A Moveable Feast

"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 HemingwayAmerican novelist Ernest Hemingway cloaked himself in a life that was every bit as exciting and colorful as those lived by the characters who populated his novels. Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. in 1899, the son of a country doctor who was an outdoorsman and a culturally refined mother who pushed her son toward the arts. Young Hemingway tried to join the US military as an infantry "foot soldier" in World War I, but was turned down because of poor eyesight. He ended up volunteering as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross on the Italian front, and after serving heroically and suffering multiple shrapnel wounds, he went on to enlist in the Italian infantry and saw service on the Austrian front.Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, moved to Paris in 1921 - a century ago this year - where he wrote dispatches for a newspaper in Toronto and did freelance work for other newspapers and journals while honing his skills as a professional writer of stories and novels. Ernest spent his days holed up in the cafe's of Paris where he did much of his writing, while Hadley explored the city and pursued her own interests. Together they traversed the Paris cultural scene and managed to see and experience much of Europe.Ernest Hemingway spent the better part of seven years in Paris (1921-1928) and kept the experiences that he and Hadley had while living there in a series of notebooks. He had always intended to eventually write about those early years in Paris. Sometime during the course of the 1920's and 1930's, the author lost track of his notebooks. Then one afternoon in 1956 while sitting in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in Paris and enjoying a drink with the manager, a friend from the old days in Paris, the manager suddenly mentioned that he still had the two small steamer trunks that Hemingway had asked him t safeguard before World War II. Hemingway retrieved the wayward trunks, and as he was digging through the remains of his youth in Paris, he found his long-lost notebooks.The last writing project that Ernest Hemingway undertook was the editing and organizing of those notebooks into a book format. He had not completed the project when he died of his own hand in Idaho in 1961 as he avoided the final ravages of cancer. Hemingway's third wife, Mary, completed the project. Not satisfied with her effort, Hemingway's son, Patrick, and his grandson, Sean, reworked the project again after Mary's death. This is a review of what is now referred to as the "Restored Edition" of Ernest Hemingway's final work.Hemingway's Paris is alive with the people who were the pillars of twentieth century literature and the arts. He talks of visits to Gertrude's Stein's apartment and her enthusiasm for his writing. Stein also encouraged him to spend his money - which was very limited - on "pictures" (art) rather than on clothing. At one point he confided to Hadley that Miss Stein could be quite a bore, and Hadley replied that she would not know because she was just a wife and she was relegated to only speaking with Miss Stein's friend (Alice B. Toklas). Hemingway's bent toward snobbishness is hinted at in his recollections of visits at the Stein apartment. He never refers to Toklas by name - only as Miss Stein's friend - and although he talks of several encounters with Miss Stein's maidservant - and mentions her personal kindnesses to him - he openly admits that he could not even remember her name.Hemingway in A Moveable Feast focuses on F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, more than any of his other Paris literary contemporaries. He tells a wonderful tale about him and Scott, not long after they first met, going to Leon to retrieve Fitzgerald's automobile - which had broken down - to drive it back to Paris. It turns out that the trip to Leon was the first time Scott had spent a night separated from Zelda since their marriage.The car they retrieved was a small Renault that had suffered damage to its top, and instead of having the damage repaired, Zelda had ordered that the top be removed. Right-on-cue as the two young authors began their road trip back to Paris, the skies opened up and it began raining. They spent several hours driving in and out of rain before deciding to get a room for the night. As soon as they settled into a room for the evening, Scott decided that he was sick - and he wanted his temperature taken.F. Scott Fitzgerald put his neurotic character on full display as he demanded that Hemingway or a member of the hotel staff produce a thermometer - of which there was not one to be had. Eventually after much complaining by the author of The Great Gatsby, a staff member showed up with a bath thermometer - with a wooden back and "enough metal to sink in a bath." Hemingway joked that Fitzgerald was fortunate because it was not a rectal thermometer, and the clueless Scott then asked where it did go. His quick thinking friend told him that it was for an under-arm reading and proceeded to take his temperature and then announced that it was normal.But Scott did not trust the doctor's son who had at one time been an ambulance driver for the Red Cross, and he demanded that Hemingway take his own temperature as well so that they could compare the readings. Hemingway complied and then announced that his numbers were the same and that he was fine - so F. Scott Fitzgerald decided that he must have recuperated.And then there was the issues surrounding Zelda Fitzgerald. Scott was totally besotted with Zelda, and Hemingway figured out quickly that Zelda was trying to sabotage her husband's writing through alcohol and a lifestyle centering on partying. At a point not too long after their first meeting, Hemingway also experienced the sudden realization that Zelda actually was insane.Ernest Hemingway seemed to show disdain for many of the characters with whom he interacted in the Paris of the 1920's. A pair of notable exceptions were poets Ezra Pound and Evan Shipman. Every mention of Pound was almost reverential, and he described in glowing terms Pound's efforts at setting up a charitable foundation to free poet T.S. Eliot from the soul-depleting drudgery of having to work in a London bank to support himself. Young Evan Shipman was an unpublished poet who earned Hemingway's respect and lifelong friendship by doing things of a practical nature like actually digging in the soil to produce gardens to feed others.Ernest and Hadley's only son, Jack (later the father of Margaux, Mariel, and Joan), was born during the Paris years while they were home in Canada in 1923. He returned to Paris with his parents as a tiny infant who had to be barricaded into his ship's bunk during a hard trans-Atlantic winter crossing. The new parents nicknamed their son "Bumby" and raised him in an unconventional manner. According to the father's recollection, Bumby, who was a good baby who seldom fussed or cried, was sometimes left in the care of F. Puss, the family cat, while father wrote in the local cafes and mother ran errands. Bumby and the cat would curl up together and sleep on the apartment floor. Later, as Bubmy began becoming more mobile, he would accompany his father to the cafes where he knew to sit silently and observe others while his father wrote.Hemingway and Hadley split up in their sixth year of marriage as he began having an affair with a friend of Hadley's who was living with them. He describes that slow and very painful transition from one lover to another in a chapter in The Moveable Feast entitled "The Pilot Fish and the Rich." It is the best writing in the book.Hemingway's breakup with Hadley clearly impacted him deeply and reached across the decades. In several "fragments" of his writing that he had penned especially for this effort and that his heirs chose to include at the end of the book, he referred to Hadley as the "heroine" of the stories. Clearly he never got over her.And there is so much more to this fine memoir. Time spent reading it is time that will be savored.The feast moves onward and continues to nourish.

