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Across the River and into the Trees

3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 · rating details · 38,697 ratings · 3,150 reviews

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A po...more

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published April 15th 1998 by Scribner (first published 1950)

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Apr 24, 2012 Eric rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: peteredout

I decided to bail after his visit to the indoor bicycle races, like dance marathons one of those frantic displays of recreational endurance so popular in the 1920s. A quick comparing look at Joseph Roth’s account of a night at Berlin’s tracked bicycle races, in What I Saw, convinced me that I was wasting my time with Hemingway. There are better books. Hemingway’s style will always strike me as more or less mannered and ridiculous, but what I read of A Moveable Feast was especially bad—solemn, po...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This memoir (Hemingway coyly says in the preface that the reader may consider it fiction), with its idyllic tone, surely romanticizes Hemingway's life in France with his first wife and their child. It includes rather unflattering portraits of Stein, Madox Ford and the Fitzgeralds, while certainly leaving out things that would've made Hemingway himself look bad. But, perhaps, it is as he says here of his fiction writing: what is omitted is what strengthens the story.

I enjoyed the style, the stor...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Chiara Pagliochini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classici-americani

“Ma Parigi era una città molto vecchia e noi eravamo giovani e lì non c’era niente di facile, neanche la miseria, né i soldi improvvisi, né il chiaro di luna, né la ragione e il torto né il respiro di qualcuno sdraiato al tuo fianco al chiaro di luna.”

Sono sempre stata una persona di facili innamoramenti e di odi inspiegabili, repentini, istintivi. Ma giacché sono anche molto lunatica o debole di carattere o democratica, è facile che i miei odi si trasformino altrettanto inspiegabilmente e repen...more
“Ma Parigi era una città molto vecchia e noi eravamo giovani e lì non c’era niente di facile, neanche la miseria, né i soldi improvvisi, né il chiaro di luna, né la ragione e il torto né il respiro di qualcuno sdraiato al tuo fianco al chiaro di luna.”

Sono sempre stata una persona di facili innamoramenti e di odi inspiegabili, repentini, istintivi. Ma giacché sono anche molto lunatica o debole di carattere o democratica, è facile che i miei odi si trasformino altrettanto inspiegabilmente e repentinamente in amori. E certamente è vero anche il contrario.
Prendiamo il signor Ernest Hemingway, ad esempio. Non posso negare di essere stata piuttosto ostile e refrattaria per un certo periodo. Quando per caso ci trovavamo nella stessa stanza lui mi lanciava certe occhiate come se volesse abbordarmi. Erano occhiate molto possessive, il modo in cui guarderesti un libro sullo scaffale o una borsa in vetrina, quello sguardo che dice, “sei mia”. E tu, come il libro e la borsa, non puoi neanche esprimere il tuo parere. Ma siccome io non ero né una borsa né un libro e potevo voltare la testa a mio piacimento, mi giravo dall’altra parte e storcevo il naso. Tuttavia sentivo sempre il suo sguardo provocante solleticarmi l’attaccatura dei capelli. Il signor Ernest aveva un suo fascino indiscutibile, scriveva molto bene, ma ti guardava con quell’occhio, quell’occhio insopportabile. Avevi l’impressione di essere solo una bambola, una cosa inerte. Avevi l’impressione che, nel profondo, non gli importasse di te, ed era proprio così. Che se ne andasse a ubriacarsi o a pescare o in safari o a guidare l’ambulanza. Non gli avresti restituito lo sguardo né detto una parola gentile. Era un presuntuoso, un vanaglorioso, un finto duro, ecco tutto.
Poi, un giorno, qualcosa è cambiato. Non so se è partito da me o da lui, fatto sta che quella sera eravamo entrambi più malinconici del solito e siamo finiti a scambiare quattro chiacchiere per tirarci su di morale.
Lui fissava il fondo del bicchiere e parlava con una voce bassa e un po’ arrochita, che non pensavi potesse possedere mai. Mi raccontava di quand’era più giovane, della sua vita a Parigi, della gente che aveva conosciuto, del suo mestiere di scrittore, delle sue antipatie e della sua vita coniugale. Parlava di tante persone che io conoscevo solo per sentito dire e che lui, invece, aveva conosciuto tutte. Nomi che per te significavano tanto e che lui citava con quell’apparente trascuratezza, con la nonchalance di chi davvero ha vissuto con quelle persone momenti a loro modo indelebili.
Mi raccontò di Gertrude Stein, che assomigliava a una contadina friulana, non sopportava il turpiloquio, gli consigliava che libri leggere e gli diceva sempre di comprare quadri anziché vestiti. Aveva litigato con Ezra Pound perché lui le aveva rotto una sedia e Ernest le voleva molto bene, anche se spesso non era d’accordo con quello che diceva.
Mi raccontò di Ezra Pound, che aveva pochi soldi ma non temeva mai di prestarli, che credeva sempre che i suoi amici fossero artisti meravigliosi e a cui aveva imparato a tirare di box.
Mi raccontò di Ford Madox Ford, a cui puzzava l’alito e che diceva sempre bugie quand’era stanco.
Mi raccontò di quel poeta intossicato d’oppio che gli aveva tirato contro una bottiglia di latte e che, per essere un poeta, aveva un’ottima mira.
Mi raccontò dei camerieri della Closerie des Lilas, che una volta portavano i baffi e versavano sempre del whisky in più, ma poi avevano dovuto smettere e pure tagliare i baffi, e non s’erano più ripresi.
Mi raccontò della paura che non arrivasse la primavera, dei pescatori che pescavano nella Senna per portare a casa un po’ di pesce fritto. Raccontò della stanza in cui scriveva, riscaldata da un camino, in cui gettava le scorze dei mandarini. Quando aveva il blocco dello scrittore si diceva, “Ern, hai sempre scritto, e scriverai ancora, basta che cominci con una frase vera, il resto verrà da sé”. Mi raccontò di quando non aveva i soldi per mangiare e allora faceva lunghe passeggiate per distrarsi.
Mi raccontò di Hadley, la sua prima moglie, di quanto straordinaria fosse, di quanto si amassero, di quando andavano a sciare e di quando facevano l’amore stretti stretti. Mi raccontò del loro bambino, Mr Bumby, un piccolo filosofo che non piangeva mai, e del loro gatto, F. Puss, che era la bambinaia di Mr Bumby.
E poi, verso la fine, fece due nomi ancora e io sussultai e non potevo più stare per l’agitazione. Sì, aveva conosciuto Scott Fitzgerald, poteva assicurarmelo. Una volta, quando si conoscevano da poco, lo aveva accompagnato per un viaggio a Lione. Scott aveva bevuto troppo e si era convinto di avere una malattia ai polmoni. Lui si era arrabbiato molto, ma gli faceva pena, e l’aveva accudito come una brava infermiera. Diceva che il talento di Scott era come la polvere sulle ali di una farfalla: niente l’avrebbe potuto raschiare via. Niente e nessuno, nemmeno sua moglie Zelda, che pure ce la metteva tutta, e lo trascinava da una parte all’altra di Parigi in feste e festini col solo proposito di impedirgli di scrivere. Voleva averlo tutto per sé? Era invidiosa? Eppure Scott la amava così tanto, così tanto che era pronto a sostenerla nella sua pazzia e persino a diventare pazzo lui per colpa sua. Ecco, su questo punto era irremovibile, e io gli dissi che non potevo fidarmi del suo solo parere. E poi non dev’essere facile per due scrittori vivere sotto lo stesso tetto. Non è facile neanche essere amici, figuriamoci marito e moglie! Ma no, Ernest francamente non lo credeva: lui era sempre stato un amico sincero ed era tanto più sincero quanto migliori erano gli scrittori che aveva di fronte.
Alla fine mi trovai con gli occhi lucidi. Non sapevo se la sua storia fosse tutta vera, ma era passato tanto tempo e lui ormai era un uomo fatto e finito. Se anche aveva lavorato di fantasia, non c’era niente di cui poter accusarlo. I sentimenti c’erano, erano stati autentici ed erano quelli a farmi piangere, non tanto gli accadimenti in sé.
Poco prima di andarmene, misi una mano sulla sua, lo guardai negli occhi e dissi:
« Beato lei, signore, che è stato giovane a quei tempi. Sono tempi bellissimi per quelli di oggi. Ci pensa? Facevate quel che vi piaceva e lo chiamavate lavoro. Adesso noi ci tocca correre da una parte all’altra e quel che vogliamo fare lo confiniamo in un angolino, per farlo nei momenti di respiro. E pagare un affitto a Parigi… non ci voglio manco pensare. Vi chiamavano una generazione perduta ma, se fossero vissuti oggi, che termine avrebbero usato per noi? »
Ernest strinse il bicchiere, una stretta forte, di polso, e mi allungò di nuovo quella sua occhiata di possesso. Ma stavolta io ci leggevo malinconia e affetto e schiettezza. E decisi che potevo essere sua, che non c’era niente di male ad essere sua, perché mi avrebbe custodita teneramente.
« Tutte le generazioni sono perdute a modo loro. E questo significa che nessuna lo è davvero » rispose, e mi fece una carezza.
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Dec 07, 2009 Ellen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read, autobiography-memoir

