What do you think?
Rate this book
倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳
倬丕乇蹖爻貙 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳 蹖丕丿诏丕乇 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖 丕夭 倬丕乇蹖爻 丿賴賴鈥屰� 鄄郯 賵 丕乇夭卮賲賳丿鬲乇蹖賳 亘禺卮 丕夭 丿爻鬲鈥屬嗁堌簇団€屬囏й� 亘乇噩丕蹖 賲丕賳丿賴 丕夭 丕賵爻鬲 讴賴 丕賵賱鈥屫ㄘж� 倬爻 丕夭 賲乇诏卮 賲賳鬲卮乇 卮丿 賵 亘賴 爻乇毓鬲 丿乇 賲蹖丕賳 倬乇賮乇賵卮鈥屫臂屬� 讴鬲丕亘鈥屬囏й屫� 噩丕蹖 诏乇賮鬲. 賲丕乇蹖賵 亘丕乇诏丕爻 蹖賵爻丕 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 芦胤賱爻賲蹖 噩丕丿賵蹖蹖禄 賲蹖鈥屫з嗀� 讴賴 芦賴乇 賮氐賱卮 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 讴賵鬲丕賴蹖 丕爻鬲 丌乇丕爻鬲賴 亘賴 丨爻賳鈥屬囏й� 亘賴鬲乇蹖賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й� 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄貨 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й屰� 趩賳丕賳 爻乇夭賳丿賴 賵 卮賮丕賮 讴賴 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲賳馗賲 賵 倬乇卮鬲丕亘 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴鈥屫簇з� 乇丕 倬蹖卮 趩卮賲 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 亘賴 鬲氐賵蹖乇 賲蹖鈥屭┴促嗀�.
223 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
8214 people are currently reading
167398 people want to read
About the author
Ernest Hemingway
1,977听books31.2k听followersErnest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 12,238 reviews
July 20, 2018
鈥滻f you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.鈥� Ernest Hemingway
The Lost Generation: Hemingway and the circle of ex-pat friends he later immortalised in The Sun Also Rises. More friends, including Harold Loeb, the model for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises, on the left, Hemingway in the centre and Hadley on the right.
I hadn鈥檛 planned to read this book until I read this great article in the The Atlantic that was published recently by Joe Fassler that consists of a conversation he had with Daniel Woodrell. This article which whether you care one wit about Woodrell or for that matter Ernest Hemingway is still an inspiring read. Woodrell while bumming around Mexico found himself negotiating a trade with a hungry young American of a meal for a copy of A Moveable Feast. Woodrell ended up buying two tacos for a book that changed his life. He was ni-ni-nin-teen. He read the book through several times and for the price of two tacos it set him on the course to being a writer.
I have not read Hemingway for decades. I often think of him as a gateway drug to better literature. As you can imagine ever since my son was old enough to read I鈥檝e been chucking books at him that I felt that he should read with frankly disappointing results. Books stabbed with bristling bookmarks littered his room and were left for dead. I realized I was trying to move him forward too fast and so I thought about what I liked to read when I was first becoming a reader. I tossed Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs into his room. The books came back gnawed and masticated.
I did a little dance.
Then I gave him Hemingway.
I heard the snap of the bear trap.
He read everything he could get his hands on by Hemingway. In fact he has now read more Hemingway than I have. He then went on to Fitzgerald and expanded out to reading some film history books. By the whisker of my chiny chin chin he became a reader.
Despite the ease in reading Hemingway鈥檚 sparse prose I found myself squirming every time I sat down to read this book. I like vocabulary and the Oxford English Dictionary has listings for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words. So when we write we have a choice of 228,132 words to express ourselves. It feels like Hemingway cuts out 227,000 of them. The average literate adult knows 50,000, but may only use 17,000 and some studies show as low as 5,000. If you count for instance DRIVE, DRIVER AND DRIVES as three separate words our language blossoms to over 600,000 entries.
Hemingway was bucking against the establishment when he decided that adjectives were not necessary and sliced his prose down to just the bare minimum of what the reader needs.
Short sentences, short words.
I don鈥檛 mind some purple in my prose. William Faulkner鈥檚 famous epic opening sentence for Absalom! Absalom! was 1,288 words long. James Joyce in Ulysses made a mockery out of that with a sentence 4,391 words long. The fact of the matter is Hemingway has been canonized and his minimized writing style had a huge impact on the next generations of writers. I cringe whenever I hear anyone say if there is a simpler word use it. This all said a writer does have a responsibility to write to their audience.
The One and Only Gertrude Stein
Hemingway had some...well... interesting conversations with Gertrude Stein. Stein for the record gives me the willies more so when she expresses her opinions. The Lost Generation, as this group of creative people in Paris were called, flocked to her door and fell at her feet. She commanded respect and if you did not give that respect you were not invited back.
鈥滻 had started this conversation and thought it had become a little dangerous. There were almost never paused and there were something she wanted to tell me and I filled my glass.
鈥榊ou know nothing about any of this really, Hemingway,鈥� She said. 鈥榊ou鈥檝e met known criminals and sick people and vicious people. The main thing is that the act male homosexuals commit is ugly and repugnant and afterwards they are disgusted with themselves. They drink and take drugs, to palliate this, but they are disgusted with the act and they are always changing partners and cannot be really happy.鈥�
鈥業 see.鈥�
鈥業n women it is the opposite. They do nothing that they are disgusted by and nothing that is repulsive and afterwards they are happy and they can lead happy lives together.鈥�
鈥業 see.鈥欌€�
I see. I see. I see.
Hemingway also spent some time with Fitzgerald. His portrayal of F. Scott is not the most endearing, but then I have no illusions about Fitzgerald and his destructive lifestyle, in particular, his debilitating drinking. Hemingway did admire Scott鈥檚 writing.
鈥滺is talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a Butterfly鈥檚 wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it was effortless.鈥�
Ernest Hemingway (The Bull) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Butterfly).
Hemingway becomes exasperated with the devastating influence that Zelda had on Fitzgerald鈥檚 life and writing. She wanted to drink, party, and be merry all the time. Zelda Sayre broke up with F. Scott after they became engaged. He was determined to become famous in an effort to win her back. He wrote This Side of Paradise and sent it out for consideration to publishers. The result: he lined the walls of his study with the rejection slips. After a third revision Maxwell Perkins went to bat for him and Scribners decided to publish. The book sold out in three days.
It makes me wonder if F. Scott had never met Zelda would he have ever become a successful writer? She was his muse and his kryptonite.
One thing I have discovered over the years in watching the relationship gymnastics of my friends is that we can not help who we fall in love with. It is mystical and sometimes makes no sense even to ourselves.
I鈥檝e always liked this picture of the The Fitzgeralds.
A source of contention between Zelda and F. Scott was that all those wonderful witty bits of dialogue that came out of her mouth ended up in his writing. She had literary aspirations herself and felt that he was stealing her best material.
I wish I鈥檇 read this book when I was ni-ni-nin-teen because maybe I鈥檇 be a brilliant regional writer like Daniel Woodrell. (It could have been me being knocked silly on an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.) If you do not know much about the Lost Generation and their time in Paris this isn鈥檛 a bad place to start. It will be a quick read and should lead to other books and a new found interest in a period of time when it felt like everything was possible and change wasn鈥檛 something to be feared.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:
The Lost Generation: Hemingway and the circle of ex-pat friends he later immortalised in The Sun Also Rises. More friends, including Harold Loeb, the model for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises, on the left, Hemingway in the centre and Hadley on the right.
I hadn鈥檛 planned to read this book until I read this great article in the The Atlantic that was published recently by Joe Fassler that consists of a conversation he had with Daniel Woodrell. This article which whether you care one wit about Woodrell or for that matter Ernest Hemingway is still an inspiring read. Woodrell while bumming around Mexico found himself negotiating a trade with a hungry young American of a meal for a copy of A Moveable Feast. Woodrell ended up buying two tacos for a book that changed his life. He was ni-ni-nin-teen. He read the book through several times and for the price of two tacos it set him on the course to being a writer.
I have not read Hemingway for decades. I often think of him as a gateway drug to better literature. As you can imagine ever since my son was old enough to read I鈥檝e been chucking books at him that I felt that he should read with frankly disappointing results. Books stabbed with bristling bookmarks littered his room and were left for dead. I realized I was trying to move him forward too fast and so I thought about what I liked to read when I was first becoming a reader. I tossed Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs into his room. The books came back gnawed and masticated.
I did a little dance.
Then I gave him Hemingway.
I heard the snap of the bear trap.
He read everything he could get his hands on by Hemingway. In fact he has now read more Hemingway than I have. He then went on to Fitzgerald and expanded out to reading some film history books. By the whisker of my chiny chin chin he became a reader.
Despite the ease in reading Hemingway鈥檚 sparse prose I found myself squirming every time I sat down to read this book. I like vocabulary and the Oxford English Dictionary has listings for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words. So when we write we have a choice of 228,132 words to express ourselves. It feels like Hemingway cuts out 227,000 of them. The average literate adult knows 50,000, but may only use 17,000 and some studies show as low as 5,000. If you count for instance DRIVE, DRIVER AND DRIVES as three separate words our language blossoms to over 600,000 entries.
Hemingway was bucking against the establishment when he decided that adjectives were not necessary and sliced his prose down to just the bare minimum of what the reader needs.
Short sentences, short words.
I don鈥檛 mind some purple in my prose. William Faulkner鈥檚 famous epic opening sentence for Absalom! Absalom! was 1,288 words long. James Joyce in Ulysses made a mockery out of that with a sentence 4,391 words long. The fact of the matter is Hemingway has been canonized and his minimized writing style had a huge impact on the next generations of writers. I cringe whenever I hear anyone say if there is a simpler word use it. This all said a writer does have a responsibility to write to their audience.
The One and Only Gertrude Stein
Hemingway had some...well... interesting conversations with Gertrude Stein. Stein for the record gives me the willies more so when she expresses her opinions. The Lost Generation, as this group of creative people in Paris were called, flocked to her door and fell at her feet. She commanded respect and if you did not give that respect you were not invited back.
鈥滻 had started this conversation and thought it had become a little dangerous. There were almost never paused and there were something she wanted to tell me and I filled my glass.
鈥榊ou know nothing about any of this really, Hemingway,鈥� She said. 鈥榊ou鈥檝e met known criminals and sick people and vicious people. The main thing is that the act male homosexuals commit is ugly and repugnant and afterwards they are disgusted with themselves. They drink and take drugs, to palliate this, but they are disgusted with the act and they are always changing partners and cannot be really happy.鈥�
鈥業 see.鈥�
鈥業n women it is the opposite. They do nothing that they are disgusted by and nothing that is repulsive and afterwards they are happy and they can lead happy lives together.鈥�
鈥業 see.鈥欌€�
I see. I see. I see.
Hemingway also spent some time with Fitzgerald. His portrayal of F. Scott is not the most endearing, but then I have no illusions about Fitzgerald and his destructive lifestyle, in particular, his debilitating drinking. Hemingway did admire Scott鈥檚 writing.
鈥滺is talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a Butterfly鈥檚 wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it was effortless.鈥�
Ernest Hemingway (The Bull) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Butterfly).
Hemingway becomes exasperated with the devastating influence that Zelda had on Fitzgerald鈥檚 life and writing. She wanted to drink, party, and be merry all the time. Zelda Sayre broke up with F. Scott after they became engaged. He was determined to become famous in an effort to win her back. He wrote This Side of Paradise and sent it out for consideration to publishers. The result: he lined the walls of his study with the rejection slips. After a third revision Maxwell Perkins went to bat for him and Scribners decided to publish. The book sold out in three days.
It makes me wonder if F. Scott had never met Zelda would he have ever become a successful writer? She was his muse and his kryptonite.
One thing I have discovered over the years in watching the relationship gymnastics of my friends is that we can not help who we fall in love with. It is mystical and sometimes makes no sense even to ourselves.
I鈥檝e always liked this picture of the The Fitzgeralds.
A source of contention between Zelda and F. Scott was that all those wonderful witty bits of dialogue that came out of her mouth ended up in his writing. She had literary aspirations herself and felt that he was stealing her best material.
I wish I鈥檇 read this book when I was ni-ni-nin-teen because maybe I鈥檇 be a brilliant regional writer like Daniel Woodrell. (It could have been me being knocked silly on an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.) If you do not know much about the Lost Generation and their time in Paris this isn鈥檛 a bad place to start. It will be a quick read and should lead to other books and a new found interest in a period of time when it felt like everything was possible and change wasn鈥檛 something to be feared.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:
January 12, 2024
Look, I'm struggling to get a start on this review and those were the first two statements that popped into my head. I don't know if they are true. I don't know if they are fair. So I crossed them out. What I do know is this work - fiction, memoir, sketches, a polished diary - whichever of these it may be - wouldn't exist without Paris. Obviously, right? No, that's not what I mean. I mean Paris is to writers as Burgundy is to Pinot Noir. It's all about terroir - that sense of place, climate, geography, culture that shape the flavor and texture of a thing. You can make great wine out of pinot grown in Oregon, New Zealand, Chile - but it will never, ever approximate the glory of Burgundy. Writers can write with greatness anywhere in the world, but a writer in Paris - and goodness, a writer in the vintage years of the early-mid 1920's - is a singularly-blessed creature who may pour forth with words that change the world.
Hyperbole? Ah, well, I guess you've never been to Paris.
I bought a cheap, paperback copy of A Moveable Feast at Shakespeare and Company last winter. I'd spent the day retracing the steps of the Lost Generation through the 5eme and 6eme Arrondissements: the Luxembourg Gardens, Saint-Germain-des-Pr茅s, Rue Mouffetard, Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, La Place Contrescarpe, Rue Descartes, Quai des Grands-Augustins -- the haunts of Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford as they drank and smoked and wrote their way between the wars. Other than the now-phony tourist traps of Les Deux Magots and Caf茅 de Flore and the relocated Shakespeare and Company bookshop (opened in its current location at 37 rue de la B没cherie in 1951 after the original shop was closed in 1941 during the Occupation of Paris), much is as I imagined it was in 1924. The light shines golden and bittersweet in the narrow streets, landlocked Parisians flock to chaises longues in the Luxembourg Gardens to soak up an unseasonably warm February sun, students at the Sorbonne crowd the coffee shops in between classes, smoking, flirting and speaking in a rapid-fire Parisian slang that I was hopeless to comprehend.
My paperback copy of A Moveable Feast is now dreadfully dog-eared. I have marked passage upon passage in which Hemingway talks about writing - he was so disciplined and therefore so productive - which weakened my knees: "I would stand and look out over the rooftops of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence, and go on from there."
or about Paris: "You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen."
or about wine "In Europe then we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well-being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary... "
This is a collection of sketches of a writer as he remembers his happiest, purest days spent healing from the injuries and horrors of World War I, in love with a devoted wife and a round, sweet baby, being discovered by artists of influence and nurturing others through their own addictions and afflictions. Of course we know that Hemingway's own story does not end well. As he pens what will become the final paragraphs of A Moveable Feast many years later, he recognizes how fragile and temporary were those years: "But we were not invulnerable and that was the end of the first part of Paris, and Paris was never to be the same again although it was always Paris and you changed as it changed.... this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."
Perhaps the one true condition of enjoying this memoir is that one must be an incurable romantic. An affliction I bear with pride.
September 1, 2021
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
A Moveable Feast is a memoir by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling young expatriate journalist and writer in Paris in the 1920's.
The book, first published in 1964, describes the author's apprenticeship as a young writer while he was married to his first wife, Hadley Richardson.
