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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
LOVE this book. I read the original published version about five years or so ago, so I can't remember how much of a difference it made to read the Restored Edition, but I would always argue for the author's original intention, even if it isn't complete. As always with Hemingway, this has some real gems, some beautiful writing - and in addition some great tips on writing.
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
One of the most beautifully written inside looks into the minds of the lost generation. I have been fascinated with the lost generation since 9th grade and couldn’t wait to start. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down and was engrossed from beginning to end. I felt like I was able to walk with Hemingway along the Seine, see what brought him clarity as a writer, and even peeks at the makings of The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises. I made notes of all the places I will visit when I go to France next year.
The thing about a Hemingway story is the ends hardly disappoint. His pedantic descriptions of scenes and sounds, the types of woodland critters, or the shape of one's nose can be tiresome and dull. But you swim in it, and it takes you. It's clean, and you are only left in it briefly before you enter the body of the tales of his musings. By then, you know what the earth smells like or what the mood he is in before he says he's in such mood, and it's fine with you. So you keep going.
In A Moveable Feast, you're bobbing along 1920s Paris: into spry cafes, dingy apartments with people covered in aperitifs, and two-faced gossip by some of the most influential minds to exist. Hemingway gives you an insight into what it was like to meet these people—an interesting perspective of the legends that perused the rues of those days in such intimate detail. Sometimes, you have to look, but you don't want to, you do because you're already there.
From a historical standpoint, it's excellent perspicuity if you trust the author; from a literary one, it's Hemingway. The classic doldrum is beating into your head then the story winds up and slaps you with something so genuine and beautiful that it moves, humbles, and betters you for your lack of awareness.
In A Moveable Feast, you're bobbing along 1920s Paris: into spry cafes, dingy apartments with people covered in aperitifs, and two-faced gossip by some of the most influential minds to exist. Hemingway gives you an insight into what it was like to meet these people—an interesting perspective of the legends that perused the rues of those days in such intimate detail. Sometimes, you have to look, but you don't want to, you do because you're already there.
From a historical standpoint, it's excellent perspicuity if you trust the author; from a literary one, it's Hemingway. The classic doldrum is beating into your head then the story winds up and slaps you with something so genuine and beautiful that it moves, humbles, and betters you for your lack of awareness.
This is a lovely and wistful look at 1920's Paris. It is evident that it is written by an older man, slowly losing his mental abilities looking back at his youth. To me, this gave the book the sort of shiny quality of looking back in time. It is a book of short moments, chapters that tell of little conversations between Hemingway and other expats. You meet Gertrude Stein, Ford Maddox Ford, and Sylvia Beach. The last 1/3 or so was spent recounting his experiences with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. As much as the book is dream-like, it is also honest and critical. Hemingway spares no one of his memories of them and many of the literary figures who are in his book aren't always displayed in a glowing light. In many ways, the reader, especially one that knows the quirks of Hemingway himself is left to make their own decision over the character of each person.
I don't recommend reading this until you've read a bit of Hemingway or know a bit about him. This book came perfect after reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I know that I wouldn't have gotten the same reading experience if I didn't have the background I did. Hemingway can be vague about certain elements, and knowing more about him helps you flesh that out into the truth. Being familiar with Paris helps too, but I think a background in Hemingway would be even more helpful.
I don't recommend reading this until you've read a bit of Hemingway or know a bit about him. This book came perfect after reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I know that I wouldn't have gotten the same reading experience if I didn't have the background I did. Hemingway can be vague about certain elements, and knowing more about him helps you flesh that out into the truth. Being familiar with Paris helps too, but I think a background in Hemingway would be even more helpful.
Memoir of first wife and years in Paris as young struggling writer
Excellent. Hemingway is a cynic, but has such an incredible gift at describing people, their motivations, true character, and his role in their life. Not only does he have unexplainable analytical skills, but he also articulates his analysis so beautifully. Every word carries weight and importance.
Here’s what I learned:
1.) Gertrude Stein is a total bitch
2.) F. Scott Fitzgerald had a small dick
3.) Hemingway knew nothing about about medicine
Here’s what I learned:
1.) Gertrude Stein is a total bitch
2.) F. Scott Fitzgerald had a small dick
3.) Hemingway knew nothing about about medicine
“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.” —Ernest Hemingway
I had the good fortune of being a young man in Paris on multiple occasions, including living in the 16th arrondissement during the summer before 9/11 while I was at university. Whereas Hemingway was young and married with a child, figuring out how to become a writer, I was young and unmarried, working at the American Embassy in Paris, as the intern to the US ambassador to France, figuring out whether to become a diplomat. (I didn’t.)