Though often containing gorgeous prose, Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast has a clear agenda. The book treats Hemingway’s life in Paris from 1921 to 1926. Although the book clearly is autobiographical, in the Preface, Hemingway, after explaining that several items were left out of his memoir, then suggests, rather coyly, that “If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction” and adds, “But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written...more Though often containing gorgeous prose, Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast has a clear agenda. The book treats Hemingway’s life in Paris from 1921 to 1926. Although the book clearly is autobiographical, in the Preface, Hemingway, after explaining that several items were left out of his memoir, then suggests, rather coyly, that “If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction” and adds, “But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.” In essence, Hemingway wants it both ways: the book may be regarded as either fact or fiction. Although there is no reason for readers to read the work as fiction, Hemingway’s suggestion serves two ends. First, Hemingway introduces the idea that the book could be viewed as a novel, an idea that echoes the famous challenge he issued when he wrote The Green Hills of Africa where he ponders whether a work of nonfiction, if written truly enough, could compete with a work of the imagination. Aligning the work with fiction promotes its artistry; in addition, Hemingway’s Preface serves to justify his carefully reconstructed version of his early life.

However, Hemingway’s book does not seem like fiction because of what he leaves out, but rather for what he puts in. And, what Hemingway adds is gossip. Rather than the often vain, self-centered, and troubled person that Hemingway was, he presents a smoothed over, patient, loyal, and often loving version of himself. His first wife, Hadley, whom Hemingway unceremoniously dumped for Pauline Pfeiffer, is promoted to near sainthood. Ford Madox Ford is presented as hygienically challenged and a fool, Ezra Pound is a saint, and Ernest Walsh is a posturing liar. Yet, Hemingway presents his gossip artfully, even reluctantly. At one point, in reference to rumors about a writing award in which Ernest Walsh was involved, Hemingway disassociates himself from gossip and even attempts to admonish the reader: “If the news [about the writing award:] was passed around by gossip or rumor, or if it was a matter of personal confidence, cannot be said. Let us hope and believe always that it was completely honorable in every way” (125).

Despite Hemingway’s stated qualms about avoiding gossip and upholding honor, he shows no restraint in his portraits of Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Stein is introduced early in the memoir, and then destroyed completely in a later chapter entitled, “A Strange Enough Ending.” Tellingly, Hemingway begins the chapter by observing, “There is not much future in men being friends with great women…and there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers” (117). Significantly, Hemingway diminishes Stein’s writing ability by relegating her to a general group of “ambitious women writers.” Hemingway recounts visiting Stein’s house; as he waits for her, he overhears an intimate conversation. Hemingway writes, “…I heard someone speaking to Miss Stein as I had never heard one person speak to another; never, anywhere, ever.

Then Miss Stein’s voice came pleading and begging, saying, “Don’t, pussy. Don’t. Don’t, please don’t. I’ll do anything, pussy, but please don’t do it. Please don’t. Please don’t, pussy” (118). Hemingway takes pains to describe how he quietly exits and asks the maidservant to say she had met him in the courtyard, and that he had never entered the house. Nevertheless, Hemingway’s willingness to write the incident and include a private conversation belies the gentlemanly behavior he tries to portray. The intimate conversation Hemingway provides—word-for-word—is designed to make Stein look foolish and weak. Hemingway uses gossip to assert his superiority.

Despite the many pages devoted to Gertrude Stein, Hemingway’s portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald serves as the book’s dramatic core. By the time Hemingway meets Fitzgerald, he has already published This Side of Paradise and had just completed The Great Gatsby. In contrast, Hemingway has not yet been able to write a novel and worries whether he can. When he reads The Great Gatsby, its genius stuns him. Hemingway’s artful vignette of Fitzgerald serves to cut him down to size. Throughout the book, Hemingway carefully constructs his writing persona and implies that the attributes he displays—discipline, diligence, and attention to craft—are the qualities of a true writer. In contrast, Hemingway introduces his portrait of Fitzgerald by implicitly comparing talent with craft.