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄貨 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄貨 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屭┴必з喡回� 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屫操呚з喡回� 丕孬乇: 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 趩賴丕乇丿賴賲 賲丕賴 噩賵賱丕蹖 爻丕賱 2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳貨 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳貨 丕孬乇: 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賮乇賴丕丿 睾亘乇丕蹖蹖貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇: 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 讴鬲丕亘 禺賵乇卮蹖丿貙 1383貙 丿乇 345氐貙 丕賳丿丕夭賴 11貨 丿乇 17爻.賲 趩丕倬 趩賴丕乇丿賴賲 1399貨 卮丕亘讴 9789647081689貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕貙 爻丿賴 20賲
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 倬蹖卮鬲乇賴丕 亘丕 毓賳賵丕賳 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄 鬲賵爻胤 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲貙 亘丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 蹖 噩賳丕亘 芦賮乇賴丕丿 睾亘乇丕蹖蹖禄 丿乇 爻丕賱 1369 賲賳鬲卮乇 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲貙 賵丕跇賴 賳丕賲賴 丿丕乇丿貙 賲賵囟賵毓 賴賲蹖賳诏賵锟斤拷貙 丕乇賳爻鬲貙 丕夭 爻丕賱 1899賲 鬲丕 1961賲貙 禺丕賳賴 賴丕 賵 倬丕鬲賵賯賴丕 丿乇 倬丕乇蹖爻 賮乇丕賳爻賴貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賳賵蹖爻丕賳貨 爻乇诏匕卮鬲賳丕賲賴貙 鬲丕乇蹖禺貙 倬丕乇蹖爻貙 丌丿丕亘 賵 乇爻賵賲 賵 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕噩鬲賲丕毓蹖 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 賮乇丕賳爻賴 - 爻丿賴 亘蹖爻鬲賲 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屭┴必з嗀� 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 卮賴乇夭丕丿 亘蹖丕鬲鈥屬呝堌� 賵蹖乇丕爻鬲丕乇 丕氐睾乇 丕賳丿乇賵丿蹖貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳丕跇貙 1391貨 丿乇 208氐貨 卮丕亘讴9786006110042貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屫操呚з嗀� 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 卮賴乇夭丕丿 亘賷丕鬲鈥屬呝堌� 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳丕跇貙 1392貨 丿乇 202氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9786006110066貨
丕蹖賳 賮乇丕賲賵卮讴丕乇貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 乇丕貙 亘乇丕蹖 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 亘丕乇 亘賴 爻丕賱 1975賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丿蹖丿賴 丕賲貙 趩賳丿 乇賵夭 丿乇 丌賳 卮賴乇 亘賵丿賲貙 丕賲丕 賳禺賵丕亘蹖丿賲貨 倬爻 丕夭 禺賵丕賳卮 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賳蹖夭貙 卮亘賴丕 禺賵丕亘 诏卮鬲 賵 诏丕賲 夭丿賳貙 丿乇 禺賱賵鬲 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 讴賴賳鬲乇 乇丕 賲蹖丿蹖丿賲貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄蹖 乇丕 讴賴 卮丕蹖丿 賴乇诏夭蹖 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕卮鬲賴貙 賵 匕賴賳 賵 禺蹖丕賱賲 丌賳 乇丕 丌賮乇蹖丿賴 亘賵丿貨 卮丕蹖丿 賴賲 賴賲蹖賳 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 芦丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 亘賵丿賴貙 讴賴 丕爻鬲丕丿 丿乇 丿賵乇丕賳 噩賵丕賳蹖 禺賵蹖卮貙 亘丕 丿蹖丿賴 蹖 賳丕夭賳蹖賳 禺賵蹖卮鬲賳 丿蹖丿賴 丕賳丿貙 賵 丌賳乇丕 夭賳丿賴 夭賳丿賴貙 丿乇 蹖丕丿丿丕卮鬲賴丕蹖 禺賵蹖卮 噩丕賵丿丕賳 賳賲賵丿賴 丕賳丿貨 丕賲丕 丕蹖賳 賮乇丕賲賵卮讴丕乇 丿乇 禺賵丕亘賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿蹖丿賲貙 丕賳诏丕乇貙 丿乇 丨賵賲賴 賴丕蹖 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 亘賵丿賲貨 蹖丕丿賲 賴爻鬲 丿乇 丌賳 禺賵丕亘賴丕貙 丨爻丕亘丿丕乇蹖 亘蹖卮 賳亘賵丿賲貨 氐亘丨賴丕 亘賴 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 賲蹖丌賲丿賲貙 賵 丿賮鬲乇 亘夭乇诏 鬲丕噩乇 賱亘丕爻 乇丕 賲蹖賳賵卮鬲賲貨 丕賲丕 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘貙 鬲氐丕賵蹖乇 乇賵夭賴丕蹖蹖 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 卮賴乇鬲貙 丿乇 诏賵卮賴 賵 讴賳丕乇 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄貙 丿乇 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 芦賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 噩賵丕賳 亘賵丿賴貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻蹖禄 讴賴 芦賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 亘賴 丿賵爻鬲 禺賵丿貙 丌賳 乇丕 趩賳蹖賳 賲蹖爻鬲丕蹖賳丿: (丕诏乇 亘禺鬲 蹖丕乇鬲 亘賵丿賴 亘丕卮丿貙 鬲丕 丿乇 噩賵丕賳蹖 丿乇 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳蹖貙 亘丕賯蹖 毓賲乇 乇丕 賴乇 賰噩丕 讴賴 亘诏匕乇丕賳蹖貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 亘丕 鬲賵 禺賵丕賴丿 亘賵丿貙 趩賵賳 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄貙 (賴賲趩賵) 噩卮賳蹖 爻鬲 亘賷賰乇丕賳)貨
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 06/07/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 09/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
A Moveable Feast is a memoir by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling young expatriate journalist and writer in Paris in the 1920's.
The book, first published in 1964, describes the author's apprenticeship as a young writer while he was married to his first wife, Hadley Richardson.
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄貨 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄貨 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屭┴必з喡回� 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屫操呚з喡回� 丕孬乇: 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 趩賴丕乇丿賴賲 賲丕賴 噩賵賱丕蹖 爻丕賱 2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳貨 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳貨 丕孬乇: 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賮乇賴丕丿 睾亘乇丕蹖蹖貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇: 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 讴鬲丕亘 禺賵乇卮蹖丿貙 1383貙 丿乇 345氐貙 丕賳丿丕夭賴 11貨 丿乇 17爻.賲 趩丕倬 趩賴丕乇丿賴賲 1399貨 卮丕亘讴 9789647081689貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕貙 爻丿賴 20賲
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 倬蹖卮鬲乇賴丕 亘丕 毓賳賵丕賳 芦噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳禄 鬲賵爻胤 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲貙 亘丕 鬲乇噩賲賴 蹖 噩賳丕亘 芦賮乇賴丕丿 睾亘乇丕蹖蹖禄 丿乇 爻丕賱 1369 賲賳鬲卮乇 卮丿賴 丕爻鬲貙 賵丕跇賴 賳丕賲賴 丿丕乇丿貙 賲賵囟賵毓 賴賲蹖賳诏賵锟斤拷貙 丕乇賳爻鬲貙 丕夭 爻丕賱 1899賲 鬲丕 1961賲貙 禺丕賳賴 賴丕 賵 倬丕鬲賵賯賴丕 丿乇 倬丕乇蹖爻 賮乇丕賳爻賴貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賳賵蹖爻丕賳貨 爻乇诏匕卮鬲賳丕賲賴貙 鬲丕乇蹖禺貙 倬丕乇蹖爻貙 丌丿丕亘 賵 乇爻賵賲 賵 夭賳丿诏蹖 丕噩鬲賲丕毓蹖 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 賮乇丕賳爻賴 - 爻丿賴 亘蹖爻鬲賲 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屭┴必з嗀� 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 卮賴乇夭丕丿 亘蹖丕鬲鈥屬呝堌� 賵蹖乇丕爻鬲丕乇 丕氐睾乇 丕賳丿乇賵丿蹖貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳丕跇貙 1391貨 丿乇 208氐貨 卮丕亘讴9786006110042貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 噩卮賳 亘蹖鈥屫操呚з嗀� 丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 卮賴乇夭丕丿 亘賷丕鬲鈥屬呝堌� 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳丕跇貙 1392貨 丿乇 202氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9786006110066貨
丕蹖賳 賮乇丕賲賵卮讴丕乇貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 乇丕貙 亘乇丕蹖 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 亘丕乇 亘賴 爻丕賱 1975賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丿蹖丿賴 丕賲貙 趩賳丿 乇賵夭 丿乇 丌賳 卮賴乇 亘賵丿賲貙 丕賲丕 賳禺賵丕亘蹖丿賲貨 倬爻 丕夭 禺賵丕賳卮 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賳蹖夭貙 卮亘賴丕 禺賵丕亘 诏卮鬲 賵 诏丕賲 夭丿賳貙 丿乇 禺賱賵鬲 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 讴賴賳鬲乇 乇丕 賲蹖丿蹖丿賲貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄蹖 乇丕 讴賴 卮丕蹖丿 賴乇诏夭蹖 賵噩賵丿 賳丿丕卮鬲賴貙 賵 匕賴賳 賵 禺蹖丕賱賲 丌賳 乇丕 丌賮乇蹖丿賴 亘賵丿貨 卮丕蹖丿 賴賲 賴賲蹖賳 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 芦丕乇賳爻鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 亘賵丿賴貙 讴賴 丕爻鬲丕丿 丿乇 丿賵乇丕賳 噩賵丕賳蹖 禺賵蹖卮貙 亘丕 丿蹖丿賴 蹖 賳丕夭賳蹖賳 禺賵蹖卮鬲賳 丿蹖丿賴 丕賳丿貙 賵 丌賳乇丕 夭賳丿賴 夭賳丿賴貙 丿乇 蹖丕丿丿丕卮鬲賴丕蹖 禺賵蹖卮 噩丕賵丿丕賳 賳賲賵丿賴 丕賳丿貨 丕賲丕 丕蹖賳 賮乇丕賲賵卮讴丕乇 丿乇 禺賵丕亘賴丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿蹖丿賲貙 丕賳诏丕乇貙 丿乇 丨賵賲賴 賴丕蹖 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 亘賵丿賲貨 蹖丕丿賲 賴爻鬲 丿乇 丌賳 禺賵丕亘賴丕貙 丨爻丕亘丿丕乇蹖 亘蹖卮 賳亘賵丿賲貨 氐亘丨賴丕 亘賴 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 賲蹖丌賲丿賲貙 賵 丿賮鬲乇 亘夭乇诏 鬲丕噩乇 賱亘丕爻 乇丕 賲蹖賳賵卮鬲賲貨 丕賲丕 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘貙 鬲氐丕賵蹖乇 乇賵夭賴丕蹖蹖 丕爻鬲貙 讴賴 卮賴乇鬲貙 丿乇 诏賵卮賴 賵 讴賳丕乇 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄貙 丿乇 丕賳鬲馗丕乇 芦賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 噩賵丕賳 亘賵丿賴貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻蹖禄 讴賴 芦賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖禄 亘賴 丿賵爻鬲 禺賵丿貙 丌賳 乇丕 趩賳蹖賳 賲蹖爻鬲丕蹖賳丿: (丕诏乇 亘禺鬲 蹖丕乇鬲 亘賵丿賴 亘丕卮丿貙 鬲丕 丿乇 噩賵丕賳蹖 丿乇 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 夭賳丿诏蹖 讴賳蹖貙 亘丕賯蹖 毓賲乇 乇丕 賴乇 賰噩丕 讴賴 亘诏匕乇丕賳蹖貙 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄 亘丕 鬲賵 禺賵丕賴丿 亘賵丿貙 趩賵賳 芦倬丕乇蹖爻禄貙 (賴賲趩賵) 噩卮賳蹖 爻鬲 亘賷賰乇丕賳)貨
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 06/07/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 09/06/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
October 14, 2017
Loved it!
Like Hemingway, I love Paris from the bottom of my heart. And like him, I was lucky enough to spend some time there as a 22-year-old university student. I remember the feeling when I got off the train, knowing I had months of P-A-R-I-S ahead, and how precious each minute felt. I remember walking the streets, stopping to gaze into shop windows, to have coffee, or to browse bookstores. And I remember reading all those wonderful authors who had made Paris their home, feeling connected to them by the location I had chosen for myself. Among them - Hemingway!
If Paris became my moveable feast, something I carry with me to this day, Hemingway became the voice to express that strange kind of love story that exists between human beings and cities.
Long after my magical summer in Paris, while I still lived in the heart of Europe, I used to go to Paris at least twice a year, to the spring and the autumn exhibitions in the Grand Palais. I loved the autumn one more than the one in the spring, and there is absolutely nothing comparable to a rainy October day in Paris:
"You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason."
The sadness Hemingway mentions is one of sweetest feelings I know: it encompasses the essence of Paris, - its strange melancholy beauty!
It has been two years since I last took my children to the city, and in the growing October darkness, I can feel the longing, the need, the desire to go soon ... I want to take the moveable feast of my memory back to its origin again - and Hemingway will be in my hand luggage!
Like Hemingway, I love Paris from the bottom of my heart. And like him, I was lucky enough to spend some time there as a 22-year-old university student. I remember the feeling when I got off the train, knowing I had months of P-A-R-I-S ahead, and how precious each minute felt. I remember walking the streets, stopping to gaze into shop windows, to have coffee, or to browse bookstores. And I remember reading all those wonderful authors who had made Paris their home, feeling connected to them by the location I had chosen for myself. Among them - Hemingway!
If Paris became my moveable feast, something I carry with me to this day, Hemingway became the voice to express that strange kind of love story that exists between human beings and cities.
Long after my magical summer in Paris, while I still lived in the heart of Europe, I used to go to Paris at least twice a year, to the spring and the autumn exhibitions in the Grand Palais. I loved the autumn one more than the one in the spring, and there is absolutely nothing comparable to a rainy October day in Paris:
"You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason."
The sadness Hemingway mentions is one of sweetest feelings I know: it encompasses the essence of Paris, - its strange melancholy beauty!
It has been two years since I last took my children to the city, and in the growing October darkness, I can feel the longing, the need, the desire to go soon ... I want to take the moveable feast of my memory back to its origin again - and Hemingway will be in my hand luggage!
July 5, 2024
Paris is a celebration, a hymn to life, friendship, creation, and a magnificent tribute to Paris.
Woody Allen's last film, "Midnight in Paris," led me to re-read this excellent author, Ernest Hemingway. Here, it is a minor work, but it reveals all the talent of its author.
Here, he evokes his first stay in Paris in the 1920s, in the company of his first wife, Hadley.
That's a financially difficult stay, poor in income but rich in joie de vivre, discoveries, and friendship.
We travel through time to discover the nightlife in Paris of the "Roaring Twenties." The talks at the Closerie des Lilas, the bustling Gertrude Stein and her shining circle, famous writers like Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Scott Fitzgerald, lesser-known as the Irish poet Ernest Walsh.
His friendship with Scott Fitzgerald is a rare friendship that mixes envy, admiration, and honesty.
The female characters are not left out, and the portrayal of Gertrude Stein and Zelda Fitzgerald is incredibly vivid and endearing. They are two ladies with solid consistency, from equal backgrounds, southerner for Zelda and both for Gertrude Stein.
It is an entertaining book that takes us on a journey through time in a fair, excellent company.
Woody Allen's last film, "Midnight in Paris," led me to re-read this excellent author, Ernest Hemingway. Here, it is a minor work, but it reveals all the talent of its author.
