Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10749 in Books
• Published on: 1994-11-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Synopsis
'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.' Hemingway's memories of his life as an unknown writer living in Paris in the 1920s are deeply personal, warmly affectionate and full of wit. Looking back not only at his own much younger self, but also at the other writers who shared Paris with him - literary 'stars' like James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein - he recalls the time when, poor, happy and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation.

About the Author
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Chicago in 1899 as the son of a doctor and the second of six children. After a stint as an ambulance driver at the Italian front, Hemingway came home to America in 1919, only to return to the battlefield - this time as a reporter on the Greco-Turkish war - in 1922. Resigning from journalism to focus on his writing instead, he moved to Paris where he renewed his earlier friendship with fellow American expatriates such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Through the years, Hemingway travelled widely and wrote avidly, becoming an internationally recognized literary master of his craft. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.

Customer Reviews

Terrible, patronising rubbish.
I've read nearly all Hem's books and this one annoyed me so much i gave it to the charity shop. The Paris he sees is given to us in such a patronising way - as is his treatment of the other authors he meets with -and i found it hard to finish. The arrogance seeps from each page and if you put the rose-tinted glasses down you'll see what a terrible book it really is.
Avoid.
If you want to know Paris, either go there or read Miller/Orwell/Celine and they'll give you a much subtler, suitable vision.
Sorry Hem, this one stinks.

Poor but happy in the City of Light
A MOVEABLE FEAST is an autobiographical account by Ernest Hemingway of his time as a struggling young writer spent in Paris and (briefly) Schruns (Austria) with his (first) wife, Hadley, during the period 1921-26. Ernest began writing the book in 1957, and it was edited and published after the author's death by his (fourth) wife, Mary.

I've decided that to appreciate this volume the reader must be one or more of the following:

1. An Ernest Hemingway fan.

2. An F. Scott Fitzgerald fan.

3. Familiar with, and interested in, any of the following literary figures: Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford.

4. Self-reliant enough to be footloose and fancy free in a foreign city, particularly Paris.

Much of A MOVEABLE FEAST seems rather aimless as Hemingway rattles about his quarter of the French capital, occasionally writing, and often visiting or chatting with other members of the American expatriate community in post-war Paris known as the "Lost Generation". I guess one had to be there to understand why they were "lost".

In the best and longest chapter, "Scott Fitzgerald", Ernest relates a journey he and Scott took to Lyon to recover an automobile the latter had left there - a trip that would have tried the patience of Job and portrays Fitzgerald, though not maliciously on Hemingway's part, as a hypochondriacal alcoholic. On being asked by Hadley if the trip had taught him anything, Ernest replies with what is perhaps the book's most perceptive snippet of wisdom:

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."

Notwithstanding the occasional and mild entertainment value of A MOVEABLE FEAST, there was nothing about it that compels me to read anything else by its author. Is Hemingway overrated, or is it just me? Most likely the latter. And, as far as sampling Fitzgerald is concerned, I saw the 1974 film adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY when it was first released and was, as I recall, bored silly, though my date thought Redford to die for.

I'm awarding four stars solely on the basis of Hemingway's statement expressed early on:

"Going down the stairs when I had worked well ... was a wonderful feeling and I was free then to walk anywhere in Paris." I've tasted that freedom myself in many of the world's great cities, and it's been one of the great and too infrequent joys of my life. Hemingway's memory of his freedom at that time and place is the narrative's central support and well worth the telling.

Paris avec extra Fromage
Evoking in writing the spirit of Paris in the 1920s, like Soho of the 1950s, it is always going to be difficult (as a knowing 21st century reader) not to see cliches in the landscape or become weary of the numerous chance encounters with literary icons. Hemingway manages to capture a Paris that we would all like to believe once existed.

However, a word of warning. Some of the dialogue is so cheesy as to jar heavily with our modern sensibilities. If you can stomach this excerpt from the 'Shakespeare and Company' chapter, there is much to enjoy in this book.

"We'll come home and eat here and have a lovely meal and drink Beaune from the co-operative you can see right out of the window there with the price of the Beaune in the window. And afterwards we'll read and then go to bed and make love"
"And never love anyone else but each other"
"No. Never."

Thank goodness for postmodernism.