Like Fitzgerald’s physique and character, which Hemingway dissects piece-by-piece, Fitzgerald’s writing ability is portrayed as weak and suspect. Fitzgerald, Hemingway implies, has not earned his ability to write; even worse, Fitzgerald only recognizes his talent after it is gone: “Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.” Hemingway implies that Fitzgerald’s writing was not an intellectual, crafted ability, but more a matter of luck. Fitzgerald was given a portion of talent, but he had not worked for it, and it contrasts with the sturdy and true writing that emerges from craft.

Not content with rendering Fitzgerald’s writing ability suspect, Hemingway continues to dissect Fitzgerald, taking direct aim at his manhood. Like a good gossip, Hemingway provides salacious details. However, Hemingway packages his gossip carefully. Hemingway writes, artfully: “Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have the mouth of a beauty…The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.”

In the following chapter, “A Matter of Measurements,” Hemingway assuages the insecurity Fitzgerald feels because of a comment Zelda has made by taking Fitzgerald into the men’s room, inspecting him, and pronouncing the size of his penis normal. The content could hardly be more intimate and sensational. Hemingway performs verbal surgery throughout A Moveable Feast, and despite the book’s artistry, Hemingway spares almost no one his scathing memoir.
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Jan 03, 2008 Larissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, vicarious-travel, 2008, usa

Reading A Moveable Feast was a strange combination of pure pleasure and pure torture for me. On one hand, what could be better than reading a pseudo-memoir written by the unabashedly self-absorbed, and yet enduringly charming, Hemingway--all white wine, manliness, and burgeoning craft, with an excess of anecdotes and remembrances (often unflattering and unfair, god bless him) of his eccentric and luminous contemporaries? Not much. Especially with such memories: of Gertrude "Aldous Huxley writes...more Reading A Moveable Feast was a strange combination of pure pleasure and pure torture for me. On one hand, what could be better than reading a pseudo-memoir written by the unabashedly self-absorbed, and yet enduringly charming, Hemingway--all white wine, manliness, and burgeoning craft, with an excess of anecdotes and remembrances (often unflattering and unfair, god bless him) of his eccentric and luminous contemporaries? Not much. Especially with such memories: of Gertrude "Aldous Huxley writes like a dead man" Stein, of Wyndham "Eyes of an Unsuccessful Rapist" Lewis, of confirming for Scott Fitzgerald that his endowment was of a sufficient dimension to please any decent woman (compared, when it was, with statues at the Louve).

Everything is romantic: unheated Parisian cafes, living on money borrowed from the woman who owns the bookstore/library, having dinner with fire eaters, skiing up into the tip-top of the Alps to learn about avalanches in the winter, losing 6 months' savings on the ponies, boxing with Ezra Pound, donating money to fund T.S. Elliot's departure from his humdrum bank job. Eating and drinking. Not eating and drinking.

But especially, 'Working.' That up-with-the-sun-to-work-on-my-craft self-imposed grindstone that one sweats over as one might laying bricks and mortar all day. For from the way Hemingway describes it, writing--working--is hard, physical (manly) labor. It taxes you and it costs you and it takes a whole morning to get a paragraph written, but all the better! Like a good climb up a tall mountain, your exhaustion only proves that you've done something real and worthwhile. Which is a sentiment that can make any writer-in-training feel grand and important. This isn't art or creativity or any pansy self-expression. This. Is. Work.

And yet...

Hemingway tells us of a time when one could travel through Europe on a seasonal basis, drink bottles of wine by the liter, eat out in cafes all the time, and still be considered poor. When you could make a living selling magazine stories and the odd piece of journalism. When these combined payments were not only enough to fund an apartment for you and your wife and son, but also for a nursemaid, and for a separate hotel room in which you could work (naked, if need be).

It's a particularly classy brand of poverty that doesn't sound impoverished at all.

Alas and alack. But it's still fun to read about.(less)

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Dec 11, 2007 Kirk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essential-reference

Whenever a friend/Roman/lover/countryman/debtor/student/
jackass bar brawler tells me that Hemingway lost it after THE SUN ALSO RISES or (being generous) A FAREWELL TO ARMS, I say: read this book. There are moments of vile approbation. It saddens me infinitely to hear EH bang on Gertrude and Scott, and some of the dialogue is transparently punchdrunk. But when I want to read a book by someone who lost his shit and knew he lost it spectularly, this be the one. There are few passages more self-recr...more

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Feb 01, 2012 David Lentz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

During the early days of Hemingway's career Paris was was the most prolific writer's colony on the planet. The cost of living was cheap, the wine and food were good, and Paris attracted the talents of James Joyce, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford among others. Paris was truly a moveable feast in his day and, although Hemingway was poor at age 25, he was devoted to a career in which his primary objective was to capture a true sentence and then to follow it with another. This s...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography, classic, travel, to-read-again, faves, hemingway, novel-in-short-stories, memoir

A Moveable Feast is a beautiful book. Gorgeous. The prose is Hemingway-crisp, concise and evocative, but even with the Ezra Pound love fest midway through the book (fascinatingly against the grain in an America predisposed to loathe the poet for his ties to Nazism), A Moveable Feast isn’t A Moveable Feast until Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda appear on the scene.

Fans of Fitzgerald’s probably cringe at Papa’s descriptions of the Scott’s sad debasement. Zelda is a mad bitch; Scott is a drunken man-chi...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-and-memoir

In this slim volume, originally edited by Hemingway's fourth wife and widow Mary Hemingway and published after his death, Hemingway relates stories from his years in Paris in the 1920s, when he was married to his first wife, Hadley. The narrative features Hemingway's friends and acquaintances, including F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford. The details of this time in Paris include the names and locations of bars, cafés and hotels, as well as details o...more
In this slim volume, originally edited by Hemingway's fourth wife and widow Mary Hemingway and published after his death, Hemingway relates stories from his years in Paris in the 1920s, when he was married to his first wife, Hadley. The narrative features Hemingway's friends and acquaintances, including F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford. The details of this time in Paris include the names and locations of bars, cafés and hotels, as well as details of the locations in which Hemingway and his circle lived.

Hemingway and I have never gotten along very well. I made his acquaintance when I was at university and while I could appreciate the lean, spare prose, his themes were a bit too blokey for my taste. What appeared to be an obsession with war and bull-fighting didn't do much for me. So it's been many years since I've ventured to read any of his work. I decided to read this book because I was charmed by Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris which features a very entertaining portrayal of Hemingway and because I'll be in Paris early next year and the idea of a literary walking tour or two is very appealing.