Here, he evokes his first stay in Paris in the 1920s, in the company of his first wife, Hadley.
That's a financially difficult stay, poor in income but rich in joie de vivre, discoveries, and friendship.
We travel through time to discover the nightlife in Paris of the "Roaring Twenties." The talks at the Closerie des Lilas, the bustling Gertrude Stein and her shining circle, famous writers like Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Scott Fitzgerald, lesser-known as the Irish poet Ernest Walsh.
His friendship with Scott Fitzgerald is a rare friendship that mixes envy, admiration, and honesty.
The female characters are not left out, and the portrayal of Gertrude Stein and Zelda Fitzgerald is incredibly vivid and endearing. They are two ladies with solid consistency, from equal backgrounds, southerner for Zelda and both for Gertrude Stein.
It is an entertaining book that takes us on a journey through time in a fair, excellent company.
December 7, 2009
Though often containing gorgeous prose, Hemingway鈥檚 A Moveable Feast has a clear agenda. The book treats Hemingway鈥檚 life in Paris from 1921 to 1926. Although the book clearly is autobiographical, in the Preface, Hemingway, after explaining that several items were left out of his memoir, then suggests, rather coyly, that 鈥淚f the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction鈥� and adds, 鈥淏ut there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.鈥� In essence, Hemingway wants it both ways: the book may be regarded as either fact or fiction. Although there is no reason for readers to read the work as fiction, Hemingway鈥檚 suggestion serves two ends. First, Hemingway introduces the idea that the book could be viewed as a novel, an idea that echoes the famous challenge he issued when he wrote The Green Hills of Africa where he ponders whether a work of nonfiction, if written truly enough, could compete with a work of the imagination. Aligning the work with fiction promotes its artistry; in addition, Hemingway鈥檚 Preface serves to justify his carefully reconstructed version of his early life.
However, Hemingway鈥檚 book does not seem like fiction because of what he leaves out, but rather for what he puts in. And, what Hemingway adds is gossip. Rather than the often vain, self-centered, and troubled person that Hemingway was, he presents a smoothed over, patient, loyal, and often loving version of himself. His first wife, Hadley, whom Hemingway unceremoniously dumped for Pauline Pfeiffer, is promoted to near sainthood. Ford Madox Ford is presented as hygienically challenged and a fool, Ezra Pound is a saint, and Ernest Walsh is a posturing liar. Yet, Hemingway presents his gossip artfully, even reluctantly. At one point, in reference to rumors about a writing award in which Ernest Walsh was involved, Hemingway disassociates himself from gossip and even attempts to admonish the reader: 鈥淚f the news [about the writing award:] was passed around by gossip or rumor, or if it was a matter of personal confidence, cannot be said. Let us hope and believe always that it was completely honorable in every way鈥� (125).
Despite Hemingway鈥檚 stated qualms about avoiding gossip and upholding honor, he shows no restraint in his portraits of Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Stein is introduced early in the memoir, and then destroyed completely in a later chapter entitled, 鈥淎 Strange Enough Ending.鈥� Tellingly, Hemingway begins the chapter by observing, 鈥淭here is not much future in men being friends with great women鈥nd there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers鈥� (117). Significantly, Hemingway diminishes Stein鈥檚 writing ability by relegating her to a general group of 鈥渁mbitious women writers.鈥� Hemingway recounts visiting Stein鈥檚 house; as he waits for her, he overhears an intimate conversation. Hemingway writes, 鈥溾€ heard someone speaking to Miss Stein as I had never heard one person speak to another; never, anywhere, ever.
Then Miss Stein鈥檚 voice came pleading and begging, saying, 鈥淒on鈥檛, pussy. Don鈥檛. Don鈥檛, please don鈥檛. I鈥檒l do anything, pussy, but please don鈥檛 do it. Please don鈥檛. Please don鈥檛, pussy鈥� (118). Hemingway takes pains to describe how he quietly exits and asks the maidservant to say she had met him in the courtyard, and that he had never entered the house. Nevertheless, Hemingway鈥檚 willingness to write the incident and include a private conversation belies the gentlemanly behavior he tries to portray. The intimate conversation Hemingway provides鈥攚ord-for-word鈥攊s designed to make Stein look foolish and weak. Hemingway uses gossip to assert his superiority.
Despite the many pages devoted to Gertrude Stein, Hemingway鈥檚 portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald serves as the book鈥檚 dramatic core. By the time Hemingway meets Fitzgerald, he has already published This Side of Paradise and had just completed The Great Gatsby. In contrast, Hemingway has not yet been able to write a novel and worries whether he can. When he reads The Great Gatsby, its genius stuns him. Hemingway鈥檚 artful vignette of Fitzgerald serves to cut him down to size. Throughout the book, Hemingway carefully constructs his writing persona and implies that the attributes he displays鈥攄iscipline, diligence, and attention to craft鈥攁re the qualities of a true writer. In contrast, Hemingway introduces his portrait of Fitzgerald by implicitly comparing talent with craft.
Like Fitzgerald鈥檚 physique and character, which Hemingway dissects piece-by-piece, Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing ability is portrayed as weak and suspect. Fitzgerald, Hemingway implies, has not earned his ability to write; even worse, Fitzgerald only recognizes his talent after it is gone: 鈥淟ater he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.鈥� Hemingway implies that Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing was not an intellectual, crafted ability, but more a matter of luck. Fitzgerald was given a portion of talent, but he had not worked for it, and it contrasts with the sturdy and true writing that emerges from craft.
Not content with rendering Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing ability suspect, Hemingway continues to dissect Fitzgerald, taking direct aim at his manhood. Like a good gossip, Hemingway provides salacious details. However, Hemingway packages his gossip carefully. Hemingway writes, artfully: 鈥淪cott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have the mouth of a beauty鈥he mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.鈥�
In the following chapter, 鈥淎 Matter of Measurements,鈥� Hemingway assuages the insecurity Fitzgerald feels because of a comment Zelda has made by taking Fitzgerald into the men鈥檚 room, inspecting him, and pronouncing the size of his penis normal. The content could hardly be more intimate and sensational. Hemingway performs verbal surgery throughout A Moveable Feast, and despite the book鈥檚 artistry, Hemingway spares almost no one his scathing memoir.
However, Hemingway鈥檚 book does not seem like fiction because of what he leaves out, but rather for what he puts in. And, what Hemingway adds is gossip. Rather than the often vain, self-centered, and troubled person that Hemingway was, he presents a smoothed over, patient, loyal, and often loving version of himself. His first wife, Hadley, whom Hemingway unceremoniously dumped for Pauline Pfeiffer, is promoted to near sainthood. Ford Madox Ford is presented as hygienically challenged and a fool, Ezra Pound is a saint, and Ernest Walsh is a posturing liar. Yet, Hemingway presents his gossip artfully, even reluctantly. At one point, in reference to rumors about a writing award in which Ernest Walsh was involved, Hemingway disassociates himself from gossip and even attempts to admonish the reader: 鈥淚f the news [about the writing award:] was passed around by gossip or rumor, or if it was a matter of personal confidence, cannot be said. Let us hope and believe always that it was completely honorable in every way鈥� (125).
Despite Hemingway鈥檚 stated qualms about avoiding gossip and upholding honor, he shows no restraint in his portraits of Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Stein is introduced early in the memoir, and then destroyed completely in a later chapter entitled, 鈥淎 Strange Enough Ending.鈥� Tellingly, Hemingway begins the chapter by observing, 鈥淭here is not much future in men being friends with great women鈥nd there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers鈥� (117). Significantly, Hemingway diminishes Stein鈥檚 writing ability by relegating her to a general group of 鈥渁mbitious women writers.鈥� Hemingway recounts visiting Stein鈥檚 house; as he waits for her, he overhears an intimate conversation. Hemingway writes, 鈥溾€ heard someone speaking to Miss Stein as I had never heard one person speak to another; never, anywhere, ever.
Then Miss Stein鈥檚 voice came pleading and begging, saying, 鈥淒on鈥檛, pussy. Don鈥檛. Don鈥檛, please don鈥檛. I鈥檒l do anything, pussy, but please don鈥檛 do it. Please don鈥檛. Please don鈥檛, pussy鈥� (118). Hemingway takes pains to describe how he quietly exits and asks the maidservant to say she had met him in the courtyard, and that he had never entered the house. Nevertheless, Hemingway鈥檚 willingness to write the incident and include a private conversation belies the gentlemanly behavior he tries to portray. The intimate conversation Hemingway provides鈥攚ord-for-word鈥攊s designed to make Stein look foolish and weak. Hemingway uses gossip to assert his superiority.
Despite the many pages devoted to Gertrude Stein, Hemingway鈥檚 portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald serves as the book鈥檚 dramatic core. By the time Hemingway meets Fitzgerald, he has already published This Side of Paradise and had just completed The Great Gatsby. In contrast, Hemingway has not yet been able to write a novel and worries whether he can. When he reads The Great Gatsby, its genius stuns him. Hemingway鈥檚 artful vignette of Fitzgerald serves to cut him down to size. Throughout the book, Hemingway carefully constructs his writing persona and implies that the attributes he displays鈥攄iscipline, diligence, and attention to craft鈥攁re the qualities of a true writer. In contrast, Hemingway introduces his portrait of Fitzgerald by implicitly comparing talent with craft.
Like Fitzgerald鈥檚 physique and character, which Hemingway dissects piece-by-piece, Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing ability is portrayed as weak and suspect. Fitzgerald, Hemingway implies, has not earned his ability to write; even worse, Fitzgerald only recognizes his talent after it is gone: 鈥淟ater he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.鈥� Hemingway implies that Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing was not an intellectual, crafted ability, but more a matter of luck. Fitzgerald was given a portion of talent, but he had not worked for it, and it contrasts with the sturdy and true writing that emerges from craft.
Not content with rendering Fitzgerald鈥檚 writing ability suspect, Hemingway continues to dissect Fitzgerald, taking direct aim at his manhood. Like a good gossip, Hemingway provides salacious details. However, Hemingway packages his gossip carefully. Hemingway writes, artfully: 鈥淪cott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have the mouth of a beauty鈥he mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.鈥�
In the following chapter, 鈥淎 Matter of Measurements,鈥� Hemingway assuages the insecurity Fitzgerald feels because of a comment Zelda has made by taking Fitzgerald into the men鈥檚 room, inspecting him, and pronouncing the size of his penis normal. The content could hardly be more intimate and sensational. Hemingway performs verbal surgery throughout A Moveable Feast, and despite the book鈥檚 artistry, Hemingway spares almost no one his scathing memoir.
October 6, 2018
How have I not read this before?? Absolute perfection from beginning to end. Budding artists will eagerly highlight the numerous sentences on craft and style. Literature lovers will moan when Hemingway casually describes hanging out with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and a long list of other giants who happened to all be writing in Paris at the same time. If you're both a writer and a reader, this book is a must for sure. The scenes are deliciously candid. In one segment F. Scott Fitzgerald shares concerns with Hemingway over the size of his pecker. In another, Hemingway laments the agony of spending hours to write one good paragraph.
I'm honestly not much of a Hemingway scholar, but I feel this book should be ranked higher in the canon. It was only by accident that I picked it up. I'd never even heard of it before. Maybe some feel its excellence is based primarily on the fact that the entire cast consists of legendary literary figures. Maybe that is part of it. But there's no question that the delivery is superb.
Hemingway writes with humble grace so it doesn't feel like we're reading about the world's great writers, but regular people pursuing their dream. Which, in the 1920s, they still were. We get to learn his thoughts on writing, war, friendships, love and loss. Even if much is dramatized, which Hemingway admits it is, there can never be another memoir like it. I think I found my new answer to the old "Where would you go in a time machine?" question.
PS: the 鈥渞estored edition鈥� is the only way to go. Avoid all other editions.
I'm honestly not much of a Hemingway scholar, but I feel this book should be ranked higher in the canon. It was only by accident that I picked it up. I'd never even heard of it before. Maybe some feel its excellence is based primarily on the fact that the entire cast consists of legendary literary figures. Maybe that is part of it. But there's no question that the delivery is superb.
Hemingway writes with humble grace so it doesn't feel like we're reading about the world's great writers, but regular people pursuing their dream. Which, in the 1920s, they still were. We get to learn his thoughts on writing, war, friendships, love and loss. Even if much is dramatized, which Hemingway admits it is, there can never be another memoir like it. I think I found my new answer to the old "Where would you go in a time machine?" question.
PS: the 鈥渞estored edition鈥� is the only way to go. Avoid all other editions.
January 11, 2024
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Corey Stoll 猫 Hemingway.
La festa mobile per eccellenza 猫 la pasqua: perch茅 ogni anno trova una posizione diversa nel calendario, quando a marzo, quando ad aprile. E da l矛 slittano, prima o dopo, varie altre festivit脿.
La festa mobile di Hemingway sono i ricordi dei suoi anni giovanili a Parigi, le scoperte, gli incontri, gli amori, la scrittura. Anni frizzanti, che Ernest si porta dietro tutta la vita come il pi霉 leggero e lieto e felice dei fardelli.
La mia festa mobile 猫 questo libro, autentica scoperta. E la meraviglia di come l鈥檌o narrante, sicuramente lo stesso Ernest, si rivolge a se stesso, in un alternarsi di prima e seconda persona. Puro godimento. Hem parla 鈥榙i鈥� se stesso e poi con cambio repentino parla 鈥榓鈥� se stesso, con la dolce e tenera 鈥渕alinconia che potremmo riservare a un fratello perduto":
鈥漀on preoccuparti. Hai sempre scritto prima e scriverai adesso. Non devi fare altro che scrivere una sola frase vera. Scrivi la frase pi霉 vera che conosci.鈥� Cos矛 alla fine scrivevo una frase vera e poi da l矛 andavo avanti. E allora era facile perch茅 c鈥檈ra sempre una frase vera che conoscevi o che avevi visto o che avevi sentito dire da qualcuno.
Kathy Bates 猫 Gertrude Stein.
Pubblicato postumo (tre anni dopo il suicidio, nel 1964), incompleto, con tanti materiali esclusi, e poi inclusi, forse s矛 e forse no, manca l鈥檌nizio, manca la fine, questo titolo, no quest鈥檃ltro, ce n鈥櫭� un intero elenco. Ma a me sembra a posto cos矛, forse non perfetto, ma molto, molto notevole. E, soprattutto, una lettura che 猫 autentica delizia.
Tra l鈥檃ltro ho appreso che dopo gli attentati di Parigi del 2015 questo libro, pubblicato cinquant鈥檃nni prima, ha avuto un autentico boom di vendite: la capitale culturale dell鈥橭ccidente 鈥� almeno nel periodo in cui Hem ci abitava 鈥� ha rialzato la testa ritrovando il suo tono 鈥� l鈥檈sprit.
Alla fine degli anni Cinquanta (1956), quando inizi貌 a scrivere questo suo 鈥減ortrait of the artist as a young man鈥�, era un quasi sessantenne depresso e in qualche modo confuso: era perfino stato sottoposto a elettroshock, intervento che aveva peggiorato la situazione, per esempio indebolendo la sua memoria, rendendo difficile attingere ai suoi ricordi. Infatti scrive all鈥檌nizio di questa piccola gemma:
Questo libro contiene materiale dalle 鈥渞emises鈥� della mia memoria e del mio cuore. Anche se la prima 猫 stata manomessa e il secondo non esiste.
Tom Hiddleston/Francis Scott Fitzgerald e Alison Pill/Zelda.