And as Hemingway here suggests, Paris sunk into my bones. A Moveable Feast is Hemingway‘s account of his quotidian interactions with his wife and the city and its people—including some famous writers, and some not so famous ones. Reading about all this, through the changing seasons, was eminently enjoyable for me because I have my own stories that forever connect me with that majestic, historic city. And, like Hemingway, I have taken them with me throughout my life.
Hemingway is funny in this book. For example he recounts with self-deprecation how much time and money he spent at the horse races, something I never experienced. He also gently mocks the highs and lows of some of his literary friends, who found endless ways to annoy him in the cafés where they convened.
This book was a great pleasure to read. It’s strange to me how I could enjoy a book where nothing terrific happens, for it’s just a series of small anecdotes about his comings and goings in that season of his life.
I really enjoyed him talking about his friendships with Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and others. They called him “Hem”. He gave them an immediacy that brought them to life; I could picture running into them myself and chewing the fat with them, how Fitzgerald was shy, for example, but proud of his book “The Great Gatsby”.
In my mind, I picture Hemingway as a bearded old man. The fisherman. The outdoorsman. The rotund, wizened face. But here Hemingway is just 25. I was also about 25 when I lived in Paris. And while there are a great many differences between me and Ernest Hemingway, I felt I was reading snippets of my own life from that time.
While I interned at the embassy, I lived with a host of fellow interns from all over America who became my friends—as quirky a set of characters, myself included, as could be found in a Hemingway novel. We worked, we attended social events, we explored. I found myself at a party once, hosted by Australians, where a B grade movie star danced away in the dining room while I spoke to a Belgian on the balcony about Jesus and His gospel and my testimony of those two things, and why I wasn’t drinking. Quirky.
I did not explore Paris the way that I should have, but it was still a massive cultural experience for me, notwithstanding the fact that, four years earlier, I had spent two years serving a mission for my Church in the north of France.
But what did I know of Paris? Very little, if anything but the vistas I saw from the Eiffel Tower while transferring trains between Lille and Nancy once on my mission.
That summer at the embassy, I should’ve known that to miss the Musée d’Orsay would be blasphemous. Especially because I would later find myself such appreciator of art. Yet I never set foot inside until years later. In a certain way, I truly lived in Paris. Not the way a tourist does by visiting all of the top sites. But as one who lives in Paris does.
My roommates and friends were not of my faith and so drinking was a central theme of virtually all their activities. I would show up at dinners occasionally, which was fun, but I would not go out drinking with them.
On Sunday nights, I would sit in the lobby of the military barracks that we called home and talk to my friend Matthew about a book he was reading about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, about Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had many memorable conversations. I also took a train to Switzerland to see my friend Ben marry his wife in an LDS Temple, another unforgettable experience. It was a wonderful time for me.
I also had typically Parisian experiences. I walked down the Champs Élysées and into the FNAC record store, where I browsed and listen to artists like Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Francis Cabrel.
Like Hemingway, and untold numbers since, I also visited Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore across the Seine from the Notre Dame.
I thought I would find love in Paris. Who moves there at my age thinking otherwise? But that was a bit of a pipe dream, knowing that there was such a wide gap between my commitments to the Lord and the French secular culture. So my romantic efforts in Paris ended with a French girl rejecting me for a date. I decided to stick to my internship, and some history and culture.
In the 16th, I lived on the top floor of a building, owned by the embassy, in a tiny room with a padlock on it. My flatmates and I, all 20 of us, shared a common kitchen, living room, and bathrooms. We ate together a handful of times at the massive dining room table. The “tragedy of the commons” struck, and the rot from the sink of undone dishes was nearly always more than any of us could bear. Underneath the rug under the table was a World War II era escape hatch to the floor below. Did we make use of it? Yes we did.
None of us had cell phones. We read and talked to each other and wrote in our journals. I often wonder what life would be like now without our current addiction to phones.
I remember climbing onto the roof of our building a few times and seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up from a distance. It inspired awe, and ambition, and wanderlust. It still does.
I saw Lance Armstrong cheat his way to his third Tour de France title from the balcony of the embassy, overlooking the obelisk Napoleon stole from Egypt and plunked onto the Place de la Concorde. For another few years, I really looked up to Lance. Until I news broke of his doping scandal—Lance, not Napoleon. Although he probably also had doping scandals. It’s still all a great memory.
One day, while hosting a US Senator’s wife, whose husband was in town for official meetings, she took me to the top of the Sacré Coeur, and with her quirky personality made me count the steps to the top. That was a strange, random day.
Kind of like Hemingway‘s book—a fun, quirky look back to a place I know well, about 50 years before I lived there myself.
I had the good fortune of being a young man in Paris on multiple occasions, including living in the 16th arrondissement during the summer before 9/11 while I was at university. Whereas Hemingway was young and married with a child, figuring out how to become a writer, I was young and unmarried, working at the American Embassy in Paris, as the intern to the US ambassador to France, figuring out whether to become a diplomat. (I didn’t.)