While this was an interesting book to read and has provided plenty of atmosphere and background material for walking around Paris, it did not endear me to Hemingway the man. The prose is as fine as I remembered it from my last reading of his work more than thirty years ago. However, there is something ..... it's hard to find the right word .... "ungenerous" may be the kindest way to describe it, about Hemingway's portrayal of his contemporaries. Stein, Fitzgerald and others are held up to ridicule and virtually everyone in the narrative comes across as inferior to the author. Even at the end, when he regrets the affair which led to the end of his marriage to Hadley, Hemingway blames the other woman rather than himself. For all the romance of expatriate literary Paris in the 1920s which the memoir conveys, the image it attempts to give of Hemingway leaves something of a bitter taste in the mouth.

In his introduction to the book, Hemingway writes: "If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact". I suspect that the portrayal of Hemingway as an essentially sober, hard-working, well-adjusted writer starving in a garret and surrounded by losers is the central fictitious element of the work. What I don't know is just how much this portrayal comes from Hemingway's own writing and how much it has to do with posthumous editing.

For all my reservations about Hemingway, I still enjoyed reading his prose and reading about Paris. I now want to read The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Shakespeare and Company for different perspectives on a similar theme. The good things about the book make it worth 3-1/2 stars sliding towards 4 stars. (less)

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Feb 22, 2010 Cait rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Cait by: Nicole

Shelves: classics, memoirs-and-autobiography, read-in-2010, owned

It's official. I'm a gossip whore. Try as I might to deny it, I love hearing the dirt on other people. It should come as no surprise then that my favorite sections of this books were about Hemingway's relationships with Gertrude Stein and (especially) F. Scott Fitzgerald. Holy crap, who knew Hemingway was a gossip whore too? The man can really dish it out. I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with the Stein christened "Lost Generation" though, so I don't know whether to take what he says with a grain o...more

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Feb 03, 2008 Sonic rated it 1 of 5 stars

the worst hemingway i have ever read.

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Feb 08, 2013 رنا rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: الهيئة-دار-الهلال, بحبهم

م الكتب اللي عانيت لحد ما لقيتها
صحيح اشتريت غالية عن تمنها م الراجل اللي استغل فترة المعرض بس مش مشكلة
اتبسطت اني لقيتها ف الآخر :)

همنجواي بالنسبة لي موجود ف اللا وعي عندي لكذا سبب
أولها اني سمعت من زمان عن رواية " العجوز و البحر"
بس لسة مجاش اوان قرايتها او اني اشتريها

السبب التاني
اني حبيته من فيلم city of angels
ف المشهد اللي نيكولاس قرا فيه سطرين بيوصف فيها الأكل م الكتاب دا
اتبسطت لما قريت السطرين دول
"و بعد أن أكلت المحارات المفعمة بمذاق البحر القوي، و بطعمها المعدني الخفيف، الذي أتى علي...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Gary McTiernan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-ebooks

Ernest Hemingway is a very good writer; his recollections of his early days in Paris have become the stuff of legend. What he is not, is a good husband, father or friend. Overall this is a mean-spirited attempt to assuage his guilt about dumping his first wife and to win some imaginary competition between himself and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He succeeds at neither but that doesn't change the fact that this is always entertaining and intermittently very funny. I intend to read more things by him. He...more

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May 31, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, france-french-theme-setting, bio-autobio-memoir, best-of-2012, read-2012

If you haven't been to Paris, you just won't get A Moveable Feast...
If you aren't already a fan of Hemingway, don't bother reading A Moveable Feast

Look, I'm struggling to get a start on this review and those were the first two statements that popped into my head. I don't know if they are true. I don't know if they are fair. What I do know it that this work - fiction, memoir, sketches, a polished diary - whichever of these it may be - wouldn't exist without Paris. Obviously, right? No, that's n...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Marco Tamborrino rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

«Ecco cosa siete. Ecco che cosa siete, voialtri» disse la signorina Stein. «Tutti voi giovani che avete fatto la guerra. Siete una generazione perduta.»

Io e il signor Ernest Hemingway, chiamato da tutti - amici e non - soltanto col nomignolo di Hem, ci siamo seduti ai Lilas per berci un po' di whiskey in santa pace mentre parlavamo dei rispettivi romanzi. Hem mi ha detto che scrivo da cani, che mi metto a parlare di cose che non c'entrano un cazzo e che i personaggi non potranno mai pensare. Io...more «Ecco cosa siete. Ecco che cosa siete, voialtri» disse la signorina Stein. «Tutti voi giovani che avete fatto la guerra. Siete una generazione perduta.»

Io e il signor Ernest Hemingway, chiamato da tutti - amici e non - soltanto col nomignolo di Hem, ci siamo seduti ai Lilas per berci un po' di whiskey in santa pace mentre parlavamo dei rispettivi romanzi. Hem mi ha detto che scrivo da cani, che mi metto a parlare di cose che non c'entrano un cazzo e che i personaggi non potranno mai pensare. Io gli ho risposto Senti, Hem, i miei personaggi sono ognuno un piccolo universo e io ci ficco dentro quello che voglio. No, non ci ficco dentro quello. Non parlo di... non farmi essere volgare.

Allora, non è giusto immaginarci gli scrittori degli anni '20 chiusi in alberghi di Lusso nel centro di Parigi a scrivere le loro opere immortali . Non ci crederete, ma questi tizi si sbronzavano per il settanta percento della durata della giornata eppure scrivevano libri meravigliosi. Gli anni ruggenti. Parigi. Che bellezza. Okay, non c'erano i cellulari. Non c'era internet (e nemmeno Chrome) e facebook neanche a immaginarlo sotto l'effetto di droghe. Però che vita. Cazzo, che vita.

La conversazione tra Hem e me è proseguita su temi quali i Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot e tanti altri. Ci siamo divertiti un casino. Poi lui mi ha portato in giro per Parigi, l'abbiamo amata insieme questa città, eravamo amici ma lui aveva fatto la guerra ed era perduto. Non "votato alla morte" ma pur sempre perduto. Ed era triste. La città e lui e io. Se la sua generazione aveva fatto la guerra ed era perduta, cosa sarebbe successo alla generazione di vent'anni dopo? Quello non gliel'ho chiesto, perché lui ancora non poteva sapere.