Tutto comincia per caso il giorno che l鈥橦otel Ritz di Parigi gli comunica di avere in cantina, conservati su sua richiesta di decenni prima, due suoi bauli: dai quali spuntarono ricordi e quaderni di appunti.
Hem, come lo chiamava affettuosamente qualche amico, racconta di tutti quelli che ha incontrato e conosciuto in quegli anni parigini. In pratica, tutti. Se non altro, tutti i migliori. Hem li racconta e ne parla con dolce e tenera malizia: fa sorridere parecchio come vengano tutti fuori pieni di limiti e difetti, e come, pur sforzandosi di non porsi al di sopra, il buon vecchio Hem finisce sempre con l鈥檈ssere al di sopra.
Il capitolo pi霉 lungo 猫 dedicato a Scott, che nessuno chiamava Francis, o Frank, caso mai Fitzgerald. Ma non solo, Scott ritorna in altri due sketch.
Sono ricordi, ma Hem li definisce fantasia. Ha ragione: i ricordi sono fantasia. Il che non impedisce loro di essere pi霉 veri del vero.
Le cose rimaste fuori, i ricordi non inseriti sono molti pi霉 di quelli che compaiono in queste pagine: la regola dell鈥檌ceberg, dell鈥檕missione. Distillare non amplificare:
C鈥櫭� un altro libro sulle parti che mancano e ci sono sempre le storie che sono andate perdute.
Brevi pagine che trasmettono un senso di invulnerabilit脿: il mondo era loro, la vita spalancata davanti. Eppure avevano una Grande Guerra alle spalle, e un鈥檃ltra altrettanto mostruosa che cominciava ad annunciarsi.
E poi, certo, il film di Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris, uno dei suoi migliori da quando ha tirato i remi in barca e frugato anche nell鈥檜ltimo cassetto pi霉 riposto. Rivisto durante la lettura: appare evidente che Allen lo abbia letto e riletto, e tenuto ben presente scrivendo la sceneggiatura. Mi 猫 piaciuto forse perfino pi霉 della prima volta, ho colto pi霉 rimandi e rilanci, e riferimenti, e battute.
Era un racconto molto semplice intitolato 鈥淔uori stagione鈥� e ne avevo omesso la vera conclusione cio猫 che il vecchio si impiccava. Era stata omessa in base alla mia nuova teoria che potevi omettere qualsiasi cosa se sapevi di ometterla e che la parte omessa avrebbe rafforzato la storia e fatto sentire alla gente qualcosa di pi霉 di quanto ci capivano.
Corey Stoll 猫 Hemingway.
La festa mobile per eccellenza 猫 la pasqua: perch茅 ogni anno trova una posizione diversa nel calendario, quando a marzo, quando ad aprile. E da l矛 slittano, prima o dopo, varie altre festivit脿.
La festa mobile di Hemingway sono i ricordi dei suoi anni giovanili a Parigi, le scoperte, gli incontri, gli amori, la scrittura. Anni frizzanti, che Ernest si porta dietro tutta la vita come il pi霉 leggero e lieto e felice dei fardelli.
La mia festa mobile 猫 questo libro, autentica scoperta. E la meraviglia di come l鈥檌o narrante, sicuramente lo stesso Ernest, si rivolge a se stesso, in un alternarsi di prima e seconda persona. Puro godimento. Hem parla 鈥榙i鈥� se stesso e poi con cambio repentino parla 鈥榓鈥� se stesso, con la dolce e tenera 鈥渕alinconia che potremmo riservare a un fratello perduto":
鈥漀on preoccuparti. Hai sempre scritto prima e scriverai adesso. Non devi fare altro che scrivere una sola frase vera. Scrivi la frase pi霉 vera che conosci.鈥� Cos矛 alla fine scrivevo una frase vera e poi da l矛 andavo avanti. E allora era facile perch茅 c鈥檈ra sempre una frase vera che conoscevi o che avevi visto o che avevi sentito dire da qualcuno.
Kathy Bates 猫 Gertrude Stein.
Pubblicato postumo (tre anni dopo il suicidio, nel 1964), incompleto, con tanti materiali esclusi, e poi inclusi, forse s矛 e forse no, manca l鈥檌nizio, manca la fine, questo titolo, no quest鈥檃ltro, ce n鈥櫭� un intero elenco. Ma a me sembra a posto cos矛, forse non perfetto, ma molto, molto notevole. E, soprattutto, una lettura che 猫 autentica delizia.
Tra l鈥檃ltro ho appreso che dopo gli attentati di Parigi del 2015 questo libro, pubblicato cinquant鈥檃nni prima, ha avuto un autentico boom di vendite: la capitale culturale dell鈥橭ccidente 鈥� almeno nel periodo in cui Hem ci abitava 鈥� ha rialzato la testa ritrovando il suo tono 鈥� l鈥檈sprit.
Alla fine degli anni Cinquanta (1956), quando inizi貌 a scrivere questo suo 鈥減ortrait of the artist as a young man鈥�, era un quasi sessantenne depresso e in qualche modo confuso: era perfino stato sottoposto a elettroshock, intervento che aveva peggiorato la situazione, per esempio indebolendo la sua memoria, rendendo difficile attingere ai suoi ricordi. Infatti scrive all鈥檌nizio di questa piccola gemma:
Questo libro contiene materiale dalle 鈥渞emises鈥� della mia memoria e del mio cuore. Anche se la prima 猫 stata manomessa e il secondo non esiste.
Tom Hiddleston/Francis Scott Fitzgerald e Alison Pill/Zelda.
Tutto comincia per caso il giorno che l鈥橦otel Ritz di Parigi gli comunica di avere in cantina, conservati su sua richiesta di decenni prima, due suoi bauli: dai quali spuntarono ricordi e quaderni di appunti.
Hem, come lo chiamava affettuosamente qualche amico, racconta di tutti quelli che ha incontrato e conosciuto in quegli anni parigini. In pratica, tutti. Se non altro, tutti i migliori. Hem li racconta e ne parla con dolce e tenera malizia: fa sorridere parecchio come vengano tutti fuori pieni di limiti e difetti, e come, pur sforzandosi di non porsi al di sopra, il buon vecchio Hem finisce sempre con l鈥檈ssere al di sopra.
Il capitolo pi霉 lungo 猫 dedicato a Scott, che nessuno chiamava Francis, o Frank, caso mai Fitzgerald. Ma non solo, Scott ritorna in altri due sketch.
Sono ricordi, ma Hem li definisce fantasia. Ha ragione: i ricordi sono fantasia. Il che non impedisce loro di essere pi霉 veri del vero.
Le cose rimaste fuori, i ricordi non inseriti sono molti pi霉 di quelli che compaiono in queste pagine: la regola dell鈥檌ceberg, dell鈥檕missione. Distillare non amplificare:
C鈥櫭� un altro libro sulle parti che mancano e ci sono sempre le storie che sono andate perdute.
Brevi pagine che trasmettono un senso di invulnerabilit脿: il mondo era loro, la vita spalancata davanti. Eppure avevano una Grande Guerra alle spalle, e un鈥檃ltra altrettanto mostruosa che cominciava ad annunciarsi.
E poi, certo, il film di Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris, uno dei suoi migliori da quando ha tirato i remi in barca e frugato anche nell鈥檜ltimo cassetto pi霉 riposto. Rivisto durante la lettura: appare evidente che Allen lo abbia letto e riletto, e tenuto ben presente scrivendo la sceneggiatura. Mi 猫 piaciuto forse perfino pi霉 della prima volta, ho colto pi霉 rimandi e rilanci, e riferimenti, e battute.
Era un racconto molto semplice intitolato 鈥淔uori stagione鈥� e ne avevo omesso la vera conclusione cio猫 che il vecchio si impiccava. Era stata omessa in base alla mia nuova teoria che potevi omettere qualsiasi cosa se sapevi di ometterla e che la parte omessa avrebbe rafforzato la storia e fatto sentire alla gente qualcosa di pi霉 di quanto ci capivano.
March 17, 2022
'We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply
and slept well and warm together and loved each other'
I don't quite know why it's taken me so long to get around to reading Hemingway, but that's two brilliant works now in a matter of weeks, after too many years of leaving him distant at the back of my mind. And if I'm honest, I never thought of him as a writer I would even like. How wrong was I. Hemingway wrote this when he was a successful older writer, about the experience of being a young man who was not yet successful, but who was happily writing away and dearly in love with his first wife Hadley. It's all very personal, but in the most generous and rewarding way, and when reading it I never felt like I was observing a person of self-indulgence.
As a posthumously published memoir (although it kind of reads like a novel) Hemingway describes the time he spent in Paris after the first world war, and the title - 'A Moveable Feast' feels most appropriate, as it's like moving around in circles during a banquet with a host of bohemian luminaries - Joyce, Pound, Madox Ford, and Scott Fitzgerald were all there living it up there (Fitzgerald features strongly in the book's last third). Not only does Hemingway depict himself surrounded by literary mentors and competitors, some he thinks highly of, some he doesn't, he is careful to record his gastronomic experiences. Food, visual art, alcohol (plenty of that) and racing provide the backbone of this unassuming memoir. Oh, and he was clearly a big fan of Ivan Turgenev, reading him often. His writing style here has exactly the same feel as his fiction: casual and affectionate, always engaging and easy to read, it's deceptive simplicity works a treat. There are lessons in his actual language, which is wonderful, and there are lessons also in the insight into his writer's brain, and the understanding of the fragility of the balance between being able to do it, and not being able to do it. He is writing about the joy of getting it right, with all the unspoken knowledge of the sadness of getting it wrong, both in writing and in life.
Hemingway's recollections are at times almost gossipy and he does spring up some surprising sentences, but you never feel too overwhelmed by the high concentration of egos gathered together, sometimes on the same page. We discover that Gertrude Stein was a frequent visitor to the young writer, that he did not get on so well with Ford Madox Ford, and that Ezra Pound always admired the work of his friends. The edition I read was punctuated with photographs, both of the manuscript and of the author and his contemporaries in Paris, including James Joyce and an alcohol infused F Scott Fitzgerald. And by the time we get to Zelda later on, it's quite clear that she also likes the odd drink. Actually when wasn't she drinking. Each chapter is short and vignette-like, comical, sometimes bitchy but always warming.
Although I loved the book as a whole, it's especially the last third when in the company of Scott Fitzgerald, and Zelda (who could have been nearing a nervous breakdown) that really pushed me to give this the five star treatment. Considering By 1956 Hemingway was in a terrible state, both mentally and physically he was a wreck, but could still craft writing that is eternal. A Moveable Feast should be seen as the product of a man in terminal decline as much as the triumphant recollection of one beginning to realise his true powers. Except, it doesn't read like that at all. One of the most impressive things about A Moveable Feast is how sure he is, how hopeful it all seems, and how much fun it all is.
Even at the end, Hemingway could still do it.
May 17, 2023
3,5/5
February 24, 2024
Memoirs of the young Mr. Ernest Hemingway in Paris during the early 1920s, the so-called Lost Generation because they were annihilated from history, what a change to our humanity....forever their promise will never be lived. A sad testament to our strange world... Endlessly gone...in a pit. Gertrude Stein popularized this term, quite accurate. The author Ernest was a veteran of the mad conflict even wounded and saved in an Italian hospital, the book "A Farewell to Arms " very autobiographical his second novel.
Since millions perished in the vicious recent war of attrition, no glory but plenty of blood, a vast deep ocean ...
The unknown writer seeks fame, praise and probably most importantly money... it's no fun being poor and what 's a better place than this illustrious city of artists, to join the parade. Newly married a wife eight years his senior still beautiful, Hadley a charming lady... the first of four and later wrote his favorite. He struggles however, the fun part is the many giants Hemingway meets, the minors poets, writers and painters the winds of time floats them towards unknown regions. Brutally honest sometimes, Gertrude Stein, her weird manners revealed, the hopeless pathetic drunk F.Scott Fitzgerald and his jealous glamorous wife Zelda, going insane, James Joyce almost blind and likes to drink a little, arrogant Picasso , always kind Ezra Pound before he choose the wrong side in the next war . Sylvia Beach owner of the renowned book store Shakespeare and Company... invariably helps the writers good or bad. By far the most interesting character is F.(Francis) Scott Fitzgerald his constant drunkenness , pitiful talk and gloomy moods. Telling Hemingway he has a reputation of being cruel , heartless and conceited not something Ernest hadn't heard before (I bet) , The Sun Also Rises makes him rich and famous. Having visited Spain with his wife and friends watching bullfighting in the ring as thousands look on , fascinated him. The excruciating contest reminiscent of ancient Rome to others, excited the author 's soul. Wrote his first novel from that experience at 27. For the curious lovers of literature an essential read and drinks for all the readers, you don't want to feel like an outsider...join the wild party while sitting on your couch.
Since millions perished in the vicious recent war of attrition, no glory but plenty of blood, a vast deep ocean ...
The unknown writer seeks fame, praise and probably most importantly money... it's no fun being poor and what 's a better place than this illustrious city of artists, to join the parade. Newly married a wife eight years his senior still beautiful, Hadley a charming lady... the first of four and later wrote his favorite. He struggles however, the fun part is the many giants Hemingway meets, the minors poets, writers and painters the winds of time floats them towards unknown regions. Brutally honest sometimes, Gertrude Stein, her weird manners revealed, the hopeless pathetic drunk F.Scott Fitzgerald and his jealous glamorous wife Zelda, going insane, James Joyce almost blind and likes to drink a little, arrogant Picasso , always kind Ezra Pound before he choose the wrong side in the next war . Sylvia Beach owner of the renowned book store Shakespeare and Company... invariably helps the writers good or bad. By far the most interesting character is F.(Francis) Scott Fitzgerald his constant drunkenness , pitiful talk and gloomy moods. Telling Hemingway he has a reputation of being cruel , heartless and conceited not something Ernest hadn't heard before (I bet) , The Sun Also Rises makes him rich and famous. Having visited Spain with his wife and friends watching bullfighting in the ring as thousands look on , fascinated him. The excruciating contest reminiscent of ancient Rome to others, excited the author 's soul. Wrote his first novel from that experience at 27. For the curious lovers of literature an essential read and drinks for all the readers, you don't want to feel like an outsider...join the wild party while sitting on your couch.
July 5, 2024
鈥淚f you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.鈥�
鈥淲e would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.鈥�
I love Ernest Hemingway as a writer, at his best, especially in many of the stories, but in the main novels, too, there is often breathtakingly good writing. Then there are the books, some of them much later, where there would seem to be parodies of himself. And he is ripe for parody, given the style:
鈥淵ou expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.鈥�
Either you find that paragraph laughable or loveable, and at this point I could honestly go either way, but in general I love his simple declarative and lyrical sentences.
A Moveable Feast is an interesting book to read after The Sun Also Rises, which is a book that begins in Paris and moves to the drunken disastrous fiesta at Pamplona, with people Behaving Badly all the time. That book has some of those lyrical passages, usually about fishing and bullfighting. Feast is written years after the last great work, The Old Man and the Sea, at a point when he thinks he is basically washed up (cracked up, he would say), depressed, paranoid; it is his last attempt to cement his reputation, to solidify the myth he has made of himself through all his works, the myth of the sensitive macho man, the best writer, the best drinker, the best fisherman, the best man. In Sun it is Jake Barnes as Hemingway, the only guy who is NOT behaving badly, the guy who rises above the "bitched" fray and goes fishing, away from people, back to nature. No one is faithful or can hold his liquor like the impotent Jake, poor guy. And so noble, a bullfighting aficionado.