And as Hemingway here suggests, Paris sunk into my bones. A Moveable Feast is Hemingway‘s account of his quotidian interactions with his wife and the city and its people—including some famous writers, and some not so famous ones. Reading about all this, through the changing seasons, was eminently enjoyable for me because I have my own stories that forever connect me with that majestic, historic city. And, like Hemingway, I have taken them with me throughout my life.
Hemingway is funny in this book. For example he recounts with self-deprecation how much time and money he spent at the horse races, something I never experienced. He also gently mocks the highs and lows of some of his literary friends, who found endless ways to annoy him in the cafés where they convened.
This book was a great pleasure to read. It’s strange to me how I could enjoy a book where nothing terrific happens, for it’s just a series of small anecdotes about his comings and goings in that season of his life.
I really enjoyed him talking about his friendships with Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and others. They called him “Hem”. He gave them an immediacy that brought them to life; I could picture running into them myself and chewing the fat with them, how Fitzgerald was shy, for example, but proud of his book “The Great Gatsby”.
In my mind, I picture Hemingway as a bearded old man. The fisherman. The outdoorsman. The rotund, wizened face. But here Hemingway is just 25. I was also about 25 when I lived in Paris. And while there are a great many differences between me and Ernest Hemingway, I felt I was reading snippets of my own life from that time.
While I interned at the embassy, I lived with a host of fellow interns from all over America who became my friends—as quirky a set of characters, myself included, as could be found in a Hemingway novel. We worked, we attended social events, we explored. I found myself at a party once, hosted by Australians, where a B grade movie star danced away in the dining room while I spoke to a Belgian on the balcony about Jesus and His gospel and my testimony of those two things, and why I wasn’t drinking. Quirky.
I did not explore Paris the way that I should have, but it was still a massive cultural experience for me, notwithstanding the fact that, four years earlier, I had spent two years serving a mission for my Church in the north of France.
But what did I know of Paris? Very little, if anything but the vistas I saw from the Eiffel Tower while transferring trains between Lille and Nancy once on my mission.
That summer at the embassy, I should’ve known that to miss the Musée d’Orsay would be blasphemous. Especially because I would later find myself such appreciator of art. Yet I never set foot inside until years later. In a certain way, I truly lived in Paris. Not the way a tourist does by visiting all of the top sites. But as one who lives in Paris does.
My roommates and friends were not of my faith and so drinking was a central theme of virtually all their activities. I would show up at dinners occasionally, which was fun, but I would not go out drinking with them.
On Sunday nights, I would sit in the lobby of the military barracks that we called home and talk to my friend Matthew about a book he was reading about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, about Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had many memorable conversations. I also took a train to Switzerland to see my friend Ben marry his wife in an LDS Temple, another unforgettable experience. It was a wonderful time for me.
I also had typically Parisian experiences. I walked down the Champs Élysées and into the FNAC record store, where I browsed and listen to artists like Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Francis Cabrel.
Like Hemingway, and untold numbers since, I also visited Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore across the Seine from the Notre Dame.
I thought I would find love in Paris. Who moves there at my age thinking otherwise? But that was a bit of a pipe dream, knowing that there was such a wide gap between my commitments to the Lord and the French secular culture. So my romantic efforts in Paris ended with a French girl rejecting me for a date. I decided to stick to my internship, and some history and culture.
In the 16th, I lived on the top floor of a building, owned by the embassy, in a tiny room with a padlock on it. My flatmates and I, all 20 of us, shared a common kitchen, living room, and bathrooms. We ate together a handful of times at the massive dining room table. The “tragedy of the commons” struck, and the rot from the sink of undone dishes was nearly always more than any of us could bear. Underneath the rug under the table was a World War II era escape hatch to the floor below. Did we make use of it? Yes we did.
None of us had cell phones. We read and talked to each other and wrote in our journals. I often wonder what life would be like now without our current addiction to phones.
I remember climbing onto the roof of our building a few times and seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up from a distance. It inspired awe, and ambition, and wanderlust. It still does.
I saw Lance Armstrong cheat his way to his third Tour de France title from the balcony of the embassy, overlooking the obelisk Napoleon stole from Egypt and plunked onto the Place de la Concorde. For another few years, I really looked up to Lance. Until I news broke of his doping scandal—Lance, not Napoleon. Although he probably also had doping scandals. It’s still all a great memory.
One day, while hosting a US Senator’s wife, whose husband was in town for official meetings, she took me to the top of the Sacré Coeur, and with her quirky personality made me count the steps to the top. That was a strange, random day.
Kind of like Hemingway‘s book—a fun, quirky look back to a place I know well, about 50 years before I lived there myself.