Mi ha detto questo di Scott:

Il suo talento era naturale come il disegno tracciato dalla polvere sulle ali di una farfalla. In un primo tempo non lo capì più di quanto lo capisca la farfalla, ed egli non se ne accorse neppure quando il disegno fu guastato o cancellato. Più tardi si rese conto delle sue ali danneggiate e comprese com'erano fatte e imparò a riflettere e non riuscì più a volare perché era scomparso l'amore per il volo e poté solo ricordarsi di quando volare non gli era costato il minimo sforzo.

Quasi quasi me ne innamoravo. Sia di di lui (Hem) che di Scott. Diventavo omosessuale per 'sti due. Che teneri. E poi per quello che hanno scritto e per come lo hanno scritto, ci andrei anche a letto. Forse. Nah, stiamo entrando troppo nell'intimo, stiamone fuori.

Continuando a camminare ci siamo fermati in un bar che ora non ricordo a prenderci un caffè. Pensate. Un caffè. Qualcosa di analcolico, incredibile. Fatto sta che abbiamo parlato d'altro e siamo finiti su Dostoevskij, che io non ho mai letto e di cui lui ha un'idea molto particolare. In quel periodo Hem leggeva molta letteratura russa, più che altro perché la prendeva in prestito dalla biblioteca.

Alla fine gli ho detto... Hem, senti, lo leggeresti il mio pessimo libro? So già che è pessimo perché ho tentato di copiare il tuo stile, quello dei tuoi contemporanei e quello di coloro che sono venuti dopo di te, ma lo leggeresti lo stesso? Poi mi mandi il tuo parere in un altro libro sulla Parigi degli anni '20, dove dirai di aver incontrato Marco Tamborrino ed esserti sbronzato di whiskey insieme a lui. Ti va? Io ci metto la firma.(less)

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Jun 20, 2011 David Lentz rated it 4 of 5 stars

When Hemingway wrote this novel, he may have known that his materpieces were behind him. Although this novel is a lesser work, there are moments of tenderness, poignancy and power crafted in his trademark miminalist style that linger. The novel concerns a retired Army Colonel, who has fought in brutal combat, near the end of his life and is desperately in love with a much younger woman. To me the woman signified the Colonel's lost youth and the relationship may take on new meaning if one views i...more

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Jul 15, 2010 Lavinia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, journals-biographies-memoirs, in-en

I never liked Hemingway's prose too much, but the moment I found out about this book of memoirs, I knew I'd love it. And I did.

There was a time when two people could live comfortably and well in Europe on five dollars a day, when young aspiring writers lived in Paris and wrote in cafés, when knowing Sylvia Beach didn't mean only borrowing books and reading the finest literature but also financial help for those in need, when writers helped each other getting out of menial jobs and start writing...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Billrose rated it 1 of 5 stars

I was disappointed. I am a Hemingway fan, but not of this book. The book is set in post-WWII Italy and the main character is a 50+ year-old US Army Colonel in love with an almost 19 year-old girl. They lament about their age difference since they know it is insurmountable which is understandable, but the dialog is horrible. She: "Don't speak rough." He: "I will try to be gentle." She: "It is so much better when you are nice" He: "I will try hard to be nice ... How long has it been since I said I...more

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Jul 31, 2009 Bart rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 12, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

My sister spent some time in Paris recently, and told me I had to read a book. The book in question was ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Hemingway, which to be honest I never heard of.
The competition between Hemingway and Fitzgerald has been immortalized for a long time. I always sided with Fitzgerald as the better writer. I’ve read ‘The Great Gatsby’ three times, and ‘Tender is the Night’ three times, and will return to those books every four to five years. Fitzgerald writes beautifully, in deapth, and h...more My sister spent some time in Paris recently, and told me I had to read a book. The book in question was ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Hemingway, which to be honest I never heard of.
The competition between Hemingway and Fitzgerald has been immortalized for a long time. I always sided with Fitzgerald as the better writer. I’ve read ‘The Great Gatsby’ three times, and ‘Tender is the Night’ three times, and will return to those books every four to five years. Fitzgerald writes beautifully, in deapth, and has round characters. He is one of my favorite writers. I read ‘The Beautiful and Damned’ and was amazed by it. I think this was after college and maybe in the Kent State days and I said to someone in paraphase ‘Beautifual and Damned is a great book, why is it considered bad and his worst.’ This person replied to me, ‘The worst of the best is probably good.’
For Hemingway’s fiction I don’t have the same passion about. ‘Sun Also Rises’ was good, but ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ I thought it had clipped bad dialogue. Basically I do not like his short writing style, but like more long winded or poetic prose. So with that in mind, giving up Hemingway years ago, it makes siense that I never new of ‘A Moveable Feast’ or cared.
Now that I had a family recommendation, and looked it up that it was a memoir of his Paris years. I read it in about two days, last night drinking coffee at midnight so I could stay awake and pay attention. This is a wonderful book for a couple of reasons. First and foremost for the name dropping. The expatrieate of the era have always fascianted me, a ton of writers found ways to live and write, and Paris was the location. I thought Hemingway had the finances and his Paris was analagous to Fitzgeralds, but it turns out it started more on the Henry Miller experience with the debauchery. What’s fascinating is Hemingway, got by from some small regular journalism gigs, but moved around the literary circles and kind of became a celebrety there before he had his success. In grad school, an a banned book presentation of ‘Tropic of Cancer,’ I researched a lot of this period. I checked out a book called ‘Slyvia Beach and the Lost Generation’ with attentions to read, but it was too academic. But I was aware of this woman’s exsitence who was the center of the English speaking lit community in Paris. Hemingway portrays her as a dominite woman that loaned books to him at first meeting with no monetary reward. She treated him as if he was Joyce. Also, in this Hemingway memoir he drops a lot of names including Stein, Pound, Ford, and others. I don’t think they’ll ever be a circle like that now, with computers people live wherever they want. Hemingway also talks in depth about Fitzgerald, and some of it was harsh on my hero, but it felt like he was telling the truth. That Fitzgerald could not handle his drink and that along with his wife ruined him. Hemingway also displays through a memory put in writing how Fitzgerald had a total lack of impulse control, pay for the best and not shop around.
The other reason this book is good, it shows an emotional side of Hemingway not seen in his macho fiction. Toward the end he’s talking to someone years later, and says there all dead, and then names the ones who died. I can’t imagine liveing through something so impressive and to see it crumble within your own times. The beat poets probrably experienced the same thing.
Lastly, this book is great because Hemingway talks of the process of writing, and gives his opinion on others of his day.
Read it!
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Oct 10, 2008 James Spina rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Ernie's great and not-so-great grandchildren

