Ernest Hemingway · 1926 · road

Ernest Hemingway's 1926 first novel. Jake Barnes and a circle of expatriates leave the cafes of Paris for the fiesta of San Fermin, by way of five days' trout fishing on the Irati - and the week at Pamplona takes the group apart. The route doubles back on itself twice, because they do.

1. 1
   Paris

   Jake Barnes reports for an American paper and drinks in the cafes of Montparnasse - the Select, the Rotonde, the Closerie - and cannot have Brett Ashley, for a reason the war left him and the novel never states outright.

2. 2
   Bayonne

   Jake and Bill take the train south and reach Bayonne in the evening, meeting Cohn - the crossing into the Basque country, and the last comfortable stop before the fishing and the fiesta.

3. 3
   Pamplona

   They arrive a week before San Fermin and take rooms at Montoya's hotel, where being a genuine aficionado is worth more than money - and Brett and Mike fail to turn up on the train they said they would.

4. 4
   Burguete

   Jake and Bill take the bus up from the Plaza del Castillo to fish the Irati - five days of trout, cold wine in the stream and bridge in the evenings, and the only clean happiness in the novel.

5. 5
   Pamplona

   Back for the fiesta: seven days of wine, the bulls running through the streets, Brett taking up with the nineteen-year-old matador Romero, and Cohn - a college boxer - beating everybody and then weeping.

6. 6
   Bayonne

   The fiesta ends and the party comes apart. They drive back over the border together and separate at Bayonne: Bill for Paris, Mike staying on, and Jake going his own way alone.

7. 7
   San Sebastian

   A week planned on the coast, swimming in the bay each morning and trying to put himself back in order - and a telegram from Brett in Madrid cuts it short after two days.

8. 8
   Madrid

   The Hotel Montana, Brett with no money and Romero sent away, and the taxi at the end - isn't it pretty to think so, which is the last line and the whole argument of the book.