Premier, le difference. The Restored Edition omits the last essay "There Is Never an End to Paris" which was published in the A Moveable Feast. Seconde, the Restored Edition adds, most importantly, "The Pilot Fish and the Rich" which is, in my opinion, a great addition. Here is the explanation--The editor of the Restored Edition is Sean Hemingway, grandson of Ernest and Pauline Pfeiffer, Papa's second wife. He believes that "Ernest's fourth wife [Mary Welsh], cobbled the manuscript together from shards of an unfinished work and that she created the final chapter, 'There Is Never Any End to Paris.'"I am quoting from a July 19, 2009 Op-Ed in the New York Times by A.E. Hotchner called "Don't Touch a Moveable Feast" which I recommend you read. Hotchner was a close friend of Ernest and played a part in getting A Moveable Feast from Hemingway to Scribners. While I disagree with his conclusion, that it shouldn't have been re-edited, I respect his knowledge of the facts and his closeness to the events leading to the publication of the original.The included chapter, "The Pilot Fish and the Rich" speaks to Hemingway's affair with Pauline Pfeiffer while still married to his first wife, Hadley Richardson. It is his apology to Hadley and a declaration of love to Pauline. However, he repeatedly says that Hadley, to whom he was married while living in Paris, is the heroine of A Moveable Feast.In "The Pilot Fish and the Rich" Hemingway is wracked with pain and guilt and repeatedly tries to explain how he could actually love two women, Hadley and Pauline, at once, and how it tore him apart. Some of "The Pilot Fish and the Rich" is in the last chapter of the original, but he it is published in its entirety.I could see why Hemingway would omit that chapter while he was still married to Mary. However, the lesson here is poignant--his first wife was the love of his life, and while the passion may have dimmed over time, his first love could never be replaced, not even by Mary.If you are fascinated by Hemingway, like I am, read this Restored Edition and compare it to the original. It is more of an adventure that way.By and large, people in their 20's don't read. By and large, A Moveable Feast is Hemingway's most appropriate collection of stories for people in their 20s because he relates his life in Paris as a struggling writer. How it came about is itself an interesting story.In 1956 the Paris Ritz Hotel asked Hemingway, who was now famous, to pick up two steamer trunks. He had left them there 28 years earlier. When he opened them he found that they contained his notebooks from his early days in Paris. It stirred his memory, which had been partially erased by shock therapy.Before it could be published he ended his own life, and his fourth and final wife edited it.The Restored Edition has been re-edited by Hemingway's grandson, putting back in some of the passages which Mary Hemingway had left out.Is it strikingly different? Perhaps not, but the omitted passages were those that were most painful, and therefor most poignant.This is Hemingway for people in their 20s interested in becoming great, or at least famous writers.

Good book by a famous and capable author

This book is so interesting.It explains the early days of Hemingway in Paris …by him. Hemingway as always writes so well you feel you are right there with him.

Citado do filme cidade dos anjos, esse livros faz justiça a descrição.

Excelente libro, lo recomiendo ampliamente

Para mi uno de los mejores libros de Ernest Hemingway, en los que habla de su vida en Paris de los años 20. La película Midnight in Paris de Woody Allen, está inspirada en este libro, que en castellano se traduce a “París era una fiesta”. Con eso se dice todo.

Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is a timeless classic that provides a glimpse into the life of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The book is a memoir of Hemingway's time as a young writer in Paris in the 1920s, and it is filled with vivid descriptions of the city and the people he knew.The writing is masterful, as one would expect from Hemingway, and the book is a joy to read. The author's love for Paris and the bohemian lifestyle of the expat community shines through on every page, making the reader feel as if they are right there with him. The book also provides an interesting look into the artistic and literary scene of Paris in the 1920s, and the interactions of Hemingway with other writers and artists of that time.I particularly enjoyed the author's reflections on the craft of writing and the struggles of a young writer. Hemingway's insights and advice are as relevant today as they were when the book was first published.Overall, I highly recommend A Moveable Feast to anyone interested in literature, Paris, or the life of Ernest Hemingway. It is a beautifully written, evocative, and thought-provoking book that will stay with you long after you finish reading it.