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buddhafish 's review for:
A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
61st book of 2022.
2nd reading. Our very own [a:Ken Craft|15147806|Ken Craft|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1621963996p2/15147806.jpg] 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 [a:Ken Craft|15147806|Ken Craft|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1621963996p2/15147806.jpg] 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.