette?
• Mentions of Catholicism and Barnes’ aspirations towards religious sentiment recur throughout the novel. What does this mean in light of traditional interpretations of Ecclesiastes 1:5? How does this search for God figure into Barnes’ inclusion in the “lost generation”?
• Besides Hemingway’s personal aficion for bullfighting, what is its significance in the novel?
• Etc.

(Note: Alcoholic writers - Hunter S. Thompson, Raymond Chandler, John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Jack Kerouac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Bukowski, and, of course, Ernest Hemingway, to name a few - write about alcohol. It is part of the fabric of their autobiographical experience. However, it is not the drinking that makes their prose relevant.)