Feast is two books, really. It鈥檚 in the main a kind of reprise, a revisiting of those early magical days, anecdotes of drinking, gambling, skiing, eating, visiting famous friends, loving Hadley, and writing, always writing. The first Feast book is an 鈥渆arnest鈥� apology to Hadley, his last love letter to her, as he faces madness and death, wherein you may learn to love Hem鈥攈er Tatie鈥攋ust a little again, maybe. In the process he manages to capture some of that early lyrical glory of Paris and their young love life there. Hemingway dedicates Sun to Hadley and their son nicknamed Bumby and gives her all the proceeds from it because he felt guilty all his life for dumping them, and I see that act as the first bookend of his collected acts of contrition, the last being the essays focused on their time together in Paris.
鈥淲e ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.鈥�
True, Hadley is more an image of The Beloved than an actual full鈥揵odied character in the book; she and Bumby don鈥檛 do anything really but be Wife and Child, but they are (at least, I鈥檒l say) romanticized here, washed with regret and sorrow at every turn. Though he sometimes frames it in the passive sense, as when he says, "people came in that would change things," and he calls them, to the end, "the rich" (Pauline Pfeiffer was a rich heiress whom he left Hadley for), he does make it clear he is sorry, though it is now decades later. Again and again he says, we were perfect, and we didn鈥檛 know we would soon never be perfect again.
鈥淲hen I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I had ever loved anyone but her.鈥� [He had just come from Pauline's bed, so this might change any inclination you might have to feel sorry for him here. This is the problem in the book seen as apology, that he apologizes and then blames others, at points.}
But is it Hemingway speaking, or the myth he created of himself? Hem is cagey on the "truth" of his writing in Feast:
鈥淭his book is fiction, but there is always a chance that such a work of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.鈥�
So the first "book" or aspect of Feast is Hadley love. But then there is the other half of the book where you realize sweet Hadley was lucky to get out when she did. In this second Feast, Hem reminisces about other famous people he knew at the time, and most of these people he just trashes as he often did.
Of Gertrude Stein, who mentored him in his writing and career: she is 鈥渓azy,鈥� 鈥渏ealous鈥� (of others鈥� success, as if he weren鈥檛!); 鈥渄isloyal鈥� (as if he weren鈥檛, even in the process of trashing her!); he bashes her for bashing gay men writers; he yells at her for her 1920 reference to his generation as a 鈥渓ost鈥� generation: 鈥渨ho is calling who a lost generation?鈥� Feels petty and ungrateful to the woman who spent countless hours supporting him and mentoring to him on his writing, even if some of what he says may be true.
Of Ford Madox Ford (who championed Hem鈥檚 early work): 鈥淚 had always avoided looking at Ford when I could and I always held my breath.鈥�
Of Wyndham Lewis: 鈥�. . . the eyes of an unsuccessful rapist.鈥� (!)
And on and on, though he does not here critique Joyce, nor Pound, nor his lifelong friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, though he is consistently vicious about Zelda and what her 鈥渋nsanity鈥� does to destroy Scott鈥檚 career. The Fitzgerald essays are really poignant, the best of the "other writer" essays.
To be fair, some of it is funny, though not as funny as he thinks it is, because he often comes off as petty and mean. But the writing advice is plentiful and useful:
鈥淎ll you have to do is write one sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.鈥�
鈥淚 had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.鈥�
鈥淭his was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.鈥�
And we get good advice on the necessity for discipline and regularity, and reading when not writing. He says great and true things about Chekhov and Dostoevsky.
Finally, I am deeply conflicted about this sad book that in the main preserves one鈥檚 sense of his arrogance and nastiness, and also his lyrical brilliance. It was published after he committed suicide. Some of the writing is 5 star, for sure, and he is always interesting, if sometimes infuriating.
鈥淏ut Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.鈥�
鈥淲e would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.鈥�
I love Ernest Hemingway as a writer, at his best, especially in many of the stories, but in the main novels, too, there is often breathtakingly good writing. Then there are the books, some of them much later, where there would seem to be parodies of himself. And he is ripe for parody, given the style:
鈥淵ou expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.鈥�
Either you find that paragraph laughable or loveable, and at this point I could honestly go either way, but in general I love his simple declarative and lyrical sentences.
A Moveable Feast is an interesting book to read after The Sun Also Rises, which is a book that begins in Paris and moves to the drunken disastrous fiesta at Pamplona, with people Behaving Badly all the time. That book has some of those lyrical passages, usually about fishing and bullfighting. Feast is written years after the last great work, The Old Man and the Sea, at a point when he thinks he is basically washed up (cracked up, he would say), depressed, paranoid; it is his last attempt to cement his reputation, to solidify the myth he has made of himself through all his works, the myth of the sensitive macho man, the best writer, the best drinker, the best fisherman, the best man. In Sun it is Jake Barnes as Hemingway, the only guy who is NOT behaving badly, the guy who rises above the "bitched" fray and goes fishing, away from people, back to nature. No one is faithful or can hold his liquor like the impotent Jake, poor guy. And so noble, a bullfighting aficionado.
Feast is two books, really. It鈥檚 in the main a kind of reprise, a revisiting of those early magical days, anecdotes of drinking, gambling, skiing, eating, visiting famous friends, loving Hadley, and writing, always writing. The first Feast book is an 鈥渆arnest鈥� apology to Hadley, his last love letter to her, as he faces madness and death, wherein you may learn to love Hem鈥攈er Tatie鈥攋ust a little again, maybe. In the process he manages to capture some of that early lyrical glory of Paris and their young love life there. Hemingway dedicates Sun to Hadley and their son nicknamed Bumby and gives her all the proceeds from it because he felt guilty all his life for dumping them, and I see that act as the first bookend of his collected acts of contrition, the last being the essays focused on their time together in Paris.
鈥淲e ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.鈥�
True, Hadley is more an image of The Beloved than an actual full鈥揵odied character in the book; she and Bumby don鈥檛 do anything really but be Wife and Child, but they are (at least, I鈥檒l say) romanticized here, washed with regret and sorrow at every turn. Though he sometimes frames it in the passive sense, as when he says, "people came in that would change things," and he calls them, to the end, "the rich" (Pauline Pfeiffer was a rich heiress whom he left Hadley for), he does make it clear he is sorry, though it is now decades later. Again and again he says, we were perfect, and we didn鈥檛 know we would soon never be perfect again.
鈥淲hen I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I had ever loved anyone but her.鈥� [He had just come from Pauline's bed, so this might change any inclination you might have to feel sorry for him here. This is the problem in the book seen as apology, that he apologizes and then blames others, at points.}
But is it Hemingway speaking, or the myth he created of himself? Hem is cagey on the "truth" of his writing in Feast:
鈥淭his book is fiction, but there is always a chance that such a work of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.鈥�
So the first "book" or aspect of Feast is Hadley love. But then there is the other half of the book where you realize sweet Hadley was lucky to get out when she did. In this second Feast, Hem reminisces about other famous people he knew at the time, and most of these people he just trashes as he often did.
Of Gertrude Stein, who mentored him in his writing and career: she is 鈥渓azy,鈥� 鈥渏ealous鈥� (of others鈥� success, as if he weren鈥檛!); 鈥渄isloyal鈥� (as if he weren鈥檛, even in the process of trashing her!); he bashes her for bashing gay men writers; he yells at her for her 1920 reference to his generation as a 鈥渓ost鈥� generation: 鈥渨ho is calling who a lost generation?鈥� Feels petty and ungrateful to the woman who spent countless hours supporting him and mentoring to him on his writing, even if some of what he says may be true.
Of Ford Madox Ford (who championed Hem鈥檚 early work): 鈥淚 had always avoided looking at Ford when I could and I always held my breath.鈥�
Of Wyndham Lewis: 鈥�. . . the eyes of an unsuccessful rapist.鈥� (!)
And on and on, though he does not here critique Joyce, nor Pound, nor his lifelong friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, though he is consistently vicious about Zelda and what her 鈥渋nsanity鈥� does to destroy Scott鈥檚 career. The Fitzgerald essays are really poignant, the best of the "other writer" essays.
To be fair, some of it is funny, though not as funny as he thinks it is, because he often comes off as petty and mean. But the writing advice is plentiful and useful:
鈥淎ll you have to do is write one sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.鈥�
鈥淚 had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.鈥�
鈥淭his was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.鈥�
And we get good advice on the necessity for discipline and regularity, and reading when not writing. He says great and true things about Chekhov and Dostoevsky.
Finally, I am deeply conflicted about this sad book that in the main preserves one鈥檚 sense of his arrogance and nastiness, and also his lyrical brilliance. It was published after he committed suicide. Some of the writing is 5 star, for sure, and he is always interesting, if sometimes infuriating.
鈥淏ut Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.鈥�
December 4, 2013
Whenever a friend/Roman/lover/countryman/debtor/student/
jackass bar brawler tells me that Hemingway lost it after THE SUN ALSO RISES or (being generous) A FAREWELL TO ARMS, I say: read this book. There are moments of vile approbation. It saddens me infinitely to hear EH bang on Gertrude and Scott, and some of the dialogue is transparently punchdrunk. But when I want to read a book by someone who lost his shit and knew he lost it spectularly, this be the one. There are few passages more self-recriminating in lit than the moment at the end of this one in which EH, lameting his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, says that he would rather have died than love anyone else than his first wife, Hadley. This is Hemingway kicking his own ass, and thus, a lesson to us all.
jackass bar brawler tells me that Hemingway lost it after THE SUN ALSO RISES or (being generous) A FAREWELL TO ARMS, I say: read this book. There are moments of vile approbation. It saddens me infinitely to hear EH bang on Gertrude and Scott, and some of the dialogue is transparently punchdrunk. But when I want to read a book by someone who lost his shit and knew he lost it spectularly, this be the one. There are few passages more self-recriminating in lit than the moment at the end of this one in which EH, lameting his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, says that he would rather have died than love anyone else than his first wife, Hadley. This is Hemingway kicking his own ass, and thus, a lesson to us all.
May 31, 2016
In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway presents vivid and interesting observations on his days struggling to make it in post WWI Paris. Interacting with other writers described by Gertrude Stein as being members of the lost generation, A Moveable Feast shows a young Hemingway defining himself as a different kind of writer. The connections to The Sun Also Rises are readily apparent. However, Hemingway鈥檚 thoughts about art and his writing are relevant to all his novels and short stories. This is another of my recent Hemingway rereads. It was a memoir I鈥檝e always enjoyed and this time was no exception.
January 3, 2008
Reading A Moveable Feast was a strange combination of pure pleasure and pure torture for me. On one hand, what could be better than reading a pseudo-memoir written by the unabashedly self-absorbed, and yet enduringly charming, Hemingway--all white wine, manliness, and burgeoning craft, with an excess of anecdotes and remembrances (often unflattering and unfair, god bless him) of his eccentric and luminous contemporaries? Not much. Especially with such memories: of Gertrude "Aldous Huxley writes like a dead man" Stein, of Wyndham "Eyes of an Unsuccessful Rapist" Lewis, of confirming for Scott Fitzgerald that his endowment was of a sufficient dimension to please any decent woman (compared, when it was, with statues at the Louve).
Everything is romantic: unheated Parisian cafes, living on money borrowed from the woman who owns the bookstore/library, having dinner with fire eaters, skiing up into the tip-top of the Alps to learn about avalanches in the winter, losing 6 months' savings on the ponies, boxing with Ezra Pound, donating money to fund T.S. Elliot's departure from his humdrum bank job. Eating and drinking. Not eating and drinking.
But especially, 'Working.' That up-with-the-sun-to-work-on-my-craft self-imposed grindstone that one sweats over as one might laying bricks and mortar all day. For from the way Hemingway describes it, writing--working--is hard, physical (manly) labor. It taxes you and it costs you and it takes a whole morning to get a paragraph written, but all the better! Like a good climb up a tall mountain, your exhaustion only proves that you've done something real and worthwhile. Which is a sentiment that can make any writer-in-training feel grand and important. This isn't art or creativity or any pansy self-expression. This. Is. Work.
And yet...
Hemingway tells us of a time when one could travel through Europe on a seasonal basis, drink bottles of wine by the liter, eat out in cafes all the time, and still be considered poor. When you could make a living selling magazine stories and the odd piece of journalism. When these combined payments were not only enough to fund an apartment for you and your wife and son, but also for a nursemaid, and for a separate hotel room in which you could work (naked, if need be).
It's a particularly classy brand of poverty that doesn't sound impoverished at all.
Alas and alack. But it's still fun to read about.
Everything is romantic: unheated Parisian cafes, living on money borrowed from the woman who owns the bookstore/library, having dinner with fire eaters, skiing up into the tip-top of the Alps to learn about avalanches in the winter, losing 6 months' savings on the ponies, boxing with Ezra Pound, donating money to fund T.S. Elliot's departure from his humdrum bank job. Eating and drinking. Not eating and drinking.
But especially, 'Working.' That up-with-the-sun-to-work-on-my-craft self-imposed grindstone that one sweats over as one might laying bricks and mortar all day. For from the way Hemingway describes it, writing--working--is hard, physical (manly) labor. It taxes you and it costs you and it takes a whole morning to get a paragraph written, but all the better! Like a good climb up a tall mountain, your exhaustion only proves that you've done something real and worthwhile. Which is a sentiment that can make any writer-in-training feel grand and important. This isn't art or creativity or any pansy self-expression. This. Is. Work.
And yet...
Hemingway tells us of a time when one could travel through Europe on a seasonal basis, drink bottles of wine by the liter, eat out in cafes all the time, and still be considered poor. When you could make a living selling magazine stories and the odd piece of journalism. When these combined payments were not only enough to fund an apartment for you and your wife and son, but also for a nursemaid, and for a separate hotel room in which you could work (naked, if need be).
It's a particularly classy brand of poverty that doesn't sound impoverished at all.
Alas and alack. But it's still fun to read about.
December 6, 2019
Mi primer Hemingway! Realmente me ha gustado conocer su prosa, o铆r su voz a trav茅s de las palabras; paladear sus silencios. Ver Paris con otros ojos. Y beber...porque beber, hemos bebido todos. Hemingway por haberlo escrito, su retrato por haber alzado la copa y todo el elenco de figurines que lo acompa帽an, por no dejarlo s贸lo.