I'm heading for Paris on a work related trip in a few weeks so I thought I'd get in the mood by dipping into papa. BIG MISTAKE. I guess you had to be there. This is nothing but a bunch of mundane moments strung together by some boring name dropping and squalid hygiene habits.
I've never really been a fan of anything other than Ernie's shorter stories and now I remember why. He didn't write briefly for effect. He did it because he didn't really know enough words. It always sounds like he's peeking...more

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Jan 09, 2012 ميّ أحمد rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: روايات

الرواية تدور حول كولونيل عائد من الحرب إلى مدينته الصغيرة يحاول أن يشغل نفسه بصيد البط , يلاحظ أن المراكبي يتعامل معه بعدائية , يقيم علاقة مع فتاة صغيرة السن بينما هو تعدى الخمسين عاما الرواية يغلب عليها الطابع الحواري بين الكولونيل مع المراكبي , سائق التاكسي , الفتاة العاشقة , اصدقاءه الذين بقوا على قيد الحياة
ورفاقه في منظمة وهمية
همنغواي كتب آراءه السياسية ونظرته تجاه الحرب والحياة والحب من خلال هذا الكولونيل
طوال الرواية وأنا أشعر بالملل من الحديث عن الحرب والسياسة والألمان والنمساويين
لم أحب...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Jennifer Messina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: americani, génération-perdue

Sincera e cristallina verità?
Dopo Addio alle armi il mio dito è stato costantemente puntato sulla fastidiosa schematicità del signor Ernest Hemingway: troppo schietto, spoglio, spigoloso, troppo vero. Nessuno ha bisogno della verità, mi dicevo, non se sceglie di leggere un romanzo. Nessuno vuole che un tizio avvinazzato svilisca tutto a questo modo, che parli d'amore con parole terribilmente aride e che disdegni tanto gli aggettivi. Mi dicevo che se un lettore è un lettore lo è perché di tutta l...more Sincera e cristallina verità?
Dopo Addio alle armi il mio dito è stato costantemente puntato sulla fastidiosa schematicità del signor Ernest Hemingway: troppo schietto, spoglio, spigoloso, troppo vero. Nessuno ha bisogno della verità, mi dicevo, non se sceglie di leggere un romanzo. Nessuno vuole che un tizio avvinazzato svilisca tutto a questo modo, che parli d'amore con parole terribilmente aride e che disdegni tanto gli aggettivi. Mi dicevo che se un lettore è un lettore lo è perché di tutta la spregevole verità e della schiettezza e crudezza del mondo ne ha la nausea.
Eppure, insomma, stavo parlando di Hemingway e non di Pincopanco. Forse meritava un'altra possibilità, forse sì. Ho scelto Festa mobile, alla fine, più per un mio impellente bisogno che per dargli veramente un'altra occasione, ma stavolta, inaspettatamente, la sua semplicità ha raggiunto i connotati di un tenero approccio al ricordo. E' stato quello che volevo fosse: un tenero reporter di una dimensione tanto luccicante quanto evanescente. Non c'era bisogno di quisquilie, di aggettivi, davvero, non c'era bisogno di nulla: bastava tutta la verità e nient'altro che la verità e un tocco di stravaganza, giustamente.
Ecco, io credo di non avere abbastanza parole per spiegare cosa significhi e cosa no questo romanzo per me. In realtà, se dovessi esprimere in termini spiccioli il modo in cui ne sono uscita direi che ne sono uscita completamente viva, risorta, dopo aver vissuto con mille volti addosso e dopo aver incontrato menti e luoghi che mi hanno esaurita.
Esaurita. Ma nel senso migliore del termine.
Un po' mi aspettavo che sarebbe andata benissimo, ma non così, non così che non so se è andata davvero benissimo o dolorosamente benissimo.
Eppure sarei insincera se dicessi che è stato un viaggio meraviglioso, che ne sono colma, sazia e se potessi ne vorrei ancora. Sì, è stato un viaggio meraviglioso, ma anche crudele e sì, ne sono colma e sazia e ne vorrei ancora, ma è vero anche che mi sento svuotata e agonizzante.
Perché? Non ci arrivate? No, se non l'avete letto no. Il perché è che ho preso tra le mani questo carillon di vita e l'ho tenuto stretto tra le braccia ogni notte fino ad oggi ed ho aspettato il momento in cui mi avrebbe svelato le sue melodie migliori, e ho gioito per gli incontri e le amicizie, per quelle che non lo erano davvero e per quelle che lo erano ma erano sbagliate. Mi sono sentita vibrante lungo i boulevard parigini, nelle stanze d'albergo, nelle case di sconosciuti. Ero in mezzo a tutto quel vibrare e mi sentivo felice. Sentivo i loro pensieri, vedevo le loro mani, Dio!
E poi, d'improvviso, abbandonate quelle pagine restava il niente. Non ero lì, capite? Non ho mai parlato con nessunissima Miss Stein, non ho mai scommesso su nessun un cavallo, non sono mai entrata da Shakespeare & co. e non ho mai comprato alcun libro che appartenesse a quegli scaffali; non ho mai provato la febbre a Scott Fitzgerald, non l'ho mai tirato fuori dai guai, non l'ho mai amato visceralmente e mai ne sono stata invidiosa. Non ero Pauline, non ero Ernest, non ero Ezra e nemmeno Zelda e né tanto meno Scott.
Non ero nessuno di loro e neppure ero lì. E questo, a pensarci, rende tristi abbastanza.
E allora perché cinque stelline? Allora perché tanto attaccamento e tanta adorazione e tanta gioia?
Perché per quei gloriosi sessanta minuti del giorno e per qui centoventi della notte, io sono stata esattamente dove volevo essere. Non era più solo un gran trambusto e un gran cin cin parigino, un ruggente spaccato di arte e bellezza e povertà. Ero tutto questo anche io ed ero molto di più.
Chiunque altro potrebbe bellamente ignorare un romanzo del genere: insomma, era la loro vita e la loro arte, quindi che importa adesso? Ma se io vi dicessi che potreste esserne parte? Se fosse il momento che tutti aspettiamo? Se fosse proprio lì dentro la festa mobile di ognuno? OK, è tutta una farsa, ma non può bastare? Davvero non può?
Ho sempre pensato che ognuno di noi esista per diventare qualcuno e di conseguenza per appartenere a qualcosa di più vasto, circondati di altri che necessitano dei nostri stessi bisogni e che ridono e piangono come ridiamo e piangiamo noi. Ed è così sul serio.
Ci penso da tutto il giorno e rileggo i frammenti che ho sottolineato e sospiro perché deve esserci da qualche parte qualcosa di simile per me e tanto di quel trambusto da bastarmi per tutta la vita.
Adesso non mi resta altro che fissare il coperchio ingrigito e affollato del mio piccolo e tintinnante carillon e decidere se odiarlo per l'illusione presto diradatasi o se amarlo per avere armonizzato con il suo clangore dei vuoti che non sapevo coscientemente di contenere.
Per adesso scelgo solo di essere triste e discretamente malinconica, proprio come dopo aver tanto amato da essere dolcemente consumati dalla consapevolezza che la magnificenza di tutto quella passione non è altro che bruma fitta e che per quanto ci si possa profondare non la si riesce mai ad afferrare con le dita. (less)

