Most of the reviews I write are for popular fiction or current biographies. It’s a rare treat to go back to my list of literary greats and choose one of their works.
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is a memoir of his early years in Paris (1921-1926) with his first wife, Hadley and their son Jack, who was nicknamed Bumby.
Hemingway was on assignment in Paris as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly when he decided to try to become a serious writer. During the Twenties, visitors to Paris could live inexpensively in relative comfort. This attracted writers and artists from all over the world including members of the Lost Generation.
Hemingway writes about a Paris uniquely his own, which he contends is how everyone experiences Paris - eternal, but unique for each person. He brings the sights, tastes and smells of Paris to life with attention to detail, but an economy of words.
We are rewarded with an intimate glimpse of the happy years with Hadley and Bumby. Hemingway wrote during the day in a rented room and lunched in Paris cafes. He and Hadley sometimes supplemented their income by betting on the horses at a Paris racetrack. They lived simply enjoying modest meals in their little apartment and sometimes splurging on romantic dinners at fancy Paris restaurants.
The Hemingways sometimes left Paris to have adventures in other French cities or ski in the Swiss Alps.
His recollections of fellow ex-pats Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda are at times petty, but seem brutally honest.
Hemingway writes with candor about his early struggles to become a writer… sometimes skipping meals, so his wife and son did not go without. We see the start of his drinking… a coffee with some whiskey to ward off the cold followed by some wine with a meal and more whiskey at a café and his bouts of depression which he dismissed.
He started this memoir in the 1920s. His notes and manuscript were packed away in two steamer trunks Hemingway left in storage at the Hotel Ritz Paris and forgot about until they were returned to him by Charles Ritz in 1957.
He revised it several times before the final revision. It was published in 1964 three years after his death and contains an introduction by his widow, Mary who was his fourth wife. An altered edition was published by his grandson, Sean Hemingway in 2009. Sean is the grandson of Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline. Literary critics prefer the original version which is something to consider when deciding which version to read.
Works by Ernest Hemingway:
Novels and novellas
The Torrents of Spring
The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms
To Have and Have Not
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Across the River and into the Trees
The Old Man and the Sea
Islands in the Stream
The Garden of Eden
True at First Light
Nonfiction
Death in the Afternoon
Green Hills of Africa
Hemingway, The Wild Years
A Moveable Feast
By-Line: Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway: Cub Reporter
The Dangerous Summer
Dateline: Toronto
Under Kilimanjaro
Plus Assorted letters, Anthologies and Short Story Collections
Photo credits:
Cover for: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20213653