June 2, 2022
賷賯賵賱 賴賷賲賳噩賵丕賷 " 賴賰匕丕 賰丕賳鬲 亘丕乇賷爻 毓賳丿賲丕 賰賳丕 賮賯乇丕亍 噩丿丕賸 賵爻毓丿丕亍 噩丿丕賸
賲匕賰乇丕鬲 賴賷賲賳噩賵丕賷 丕賱卮丕亘 賮賷 亘丕乇賷爻 賮賷 兀賵丕卅賱 毓卮乇賷賳賷丕鬲 丕賱賯乇賳 丕賱賲丕囟賷
賰鬲亘賴丕 毓賱賶 賲丿丕乇 3 爻賳賵丕鬲, 賵賳購卮乇鬲 毓丕賲 1964 亘毓丿 3 爻賳賵丕鬲 賲賳 丕賳鬲丨丕乇賴
賵賱賷賲丞 賲鬲賳賯賱丞 亘賷賳 丕賱匕賰乇賷丕鬲 賵丕賱兀丿亘 賵賲毓丕賱賲 亘丕乇賷爻.. 丕賱賲賯丕賴賷 賵丕賱賲胤丕毓賲 賵丕賱賲賰鬲亘丕鬲
丨賰丕賷丕鬲 毓賳 氐丿丕賯丕鬲賴 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賱賱兀丿亘丕亍 賵毓賱丕賯鬲賴 丕賱噩賲賷賱丞 亘夭賵噩鬲賴, 賯乇丕亍丕鬲賴 賵兀毓賲丕賱賴
賮鬲乇丞 睾賳賷丞 賮賷 丨賷丕鬲賴 亘乇睾賲 丕賱賮賯乇 丕賱賲丕丿賷, 賲丨賰賷丞 亘爻賱丕爻丞 賵亘兀爻賱賵亘 亘爻賷胤
賲匕賰乇丕鬲 賴賷賲賳噩賵丕賷 丕賱卮丕亘 賮賷 亘丕乇賷爻 賮賷 兀賵丕卅賱 毓卮乇賷賳賷丕鬲 丕賱賯乇賳 丕賱賲丕囟賷
賰鬲亘賴丕 毓賱賶 賲丿丕乇 3 爻賳賵丕鬲, 賵賳購卮乇鬲 毓丕賲 1964 亘毓丿 3 爻賳賵丕鬲 賲賳 丕賳鬲丨丕乇賴
賵賱賷賲丞 賲鬲賳賯賱丞 亘賷賳 丕賱匕賰乇賷丕鬲 賵丕賱兀丿亘 賵賲毓丕賱賲 亘丕乇賷爻.. 丕賱賲賯丕賴賷 賵丕賱賲胤丕毓賲 賵丕賱賲賰鬲亘丕鬲
丨賰丕賷丕鬲 毓賳 氐丿丕賯丕鬲賴 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賱賱兀丿亘丕亍 賵毓賱丕賯鬲賴 丕賱噩賲賷賱丞 亘夭賵噩鬲賴, 賯乇丕亍丕鬲賴 賵兀毓賲丕賱賴
賮鬲乇丞 睾賳賷丞 賮賷 丨賷丕鬲賴 亘乇睾賲 丕賱賮賯乇 丕賱賲丕丿賷, 賲丨賰賷丞 亘爻賱丕爻丞 賵亘兀爻賱賵亘 亘爻賷胤
June 14, 2022
61st book of 2022.
2nd reading. Our very own twisted my arm (hardly) into taking this with me to Paris along with Proust's final volume and I'm glad I did. I read this almost cover-to-cover yesterday on my return journey from Paris, most of it on the Eurostar, a bit more on the train from London and then polished it off this morning. As my 1st reading review suggests, I set out about, several years ago at university, reading an insane amount of Ernest Hemingway. Without hyperbole, I believed my thoughts were starting to sound like his simple declarative sentences. I took a long break. I last read this in 2017 and this was, in fact, my very first Hemingway book. Coming back to it now, having read most of his work, most of the work of those he talks about within, it felt like a different experience. I relished the snippets of Joyce. I remembered the Fitzgerald bits (they are hard not to). I realised that this memoir is the better side of Hemingway, the side that most people don't bother to look for or more aptly, see. He's gentle, he's funny, he's a man who was unbelievably, dauntingly, dedicated to the craft. The portraits within this book of Paris in the 1920s, when he was the same age I am now, twenty-five, are full of regret, nostalgia, pathos; Hemingway is a man who knew his flaws.
And of course, reading this on the Eurostar, I was doubled astounded by the images of Paris he creates, because they were so fresh in my own memory; in fact, many of them could well have been my own memories. It is testament to the immortality of Paris. Some of the roads and parks Hemingway mentions are ones I had, less than 24 hours ago, walked myself. On leaving university one piece of advice given by S. (the very lecturer detailed in my first review) was, "Travel the roads travelled by writers." In this way, we can feel their presence, perhaps somehow learn from them, feel their lasting power: these were things S. truly believed in; but I could write for too long about that. A wonderful book, Hemingway at his best, and at his best, he's up there with the rest.
________________________
1st reading. I read this back in my first year of University for a certain lecture about memoirs and such. I fancied myself top of the class choosing Hemingway. Our professor, Dr H., who is a very good poet (I went to one of his launches and was pleasantly surprised that through his insistent coughing, which none of us could work out, he read very well. I later found that the frequent short coughs he gave were due to a serious amount of smoking in his youth, apparently) asked us all to discuss our chosen books. I spoke about Paris as a setting, the writers Hemingway encounters, Joyce, Fitzgerald, the business with the latter's penis. I told everyone I thought it was very good.
At this time I was getting into Hemingway properly for the first time and struck the deal with my housemate, the year later, I think, to read everything Hemingway ever wrote before he read Ulysses. At some point we met with one of our professors, our favourite, Dr S., in a coffee shop and this challenge of ours came out. He told us he had, on getting his job as professor at the university many years ago, left his wife for a weekend and pitched a tent somewhere in the countryside and read Ulysses over two days. He had then packed up and come home again feeling "ready". He also admitted that when he had done his own MA he asked if his professor could simply teach him to, "write like Hemingway". Since then, I've been surprised to find many people in my creative circles dislike old Hemingway. In fact, if I could distil the opinions I've seen from my own experience they would be this: They don't like Hemingway, they don't bother trying with Joyce and everyone tells them that Fitzgerald is a supreme novelist and they aren't so sure. On my own MA I found a huge abundance of Paul Auster fans, more than anything, oddly.
Dr S. laughed at our challenge anyway over his coffee and expressed his joy at such a prospect; he said we were mad, competitive, it was great, he wished us all the best, that reading was the most important thing in life, etc.
2nd reading. Our very own twisted my arm (hardly) into taking this with me to Paris along with Proust's final volume and I'm glad I did. I read this almost cover-to-cover yesterday on my return journey from Paris, most of it on the Eurostar, a bit more on the train from London and then polished it off this morning. As my 1st reading review suggests, I set out about, several years ago at university, reading an insane amount of Ernest Hemingway. Without hyperbole, I believed my thoughts were starting to sound like his simple declarative sentences. I took a long break. I last read this in 2017 and this was, in fact, my very first Hemingway book. Coming back to it now, having read most of his work, most of the work of those he talks about within, it felt like a different experience. I relished the snippets of Joyce. I remembered the Fitzgerald bits (they are hard not to). I realised that this memoir is the better side of Hemingway, the side that most people don't bother to look for or more aptly, see. He's gentle, he's funny, he's a man who was unbelievably, dauntingly, dedicated to the craft. The portraits within this book of Paris in the 1920s, when he was the same age I am now, twenty-five, are full of regret, nostalgia, pathos; Hemingway is a man who knew his flaws.
And of course, reading this on the Eurostar, I was doubled astounded by the images of Paris he creates, because they were so fresh in my own memory; in fact, many of them could well have been my own memories. It is testament to the immortality of Paris. Some of the roads and parks Hemingway mentions are ones I had, less than 24 hours ago, walked myself. On leaving university one piece of advice given by S. (the very lecturer detailed in my first review) was, "Travel the roads travelled by writers." In this way, we can feel their presence, perhaps somehow learn from them, feel their lasting power: these were things S. truly believed in; but I could write for too long about that. A wonderful book, Hemingway at his best, and at his best, he's up there with the rest.
________________________
1st reading. I read this back in my first year of University for a certain lecture about memoirs and such. I fancied myself top of the class choosing Hemingway. Our professor, Dr H., who is a very good poet (I went to one of his launches and was pleasantly surprised that through his insistent coughing, which none of us could work out, he read very well. I later found that the frequent short coughs he gave were due to a serious amount of smoking in his youth, apparently) asked us all to discuss our chosen books. I spoke about Paris as a setting, the writers Hemingway encounters, Joyce, Fitzgerald, the business with the latter's penis. I told everyone I thought it was very good.
At this time I was getting into Hemingway properly for the first time and struck the deal with my housemate, the year later, I think, to read everything Hemingway ever wrote before he read Ulysses. At some point we met with one of our professors, our favourite, Dr S., in a coffee shop and this challenge of ours came out. He told us he had, on getting his job as professor at the university many years ago, left his wife for a weekend and pitched a tent somewhere in the countryside and read Ulysses over two days. He had then packed up and come home again feeling "ready". He also admitted that when he had done his own MA he asked if his professor could simply teach him to, "write like Hemingway". Since then, I've been surprised to find many people in my creative circles dislike old Hemingway. In fact, if I could distil the opinions I've seen from my own experience they would be this: They don't like Hemingway, they don't bother trying with Joyce and everyone tells them that Fitzgerald is a supreme novelist and they aren't so sure. On my own MA I found a huge abundance of Paul Auster fans, more than anything, oddly.
Dr S. laughed at our challenge anyway over his coffee and expressed his joy at such a prospect; he said we were mad, competitive, it was great, he wished us all the best, that reading was the most important thing in life, etc.
October 7, 2019
"We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other."
A memoir of Hemingway's time spent as a young, unknown writer in 1920s Paris.
This is very sensory based writing. References abound to food and drink and the change of seasons in Paris. You can feel what it's like to be living in poverty as a practically starving artist. And yet there are other ways to be fed. Intellectually and emotionally.
Hem talks of the many books he devoured, of viewing paintings by the masters Cezanne, Manet, Monet on a daily basis. The interesting conversations he had with people such as Gertrude Stein & Ford Maddox Ford. His friendships with F Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Hem's (first) wife Hadley is by his side, on the periphery, not quite partaking in his literary world and artistic friendships. Yet none of this matters as they are in love. And in Paris.
The book is split into vignettes, each one focussed on a different aspect of their life in Paris. There are many caustic observations about his fellow writers and friends. Biting. Undoubtedly they felt likewise toward Hem. He talks openly of their drinking and relationship problems. But what would a memoir be without some good old fashioned sniping.
It's interesting to note that while Hem & his inner circle were by and large very poor, they still managed to head out to the local cafe daily and have a drink. Or two. Give or take. I don't recall noticing this the first time around.
Is this told with rose-coloured glasses stuck firmly in place? Probably. But then all the best memories are, aren't they.
This is my second reading of this book, after a distance of many years. Bookclub was continuing the Hem fest (we'd previously read Paula McLain's "The Paris Wife"). It still held interest for me. A good book to tuck into when you have an arvo free.
"Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was when we were very poor and very happy."
January 11, 2016
Memoir鈥� or fiction? It doesn鈥檛 matter with this amusing classic, a series of poignant and light vignettes about the author鈥檚 time as a poor, struggling writer in 1920s Paris.
Hem (as people refer to him in the book) offers up clear, unfussy portraits of everyone from salon-mistress/tastemaker Gertrude Stein and Shakespeare & Co鈥檚 generous owner, Sylvia Beach, to a snobbish, forgetful Ford Madox Ford and a nasty Wyndham Lewis, whom he compares to 鈥渢oe-jam.鈥�
I especially liked the couple of chapters devoted to fellow expat F. Scott Fitzgerald, including one that tells of a disastrous trip the pair took to retrieve Fitzgerald鈥檚 broken-down car in Lyon. It鈥檚 in this book that Hem praises Fitzgerald鈥檚 innate talent, blames Zelda for ruining that talent and recounts the famous anatomy lesson he gave Fitzgerald at the Louvre, prompted by a catty comment about the man鈥檚 genitals by Zelda.
There鈥檚 lots in here about Hem鈥檚 writing practices (he was publishing his first stories and working on The Sun Also Rises), struggling to make rent, gambling, alcohol and what authors he was reading.
An air of bittersweet regret hangs over the passages concerning his first wife, Hadley (pictured above), especially near the end when he confesses to an infidelity (to us, not to her).
The understatement here, and the book鈥檚 lyrical concluding passage, make this a warm, enduring portrait of the artist as a young man.
Even if not all of it really happened.
April 24, 2012
I decided to bail after his visit to the indoor bicycle races, like dance marathons one of those frantic displays of recreational endurance so popular in the 1920s. A quick comparing look at Joseph Roth鈥檚 account of a night at Berlin鈥檚 tracked bicycle races, in What I Saw, convinced me that I was wasting my time with Hemingway. There are better books. Hemingway鈥檚 style will always strike me as more or less mannered and ridiculous, but what I read of A Moveable Feast was especially bad鈥攕olemn, pompous, dialed down to a portentous slow-mo. It鈥檚 enough to make one cite Nabokov鈥檚 opinion that Hemingway is essentially a writer for boys.
February 28, 2017
Yes, I know, this is a high rating. But I did really enjoy reading this book. It was like I was with Hemingway in Paris in the twenties. It really came to live before my eyes. I think it has much to to with his manner of writing. Very clear sentences, not a word to much but it captures all he has to say without much frivolity. He wrote this book at the end of his life so he really mastered this very own style of writing and which I like so much.