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Feb 21, 2013 Célia Loureiro rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Opinião: Há aquela lista de escritores incontornável para qualquer pessoa que goste de ler. E o Hemingway encontra-se entre eles. Só lendo ficamos a conhecer os motivos pelos quais algum autor é elogiado, mas de vez em quando também se dá o caso de não compreender de todo o frufru em torno de determinada obra literária/criador literário. Li-o como se jamais alguém tivesse dito que ele é um dos maiores escritores do nosso tempo, o que por vezes pode confundir-se com procurar-lhe defeitos. De iníc...more Opinião: Há aquela lista de escritores incontornável para qualquer pessoa que goste de ler. E o Hemingway encontra-se entre eles. Só lendo ficamos a conhecer os motivos pelos quais algum autor é elogiado, mas de vez em quando também se dá o caso de não compreender de todo o frufru em torno de determinada obra literária/criador literário. Li-o como se jamais alguém tivesse dito que ele é um dos maiores escritores do nosso tempo, o que por vezes pode confundir-se com procurar-lhe defeitos. De início isso aconteceu bastante, mas depois deixei-me envolver-me na história e a minha apreciação tornou-se mais apurada, com filtro anti-influências.
Eu gosto de avaliar as coisas pela minha cabeça, não com base no que dizem do livro, não com base no estatuto do autor no mundo literário, mas com base em todo o resto que li. Posto isto, já li melhor do que este livro. Isto basta para dizer que conheço o autor? Não, mas alguns traços dele são tão marcados que certamente hão de estar impressos noutras obras.
Um dos pontos altos do livro são os diálogos. Apesar de fazerem pouco sentido – porque parecem seguir ao ritmo dos pensamentos e das associações de ideias – tiveram alguns trejeitos mais importantes para a compreensão das personagens e do seu mundo interior do que o descritivo do conteúdo das suas cabeças. A escrita também é fácil, leve e fluída, embora por vezes se perca em pormenores demasiado técnicos ou francamente desnecessários. O autor é muito visual, o que ora beneficia a obra, ora a torna mais enfadonha.
Neste livro específico, Hemingway explora a vida de um coronel que combateu na II Guerra Mundial, tendo parte da sua missão decorrido em Itália. Estamos portanto em Veneza, onde Ricardo (penso que seja Richard no original, não entendendo se assim for o motivo desta tradução) vive aquilo que nos informa (uma dezena de vezes) ser o seu “último e único e verdadeiro amor”. Achei o coronel demasiado self centered, impondo autoridade de vez em quando, dando ordens a propósito de tudo. Agradou-me o seu trato rude, a aspereza com que se exprime e o modo cínico como vê o mundo, o poder, a guerra e as suas esferas e “heróis”. Algumas reflexões são interessantes. Uma delas ficou-me na ideia: o único, último e verdadeiro amor do coronel sugere-lhe que escreva as suas memórias de guerra. O coronel diz ao seu único, último e verdadeiro amor, que esse género de romance de guerra sai melhor de mãos que não lutaram, nem viveram realmente a guerra. Tive de concordar. O Hemingway está claramente muito – demasiado – relacionado com o conflito para escrever algo que não seja realista, técnico, melindroso e, desde modo, por vezes fastidioso, em relação à dita cuja.
A partir de certo momento o romance tornou-se um longo monólogo do coronel quanto aos episódios da guerra. Primeiro a personagem feminina (Renata) parece só existir para lhe implorar por explicações da guerra. Penso que entendo a ideia do autor: digamos assim que ela o ama realmente, mesmo com a mão estropiada, e que se interessa por aquilo que nele é maior; a profissão, a guerra. Na minha opinião, esta mulher não existe. Em segundo lugar, quando ela dorme, quando ele pensa, quando ele olha para o retrato dela, para o espelho, para o barqueiro, para o Gran Maestro, para o Conde Alvarito e todas as outras personagens, é sempre a guerra, sempre a mesma sombra a imiscuir-se em cada fio da narrativa. Como dizia, um longo monólogo com personagens secundárias como receptáculo destas palavras a respeito de um mesmo assunto.
O coronel, contudo, é uma personagem bastante realista. Compreendo as nuances do seu pensamento, o quanto luta por ser cordial quando, na sua natureza e na sua experiência, apenas adquiriu hábitos de brusquidão e aspereza.
O ponto alto do livro foi, para mim, um ou dois parágrafos (máximo) em que o coronel finalmente conta dois pormenores, dois episódios, humanos sobre a guerra. Um episódio em que finalmente são se fala em nomes de generais e de tenentes, nem de aviões, nem de operações, nem de troços específicos de uma estrada qualquer, na operação tal, com um motor tipo x e uma pistola tipo y, nem na farda com a medalha z para o oficial tal.
Não vou desistir do autor, mas não me foi inesquecível.

Classificação: 3,5
http://castelos-de-letras.blogspot.pt...(less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Fidel rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012, novels

Si usted ha llegado hasta aquí, es probable que padezca problemas de insomnio. La dificultad para conciliar el sueño es uno de los mayores males de nuestro tiempo, ya que existe un aparato demoniaco llamado televisor, que rezuma basura a altas horas de la madrugada, y que puede hacer que el insomnio -aparentemente inofensivo- se transforme en adicción a la compra de patrañas de teletienda, a las predicciones del tarot, o a programas de Mario Vaquerizo.
No se preocupe. Esto pretende ser un mensaje...more

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Nov 25, 2011 Tim Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hemingway masterfully uses dialog and character interaction to tell this story. 'Across the River and Into the Trees' is about a somewhat estranged US Army Colonel who spends the last three days of his life in Venice, Italy. The aging veteran of two World Wars knows his end is very near, so he visits his 19-year-old paramour and his friends in the city of canals, gondolas, and such. The Colonel's interactions with other characters, ghostly memories of his demotion from the rank of General, and a...more

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May 05, 2008 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Is it literature just because Hemingway wrote it? True, his name has become synonymous with The Modern Canon, but this gossipy tell-all might give you some inroads to the real person behind the monolith of drinking and literature. And if you're too high-brow to get your rocks off on reading about the bad behavior of whatever vacuous it-girl dons the cover of Life and Style this week, maybe the juicy gaffes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce will take you there.

