Carnival (novel)

"Carnival" (2005), by Robert Antoni, is a reworking of Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises".

Though Antoni does draw heavily from the activities of the characters from "The Sun Also Rises", "Carnival" describes the sense of displacement and illusion experienced by the characters who have exiled themselves from their island in the West Indies.The main character, William Fletcher, has a similar wound to Jake Barnes from "The Sun Also Rises" but William's wound is a self-imposed one. Though they both cannot use their penises, Jake still has the intense passion to be with women but is unable because of wound he received from World War I. On the other hand, William still has his penis but he becomes fearful whenever he gets involved intimately with women to the point where intimacy and sex become self-described hell. His one and only true love is the vivacious Rachel who, like Brett Ashley, is the sexual focus of all the men in the novel.