“I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together, and I always had a suspicion that perhaps Robert Cohn had never been middleweight boxing champion, and that perhaps a horse had stepped on his face, or that maybe his mother had been frightened or seen something or that he had, maybe, bumped into something as a small child, but I finally had somebody verify the story from Spider Kelly.” 

In the passage above, it’s apparent that Jake was already skeptical of Cohn well before their conflict over Cohn’s relationship with Brett. Later in the story, Barnes suspects that Cohn withholds information about his relationship with Brett out of a sense of superiority. 

‘‘‘Listen Jake,’ he leaned forward on the bar. ‘Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?’” 

Following World War I and the influenza pandemic, the Lost Generation of the 1920s appreciate the brevity of life. After a decade defined by suffering and death, they want indulgence and romantic adventure.

“It was a warm spring night and I sat at a table on the terrace of the Napolitain after Robert had gone, watching it get dark and the electric signs come on, and the red and green stop-and-go traffic-signal and the crowd going by and the horse-cabs clippety-clopping along at the edge of the solid taxi traffic and the poules going by, singly and in pairs, looking for the evening meal.” 

In this scene, Jake observes the café’s surroundings, which keeps him from turning inward. This pattern is common throughout the book, a way for Jake to avoid reflecting on his own wounds. As he spends night after night on the town, he focuses on the exterior environment as well as on his relationships with current friends and associates.