July 30, 2020
Hemingway鈥檚 true and original foreword to A Moveable Feast: 鈥淭his book contains material from the remises of my memory and of my heart. Even if the one has been tampered with and the other does not exist.鈥�
Ernest Hemingway passed away before he could write a final chapter or even title this book, so it was left up to Mary Hemingway, his fourth wife, to give the book a title. She remembered hearing her husband once say to a friend, 鈥淚f you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.鈥�
After reading that, I could not imagine the book being titled anything else. A 鈥渇east鈥� can be an allusion to religious feasts, but it can also be seen as a 鈥渇east of life,鈥� as in your supreme happiness. Living your life as if you鈥檙e eating a great feast. The term 鈥渕oveable鈥� is a bit more straightforward; wherever you go, that feeling of 鈥渟upreme happiness鈥� goes with you.听
Personally, I鈥檝e been dreaming of traveling to Paris for years. I have also been an admirer of Hemingway鈥檚 writing for many years as well. Put both of them together, set during the roaring 20鈥檚, and you鈥檝e got my perfect book! This book truly felt like a moveable feast, literally and figuratively. While reading, I kept having this feeling like I was peeking into the keyhole of a door. That door belonged to Ernest Hemingway, and on the other side I could see the Paris of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and many more of my literary and artists idols. Sadly, Time itself locked this imaginary door from the inside. Even though I couldn鈥檛 walk into the room, I had my ear to the door in such a way that I could hear everything. Ultimately, these words are a portal to Hemingway鈥檚 1920鈥檚 Paris disguised as a simple book. As Hemingway says on page 18, 鈥�...I entered far into the story and was lost in it.鈥�
We as the readers not only get an intimate portrait of Ernest Hemingway himself, but also a select group of people he was in contact with. My personal favorite was discovering how Hemingway viewed his close friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. He wrote a preface before one of the chapters about Fitzgerald that says, 鈥淗is talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on butterfly鈥檚 wings鈥︹€� He continues this stunning simile by revealing the wings flaws, and by doing so 鈥淪cott鈥檚鈥� own faults. He ends by saying, 鈥淗e was flying again and I was lucky to meet him just after a good time in his writing if not a good one in his life.鈥� Hemingway even describes reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, and being put off by the cover. On the dust jacket, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg disturbed him so much he confessed, 鈥淚 took it off to read the book.鈥� This was one of those moments while reading where I felt like I was peeking through the door鈥檚 keyhole. I watched Ernest Hemingway take the dust jacket off and face it down on his table.听
The most intriguing and heartbreaking aspect of their friendship was discovering, through Hemingway鈥檚 eyes, just how much mental suffering Fitzgerald went through. I have always known he was an alcoholic, and his wife Zelda tended to 鈥渁ct out鈥� in a way. Hemingway always suspected it was out of jealousy. These firsthand accounts felt like 鈥淓rnest鈥� was telling me the secrets of his friend鈥檚 life in ultimate confidence.听
My favorite aspect of this book was watching 鈥淗em,鈥� as some people call him, go about his everyday life: writing, traveling, walking to cafes鈥� These little snatches of time felt even more personal. He鈥檚 bringing us into these scenes to not only tell the story of his life, but also to show us who he truly was. This is one of my favorite lines from the book, 鈥�... we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.鈥� From the outside this moment is quite simple, but it鈥檚 within the so-called 鈥渟imple moments鈥� where I find the greatest artistry.听
Another image that I completely fell in love with was while Hemingway sat writing in a cafe. 鈥�...when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil sharpener with the shavings curling into the saucer under my drink.鈥� There really isn鈥檛 anything groundbreaking about this scene, but after I read it, I had this overpowering need to paint this image. I could see the saucer in my mind, I pictured it being white with a simple trim, and the beige pencil shavings curled all around the matching white cup holding his 鈥渃afe au lait.鈥澨�
This 鈥渞estored edition鈥� has many alternative endings, because Hemingway kept rewriting it. He passed away before doing any final edits, but his grandson Sean Hemingway picked up the pencil that his grandfather put down. He reworked the original version of A Moveable Feast into its truest form, and I can only imagine how touched Ernest Hemingway would be if he saw his legacy living on. Afterall, Hemingway says on page 22, 鈥淚 would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 鈥楧o not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.鈥� So finally I would write one true sentence, and go on from there.鈥� I can鈥檛 help but feel that this book in its entirety is the truest sentence Hemingway knew.听
Ernest Hemingway passed away before he could write a final chapter or even title this book, so it was left up to Mary Hemingway, his fourth wife, to give the book a title. She remembered hearing her husband once say to a friend, 鈥淚f you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.鈥�
After reading that, I could not imagine the book being titled anything else. A 鈥渇east鈥� can be an allusion to religious feasts, but it can also be seen as a 鈥渇east of life,鈥� as in your supreme happiness. Living your life as if you鈥檙e eating a great feast. The term 鈥渕oveable鈥� is a bit more straightforward; wherever you go, that feeling of 鈥渟upreme happiness鈥� goes with you.听
Personally, I鈥檝e been dreaming of traveling to Paris for years. I have also been an admirer of Hemingway鈥檚 writing for many years as well. Put both of them together, set during the roaring 20鈥檚, and you鈥檝e got my perfect book! This book truly felt like a moveable feast, literally and figuratively. While reading, I kept having this feeling like I was peeking into the keyhole of a door. That door belonged to Ernest Hemingway, and on the other side I could see the Paris of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and many more of my literary and artists idols. Sadly, Time itself locked this imaginary door from the inside. Even though I couldn鈥檛 walk into the room, I had my ear to the door in such a way that I could hear everything. Ultimately, these words are a portal to Hemingway鈥檚 1920鈥檚 Paris disguised as a simple book. As Hemingway says on page 18, 鈥�...I entered far into the story and was lost in it.鈥�
We as the readers not only get an intimate portrait of Ernest Hemingway himself, but also a select group of people he was in contact with. My personal favorite was discovering how Hemingway viewed his close friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. He wrote a preface before one of the chapters about Fitzgerald that says, 鈥淗is talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on butterfly鈥檚 wings鈥︹€� He continues this stunning simile by revealing the wings flaws, and by doing so 鈥淪cott鈥檚鈥� own faults. He ends by saying, 鈥淗e was flying again and I was lucky to meet him just after a good time in his writing if not a good one in his life.鈥� Hemingway even describes reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, and being put off by the cover. On the dust jacket, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg disturbed him so much he confessed, 鈥淚 took it off to read the book.鈥� This was one of those moments while reading where I felt like I was peeking through the door鈥檚 keyhole. I watched Ernest Hemingway take the dust jacket off and face it down on his table.听
The most intriguing and heartbreaking aspect of their friendship was discovering, through Hemingway鈥檚 eyes, just how much mental suffering Fitzgerald went through. I have always known he was an alcoholic, and his wife Zelda tended to 鈥渁ct out鈥� in a way. Hemingway always suspected it was out of jealousy. These firsthand accounts felt like 鈥淓rnest鈥� was telling me the secrets of his friend鈥檚 life in ultimate confidence.听
My favorite aspect of this book was watching 鈥淗em,鈥� as some people call him, go about his everyday life: writing, traveling, walking to cafes鈥� These little snatches of time felt even more personal. He鈥檚 bringing us into these scenes to not only tell the story of his life, but also to show us who he truly was. This is one of my favorite lines from the book, 鈥�... we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.鈥� From the outside this moment is quite simple, but it鈥檚 within the so-called 鈥渟imple moments鈥� where I find the greatest artistry.听
Another image that I completely fell in love with was while Hemingway sat writing in a cafe. 鈥�...when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil sharpener with the shavings curling into the saucer under my drink.鈥� There really isn鈥檛 anything groundbreaking about this scene, but after I read it, I had this overpowering need to paint this image. I could see the saucer in my mind, I pictured it being white with a simple trim, and the beige pencil shavings curled all around the matching white cup holding his 鈥渃afe au lait.鈥澨�
This 鈥渞estored edition鈥� has many alternative endings, because Hemingway kept rewriting it. He passed away before doing any final edits, but his grandson Sean Hemingway picked up the pencil that his grandfather put down. He reworked the original version of A Moveable Feast into its truest form, and I can only imagine how touched Ernest Hemingway would be if he saw his legacy living on. Afterall, Hemingway says on page 22, 鈥淚 would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 鈥楧o not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.鈥� So finally I would write one true sentence, and go on from there.鈥� I can鈥檛 help but feel that this book in its entirety is the truest sentence Hemingway knew.听
February 28, 2024
This book is not reflective of Hemingway鈥檚 quick short sentence style, I鈥檇 recommend reading one of his novels first. His writing is good but chapters don鈥檛 flow all that well. The 鈥渙riginal鈥� 1964 book came out after his death by suicide in 1961. His editor and fourth and last wife shaped and assembled his manuscript. He鈥檇 been getting electroshock treatments for a couple of years and was depressed and unwell at the time of his death. The version I read is the 2010 book edited by members of his family with second wife Pauline, the woman Hemingway dumped Hadley for and soon regretted. There is controversy among readers and critics. This version largely leaves Pauline out of the book, possibly to make Pauline less of a dirty dog. It also makes Hemingway less of a cad. A reader must be aware that Hemingway can be unreliable as a memoirist. Read carefully because he can be sly.
A Moveable Feast is full of interesting stories of life in the 20s in Paris, Hemingway鈥檚 writing process and memories of now famous writers and artists. Again, watch the slippery Mr. Hemingway. It is more than a little uncomfortable to read what he says about his supposed friends. He is often a nasty backstabber, years after the victim鈥檚 deaths. When he wants to cut a friend or rival down to size his first tactic seems to be to attack their appearance. F. Scott Fitzgerald is described as having looks that would be nice on a girl, having too-short legs, and not being able to hold his liquor. That鈥檚 all before Hemingway mentions that he was a pretty good writer but wasted talent on writing for magazines (Hemingway had done the same to make money). Gertrude Stein, who was a big support before he could sell anything, is made fun of because of her looks and lesbian relationship with Alice B Toklas as well as her failure to really catch on as a serious writer. The artist, Wyndham Lewis is described as 鈥渏ust looked nasty鈥� and had 鈥渢he eyes of an unsuccessful rapist.鈥� Nice. All this and more.
Very interesting portrayal of a time and place but surely shows Hemingway鈥檚 slippery character.
A Moveable Feast is full of interesting stories of life in the 20s in Paris, Hemingway鈥檚 writing process and memories of now famous writers and artists. Again, watch the slippery Mr. Hemingway. It is more than a little uncomfortable to read what he says about his supposed friends. He is often a nasty backstabber, years after the victim鈥檚 deaths. When he wants to cut a friend or rival down to size his first tactic seems to be to attack their appearance. F. Scott Fitzgerald is described as having looks that would be nice on a girl, having too-short legs, and not being able to hold his liquor. That鈥檚 all before Hemingway mentions that he was a pretty good writer but wasted talent on writing for magazines (Hemingway had done the same to make money). Gertrude Stein, who was a big support before he could sell anything, is made fun of because of her looks and lesbian relationship with Alice B Toklas as well as her failure to really catch on as a serious writer. The artist, Wyndham Lewis is described as 鈥渏ust looked nasty鈥� and had 鈥渢he eyes of an unsuccessful rapist.鈥� Nice. All this and more.
Very interesting portrayal of a time and place but surely shows Hemingway鈥檚 slippery character.
October 11, 2017
Ernest Hemingway. A big name in the literary game. I was always hesitant to read him. Mainly due to his book titles, they never really grabbed me, feeling masculine and daunting. I thought he was a author I would struggle to connect with. How wrong I was. This retrospective memoir of his early writing life in Paris as an expatriate set in the 20鈥檚 was a great place to start, getting a good sense of Ernest as a young man before his fame as a well loved author.
There鈥檚 so much beauty and wonder in the writing. Some of my favourite things to read about are all contained in this book. Paris, books, art and the decadent feasting on a budget all whet my appetite for this book. I felt excited being transported back into that bygone era where Paris becomes the literati playground for indulgence in the pursuit of passion and living the good life despite monetary limitations. It鈥檚 a name dropping paradise and I lapped it up. Especially the chapters on his relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really liked the way he describes the struggles and the distractions during the writing process. Who would have thought that would be so interesting to read about! Even the poverty seems like a minor inconvenience and part of the whimsy! It鈥檚 all part of the glittery appeal of a struggling author finding his forte in the city that is the background to so much inspiration for so many artists!
There鈥檚 so much beauty and wonder in the writing. Some of my favourite things to read about are all contained in this book. Paris, books, art and the decadent feasting on a budget all whet my appetite for this book. I felt excited being transported back into that bygone era where Paris becomes the literati playground for indulgence in the pursuit of passion and living the good life despite monetary limitations. It鈥檚 a name dropping paradise and I lapped it up. Especially the chapters on his relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really liked the way he describes the struggles and the distractions during the writing process. Who would have thought that would be so interesting to read about! Even the poverty seems like a minor inconvenience and part of the whimsy! It鈥檚 all part of the glittery appeal of a struggling author finding his forte in the city that is the background to so much inspiration for so many artists!
August 24, 2013
To paraphrase ol' Hem, "This is a fine and true book. It is honest and good, and the stories are important and just."
Hem, as I shall forever call him now, wrote this memoir just a few years before he died in 1961. It's about Hem and his first wife, Hadley, when they were young and poor in Paris in the '20s, and Hem would borrow books from the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, and he would go to cafes to write.
While there are stories about other writers in Paris at the time -- such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Ford Madox Ford -- much of the book is Hem talking about writing itself, which was interesting. He would sometimes worry that he couldn't write anymore and would have to reason with himself:
"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
My favorite story was a bizarre trip to Lyon that Hem took with Fitzgerald, who drank too much and became convinced that he was dying. There's a funny scene of Hem pretending to take Scott's temperature with a bath thermometer, and then plotting how to get Scott to stop drinking. "You could not be angry with Scott any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy, but I was getting angry with myself for having become involved in the whole silliness."
Later, Hem meets Zelda, Scott's unbalanced and demanding wife, and understands why Scott has so much trouble being able to write.
Hem also has some amusing stories about Gertrude Stein, with whom he had a prickly friendship: "There is not much future in men being friends with great women although it can be pleasant enough before it gets better or worse, and there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers." (Having read and not liked Stein's memoir "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," I say that she was ambitious but not necessarily great.)
Overall, I greatly enjoyed spending time with Hem, even though I'm sure some of the stories were exaggerated. In the preface, Hem wrote: "If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact."
Finally, I want to honor the cleverness of the title, which came from a letter Hem wrote to a friend in 1950: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
Hem, as I shall forever call him now, wrote this memoir just a few years before he died in 1961. It's about Hem and his first wife, Hadley, when they were young and poor in Paris in the '20s, and Hem would borrow books from the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, and he would go to cafes to write.
While there are stories about other writers in Paris at the time -- such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Ford Madox Ford -- much of the book is Hem talking about writing itself, which was interesting. He would sometimes worry that he couldn't write anymore and would have to reason with himself:
"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
My favorite story was a bizarre trip to Lyon that Hem took with Fitzgerald, who drank too much and became convinced that he was dying. There's a funny scene of Hem pretending to take Scott's temperature with a bath thermometer, and then plotting how to get Scott to stop drinking. "You could not be angry with Scott any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy, but I was getting angry with myself for having become involved in the whole silliness."
Later, Hem meets Zelda, Scott's unbalanced and demanding wife, and understands why Scott has so much trouble being able to write.
Hem also has some amusing stories about Gertrude Stein, with whom he had a prickly friendship: "There is not much future in men being friends with great women although it can be pleasant enough before it gets better or worse, and there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers." (Having read and not liked Stein's memoir "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," I say that she was ambitious but not necessarily great.)
Overall, I greatly enjoyed spending time with Hem, even though I'm sure some of the stories were exaggerated. In the preface, Hem wrote: "If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact."
Finally, I want to honor the cleverness of the title, which came from a letter Hem wrote to a friend in 1950: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
March 29, 2016
But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.
Well, this book was amazing. I was rather trepidatious, but it turned out to be excellent.
People who interfered with your life always did it for your own good and I figured it out finally that what they wanted was for you to conform completely and never differ from some accepted surface standard and then dissipate the way traveling salesmen would at a convention in every stupid and boreing way there was. They knew nothing of our pleasures nor how much fun it was to be damned to ourselves...
(I did not misspell "boring," it's that way in the book.)
Ernest Hemingway is writing about himself and his life in Paris. His writing style is so beautiful: simple and straightforward. I really love this style.
He discusses other 'big names' he was involved with at this time: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach.
To my vast surprise, I found Ernest Hemingway to be very funny. He made me laugh numerous times, especially "Chapter 17: Scott Fitzgerald" which was HILARIOUS. In this chapter Hemingway describes a trip he took with Scott and Scott is the biggest ninny. Hemingway trying to deal with Scott's idiocy is an absolute riot and I was cracking up. I didn't expect to laugh this much reading a Hemingway book - and that's not the only chapter where Hemingway's sense of humor shines.
Hemingway also gets into the most interesting discussions with his friends. He and Stein discuss homosexuality, the differences between gay men and lesbian women, sexual predators, and Stein gives Hemingway sex advice which he proudly brings home to Hadley.
Another great chapter is the one where F. Scott Fitzgerald comes to Hemingway, very upset, convinced - absolutely convinced - that he has a tiny penis and no woman (besides Zelda) will ever want him. Who planted this idea in him? Zelda, of course. So Ernest Hemingway is such a good friend and he's like, "Well, let's check this out." So he takes a look at Scott's penis and declares it normal. Wow. This is a good friend. Then he takes him to see a Michelangelo exhibit so that Scott can feel better about his penis. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. Lastly, he gives Scott some sex advice on how to make the most use of his penis.
One thing I love hearing Hemingway talk about is poverty and hunger. He and Hadley are pretty poor in Paris and Hemingway sometimes lies to his wife and says he's going to eat lunch but instead takes a two-hour walk around the park so that it saves them money. Poverty and hunger are two subjects I am intimately familiar with and I loved hearing about Hemingway's experiences with them.
When you are 25 and a natural heavyweight, missing a meal completely makes you very hungry. But it also sharpens all of your perceptions, and I found that many of the people I wrote about had very strong appetites and a great taste and desire for food, and most of them were looking forward to having a drink.
This is accurate.
One of the most absolutely romantic parts of the book is the chapter in which Hemingway and Hadley decide to wear their hair the exact same length. Hemingway wants to grow out his hair - he so much admires the long hair of the Japanese men he sees. Hadley is so supportive and they make a very romantic vow to wear their hair the same length. This is a very beautiful, romantic and heartwarming chapter. They defy the social conventions of the time:
I enjoyed being considered damned and my wife and I enjoyed being considered damned together.
Do you know that Hemingway was the creator of the hashtag #sorrynotsorry?
I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it. LOL I kid, I kid - but actually I'm not joking, this is Hemingway's attitude about a lot of things.
The book is also rife writing advice. I am not a writer! But I think anyone who is a writer would really enjoy and even possibly benefit from reading this book - Hemingway offers some thoughts and suggestions that I could see coming in very handy.
Now, the book isn't perfect. Of course we have shades of racism, homophobia, and sexism in here. Not to mention I was getting a strong James-Bond-feeling during a lot of parts:
A girl came in the caf茅 and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a fresh face as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.
I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited.
Hello, Bond. LOL This is something Bond would think - except Bond would include a detailed description of her breasts.
The book also has its dull parts.
Anyway, my point is that the book isn't perfect - but it's very good. I highly recommend it, actually. Clear, concise writing. It's funny. It has some great ideas and thoughts in it. I'm not saying Hemingway is a wonderful human being, but his writing is wonderful IMO. It's also fun to see everyone else traipsing around Paris: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, etc. I really was transported to 1920s Paris. I thought this would be boring, and I was happily proven wrong. I will definitely end up reading this a second time, perhaps in Spanish, where it is titled: Par铆s era una fiesta Or Paris was a party.
P.S. Please note that this is a review of The Restored Edition. I really liked this edition - I've read quotes from the other version and have decided that this is superior.
Well, this book was amazing. I was rather trepidatious, but it turned out to be excellent.
People who interfered with your life always did it for your own good and I figured it out finally that what they wanted was for you to conform completely and never differ from some accepted surface standard and then dissipate the way traveling salesmen would at a convention in every stupid and boreing way there was. They knew nothing of our pleasures nor how much fun it was to be damned to ourselves...
(I did not misspell "boring," it's that way in the book.)
Ernest Hemingway is writing about himself and his life in Paris. His writing style is so beautiful: simple and straightforward. I really love this style.
He discusses other 'big names' he was involved with at this time: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach.
To my vast surprise, I found Ernest Hemingway to be very funny. He made me laugh numerous times, especially "Chapter 17: Scott Fitzgerald" which was HILARIOUS. In this chapter Hemingway describes a trip he took with Scott and Scott is the biggest ninny. Hemingway trying to deal with Scott's idiocy is an absolute riot and I was cracking up. I didn't expect to laugh this much reading a Hemingway book - and that's not the only chapter where Hemingway's sense of humor shines.
Hemingway also gets into the most interesting discussions with his friends. He and Stein discuss homosexuality, the differences between gay men and lesbian women, sexual predators, and Stein gives Hemingway sex advice which he proudly brings home to Hadley.
Another great chapter is the one where F. Scott Fitzgerald comes to Hemingway, very upset, convinced - absolutely convinced - that he has a tiny penis and no woman (besides Zelda) will ever want him. Who planted this idea in him? Zelda, of course. So Ernest Hemingway is such a good friend and he's like, "Well, let's check this out." So he takes a look at Scott's penis and declares it normal. Wow. This is a good friend. Then he takes him to see a Michelangelo exhibit so that Scott can feel better about his penis. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. Lastly, he gives Scott some sex advice on how to make the most use of his penis.
One thing I love hearing Hemingway talk about is poverty and hunger. He and Hadley are pretty poor in Paris and Hemingway sometimes lies to his wife and says he's going to eat lunch but instead takes a two-hour walk around the park so that it saves them money. Poverty and hunger are two subjects I am intimately familiar with and I loved hearing about Hemingway's experiences with them.
When you are 25 and a natural heavyweight, missing a meal completely makes you very hungry. But it also sharpens all of your perceptions, and I found that many of the people I wrote about had very strong appetites and a great taste and desire for food, and most of them were looking forward to having a drink.
This is accurate.
One of the most absolutely romantic parts of the book is the chapter in which Hemingway and Hadley decide to wear their hair the exact same length. Hemingway wants to grow out his hair - he so much admires the long hair of the Japanese men he sees. Hadley is so supportive and they make a very romantic vow to wear their hair the same length. This is a very beautiful, romantic and heartwarming chapter. They defy the social conventions of the time:
I enjoyed being considered damned and my wife and I enjoyed being considered damned together.
Do you know that Hemingway was the creator of the hashtag #sorrynotsorry?
I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it. LOL I kid, I kid - but actually I'm not joking, this is Hemingway's attitude about a lot of things.
The book is also rife writing advice. I am not a writer! But I think anyone who is a writer would really enjoy and even possibly benefit from reading this book - Hemingway offers some thoughts and suggestions that I could see coming in very handy.
Now, the book isn't perfect. Of course we have shades of racism, homophobia, and sexism in here. Not to mention I was getting a strong James-Bond-feeling during a lot of parts:
A girl came in the caf茅 and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a fresh face as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.
I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited.
Hello, Bond. LOL This is something Bond would think - except Bond would include a detailed description of her breasts.
The book also has its dull parts.
Anyway, my point is that the book isn't perfect - but it's very good. I highly recommend it, actually. Clear, concise writing. It's funny. It has some great ideas and thoughts in it. I'm not saying Hemingway is a wonderful human being, but his writing is wonderful IMO. It's also fun to see everyone else traipsing around Paris: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, etc. I really was transported to 1920s Paris. I thought this would be boring, and I was happily proven wrong. I will definitely end up reading this a second time, perhaps in Spanish, where it is titled: Par铆s era una fiesta Or Paris was a party.
P.S. Please note that this is a review of The Restored Edition. I really liked this edition - I've read quotes from the other version and have decided that this is superior.
September 28, 2018
The Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is an intriguing read.
It鈥檚 an odd little novel, more biography than fiction. Hemingway recollects his youth, the days where he had no money and lived from story to story before he had his first major novelistic breakthrough.
The reader that will take most from this will be one that has read a lot of 20th century literature and is aware of the interactions between writers and the ways in which they supported each other through their careers. Ezra Pound was a central figure who helped form a community of writers and organised donations for T.S Eliot so he could quite his job and write poetry. James Joyce was also important though quite hard to actually talk to (and even find.) Hemingway recollects the conversations he had with such men, and how they helped him hone his craft.
More importantly though, Gertrude Stein, writer and homosexuality advocate, was perhaps the one who influenced him most strongly. From reading this, it is clear that she was one of the truest friends Hemmingway ever had. I found the sections with her far more compelling than those with the other literary figures, and I would gladly have read a novel just about their curious friendship. There were some good bits here, though the novel took a repetitive tone as each new section only introduced a new writer and the novel as a whole didn鈥檛 feel like it was progressing.
The strength of the writing is at its peak when Hemingway describes Paris (where he met Stein.) He creates a vivid picture of a city that he clearly adored, one that shaped him as an individual.
Although I had my reservations about this work, I know I must try more of his novels in the future. This may have been a bad place to start (quite a few readers suggest that this is the last novel of his one should read) because it is a retrospective piece about how he became a writer. He is looking back from a place of sucess.
It鈥檚 an odd little novel, more biography than fiction. Hemingway recollects his youth, the days where he had no money and lived from story to story before he had his first major novelistic breakthrough.
The reader that will take most from this will be one that has read a lot of 20th century literature and is aware of the interactions between writers and the ways in which they supported each other through their careers. Ezra Pound was a central figure who helped form a community of writers and organised donations for T.S Eliot so he could quite his job and write poetry. James Joyce was also important though quite hard to actually talk to (and even find.) Hemingway recollects the conversations he had with such men, and how they helped him hone his craft.
More importantly though, Gertrude Stein, writer and homosexuality advocate, was perhaps the one who influenced him most strongly. From reading this, it is clear that she was one of the truest friends Hemmingway ever had. I found the sections with her far more compelling than those with the other literary figures, and I would gladly have read a novel just about their curious friendship. There were some good bits here, though the novel took a repetitive tone as each new section only introduced a new writer and the novel as a whole didn鈥檛 feel like it was progressing.
The strength of the writing is at its peak when Hemingway describes Paris (where he met Stein.) He creates a vivid picture of a city that he clearly adored, one that shaped him as an individual.
Although I had my reservations about this work, I know I must try more of his novels in the future. This may have been a bad place to start (quite a few readers suggest that this is the last novel of his one should read) because it is a retrospective piece about how he became a writer. He is looking back from a place of sucess.
December 5, 2018
Charming, ranging, generous, memoir of Paris, stuffed full of memorable lines ("Never Any End to Paris") and packed with the luminaries of the expat era. How weird to read a book where Joyce is just sort of around, where Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas squabble, and where, in an excellent moment, Fitzgerald's face turns into a death mask while drunk. All along, Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley is at once extolled and mourned. I read the Restored Edition, which in some ways I regret, especially after reading about the interventionist edit and suffering through repetitions, but this is an infectious breeze, one that will infect you with wanderlust. Hemingway is an odd caricature of himself, but there is a charm to his wanton masculinity that makes him hard not to like.
September 15, 2018
毓丕賱蹖. 毓丕賱蹖 毓丕賱蹖 毓丕賱蹖. 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賳亘賵丿 賵 禺賵賳丿賳 趩蹖夭蹖 讴賴 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 賳蹖爻鬲 賵丕爻賴 賲賳 禺蹖賱蹖 毓匕丕亘鈥屫①堌辟�. 丕賲丕 亘賴鈥屬傌臂� 噩匕丕亘 亘賵丿 讴賴 賴賲 爻乇蹖毓 賲蹖鈥屫堎嗀� 賴賲 賴蹖 賲讴孬 賲蹖鈥屭┴必� 讴賴 亘毓囟蹖 鬲蹖讴賴鈥屬囏ж� 鬲賵蹖 匕賴賳賲 亘卮蹖賳賴. 趩賴 丿蹖丕賱賵诏鈥屬囏й屰屫� 趩賴 卮禺氐蹖鬲鈥屬囏й屰屫� 趩賴 丿睾丿睾賴鈥屬囏й屰�. 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖 丕夭蹖賳 讴丕賮賴 賲蹖鈥屫辟� 丕賵賳 讴丕賮賴貙 賲卮乇賵亘 賲蹖鈥屫堌辟囏� 禺賵卮 賲蹖鈥屭柏辟堎嗁囏� 睾匕丕賴丕蹖 禺賵亘 賲蹖鈥屫堌辟囏� 丕胤乇丕賮蹖丕賳卮 乇賵 賲蹖鈥屫ㄛ屬嗁� 賵 丨乇賮 賲蹖鈥屫操嗁囏� 賵 賲蹖鈥屬嗁堐屫迟囏� 賲蹖鈥屬嗁堐屫迟囏� 賲蹖鈥屬嗁堐屫迟�. 丿乇丌賲丿 丿丕乇賴 賵 丨鬲蹖 丕诏賴 蹖賴 卮亘 噩丕蹖 賳賴 趩賳丿丕賳 乇丕丨鬲蹖 亘禺賵丕亘賴 蹖丕 睾匕丕蹖蹖 讴賴 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賴 賳禺賵乇賴 蹖丕 亘丕 讴爻蹖 讴賴 禺賵丕爻鬲賴 丨乇賮 賳夭賳賴貙 乇丕囟蹖 賵 禺賵卮丨丕賱賴 賵 賲蹖鈥屬嗁堐屫迟�. 丿賯蹖賯丕賸 蹖賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴. 鬲賲丕賲 趩蹖夭蹖 讴賴 蹖賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 賲蹖鈥屫堌ж� 亘丕卮賴.
卮蹖賮鬲踿 丕夭乇丕 倬丕賵賳丿 卮丿賲! 賲賴乇亘賵賳蹖 賵 爻禺丕賵鬲賲賳丿蹖 賵 鬲賵噩賴卮貙 賵 丕賱亘鬲賴 鬲賵氐蹖賮丕鬲 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖 丕夭 馗丕賴乇卮. 噩賵蹖爻 賵 賮蹖鬲夭噩乇丕賱丿 賵 禺丕賳賲卮. 賲蹖爻 丕爻鬲丕蹖賳. 賴賲賴鈥屫� 丌丿賲鈥屬囏й� 賴賲鈥屫必屬� 禺賵丿卮 亘丕 丿賳蹖丕賴丕蹖 賲鬲賮丕賵鬲 賵 乇賳诏丕乇賳诏 賵 亘蹖讴乇丕賳. 倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳 蹖賴 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳 賵丕賯毓蹖 亘賵丿. 蹖賴 鬲蹖讴賴鈥屫й� 讴賴 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賲 賵 禺賵丕爻鬲賲 丕蹖賳噩丕 亘賳賵蹖爻賲貙 乇丕亘胤踿 賮蹖鬲夭噩乇丕賱丿 賵 禺丕賳賲卮 亘賵丿. 毓賱丕賯賴 丿乇毓蹖賳 丨爻丕丿鬲. 賮蹖鬲夭噩乇丕賱丿 丕夭 讴丕乇賴丕蹖 禺丕賳賲卮 丨乇氐卮 賲蹖鈥屭辟佖� 賵 賲噩亘賵乇 亘賵丿 鬲賵蹖 賲噩丕賱爻 賲禺鬲賱賮 賴賲乇丕賴卮 亘丕卮賴 丕夭 亘爻 鬲賵噩賴鈥� 賲乇丿賴丕蹖 丿蹖诏賴 乇賵 噩賱亘 賲蹖鈥屭┴必� 丕夭 胤乇賮蹖 賴賲 禺丕賳賲卮 丨爻賵丿蹖卮 賲蹖鈥屫簇� 讴賴 賮蹖鬲夭噩乇丕賱丿 賴蹖 賲蹖鈥屫篡屬嗁� 禺賵賳賴 賲蹖鈥屬嗁堐屫迟� 賵 亘賴 亘賴丕賳踿 賲賴賲賵賳蹖鈥屬囏� 賲蹖鈥屭┴促堎嗀� 亘蹖乇賵賳. 亘毓丿 賴賲 噩賳賵賳卮. 亘丕毓孬 卮丿 亘乇賲 丿乇亘丕乇踿 丕蹖賳 夭賵噩 亘賴鈥屰屫ж呝堎嗀嗃� 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賴賳乇(丕丿亘蹖丕鬲責 賴賳乇責 亘丕亘丕 鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴鈥屬囏必з�) 賲胤丕賱毓賴 讴賳賲. 丕賵賳鈥屬傌� 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 丿賵爻鬲 丿丕卮鬲賲 讴賴 亘毓丿 丕夭 鬲賲賵賲 卮丿賳卮 亘乇丕蹖 丕蹖賳讴賴 丕蹖賳 丨丕賱 賵 賴賵丕 鬲賵蹖 匕賴賳賲 賲賵賳丿诏丕乇 亘卮賴貙 乇賮鬲賲 賮蹖賱賲 诏鬲爻亘蹖 亘夭乇诏 乇賵 丿蹖丿賲.
賵 夭賳 賴賲蹖賳诏賵蹖 讴賴 亘毓丿 賴乇亘丕乇 亘乇诏卮鬲賳卮 亘賴 禺賵賳賴貙 丕夭卮 賲蹖鈥屬矩必驰屫� 趩蹖 蹖丕丿 诏乇賮鬲蹖. 亘丕亘丕 夭賳卮 賴賲 倬丕乇蹖爻 噩卮賳 亘蹖讴乇丕賳蹖 亘賵丿 賵丕爻賴 禺賵丿卮. :))
Displaying 1 - 30 of 12,238 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.