I...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Kathy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: yanks, read-in-2012, italy

'What did you do in the war, Daddy?'
'I was a pervy old man who wanted to sleep with young girls.'

I suppose if I were a man having a midlife crisis, I might have enjoyed this book. I don't know who else would. Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps?

It's after the war. An American soldier in his fifties checks in to a hotel in Venice. He goes out to dinner with a nineteen-year-old girl. Next morning they have breakfast and go shopping. He checks out of the hotel. He goes and shoots a few ducks. He dies.

That's i...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1920s, bohemian-rhapsodies, erin-collection, essay, history-euro, men-behaving-badly, journalism, booze, 2011-reads

To say that Hemingway writes clear, declarative sentences would be far too simplistic and inaccurate. I actually find his sentences twisty and harder to read oftentimes than more flowery and "correct" prose written in a more classical parallel fashion. I do miss the breather commas, for instance, in places where the conjunctions separate what are actually different clauses, which sometimes causes me to have to read the sentences twice. Honestly, I've never been a great fan of the way Hemingway w...more To say that Hemingway writes clear, declarative sentences would be far too simplistic and inaccurate. I actually find his sentences twisty and harder to read oftentimes than more flowery and "correct" prose written in a more classical parallel fashion. I do miss the breather commas, for instance, in places where the conjunctions separate what are actually different clauses, which sometimes causes me to have to read the sentences twice. Honestly, I've never been a great fan of the way Hemingway writes sentences. He broke rules but the fact that so few continue to write like him perhaps "proves" the lack of enduring fondness for his style of writing, at least as it pertains to actual practicing authors.

This is the main reason that I've not delved very deeply into the Hemingway oeuvre. This is not to say at all that I don't dig what he has to say, or appreciate the word-pictures he places in my mind. Now that I've read this "non-fiction" work and two of his novels, I have to say that, for me, his style works better for non-fiction. In A Moveable Feast the Hemingway poetic and journalistic voices merge beautifully, and on the whole I found this to be the most interesting and informative work I've read by him so far, and by far. It is definitely the most fun I've had with him; I dashed this off, rapt, at one sitting in just one afternoon. I think I can go out on a limb even more and say it's the best thing I've ever read about Bohemian Paris, at least the Paris of the 1920s.

One thing I really like about it is that his observations of the people, places and habits of the city are balanced with a real sense of his own work life, family life and personal struggles with poverty. The sense of him as a working writer is vivid; he tells us what he is striving for in his writing, how he is trying to accomplish that and what his work habits are toward achieving it, without becoming too insufferably preachy as many self-proclaimed artistes do in extolling their own nobility as channelers of the muse.

The book was written in retrospect, and in spite of Hemingway's oft-quoted wisdom about putting truth on paper or "bleeding onto the page" this book has to be classed as at least part fictional, and also vague in how it skates over certain "truths" to which it alludes (particularly his affairs). There are at least a couple of instances where he claims to have forgotten dates and names and other details but then proceeds to perfectly reconstruct conversations that happened more than 30 years in the past.

But, that is all fine. He was there, and I was not, and I trust him.

I enjoyed reading about Hemingway's encounters with Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Beach and Ford Madox Ford and lament that such a generous literary artistic colony no longer really exists in the world. And, as it happens, neither does the Paris he writes about. Hemingway, with perhaps the benefit of hindsight, already claimed to have sensed that that very world was dying right before his eyes. Certainly the kind of affordable Paris, where even the poorest artists could live high on the hog for just $5 a day is lost in the mists.

The three chapters dealing with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald--particularly a disastrous trip Hemingway made to and from Paris and Lyon with Scott at the time the latter's The Great Gatsby was in the works--are utterly essential reading. The trip the two take to look at classical museum sculptures--to help the emasculated Scott stop fretting about his wife's disparagement of his allegedly small penis--is a sad and funny escapade.

Funny, too, is Hemingway's asking of the question eternal to all serious writers--one dealing with the purity of one's self-expression versus the temptation to pander to the marketplace: "If these bastards like it what is wrong with it?"

The book is evocative and immersive and I can easily see myself reading it again someday.(less)

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Apr 25, 2010 Wayne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those interested in Expatriate Paris but there are much better accounts.

Recommended to Wayne by: Di and Kylie

Shelves: americana, art-and-artists, memoirs-biography

ADITIONS to this review below...

What an abominable old Bore Ernest Hemingway is.

I really hoped to come out liking him ,at least a bit, but came out not trusting him and his faithless friendships.
Very few come out of this looking good after Ernie has gone to work with his poison pen...all except Ernie of course!!!(Surprising THAT!!!)

There are MUCH better books about the Paris of the Ex-patriates between the Wars - Janet Flanner who wrote a weekly column about Paris for the New Yorker and Sylvia B...more

ADITIONS to this review below...

What an abominable old Bore Ernest Hemingway is.

I really hoped to come out liking him ,at least a bit, but came out not trusting him and his faithless friendships.
Very few come out of this looking good after Ernie has gone to work with his poison pen...all except Ernie of course!!!(Surprising THAT!!!)

There are MUCH better books about the Paris of the Ex-patriates between the Wars - Janet Flanner who wrote a weekly column about Paris for the New Yorker and Sylvia Beach who set up an English bookshop at the legendary Shakespeare & Co., Alice B.Toklas and Gertrude Stein are only a few of the talented and great personalities that put Ernie and his macho lusts in the shade.

Recollected in Bitterness rather than Tranquillity, in his dotage, Ernie had much to regret, especially in his four marriages. Obviously, according to the final pages, it was mostly downhill after he threw over Hadley and their small son. But Ernie, in the final chapter, inaptly titled "There is Never Any End to Paris",for it is all set in Austria, degenerates into a diatribe against the Rich who destroyed their Austrian Idyll and his marriage.(Oh, Yeah!!!!)
- a maudlin self-indulgent conclusion which is rather fitting for an inferior and self-indulgent look at a much more fascinating time and peopling of Paris than Ernie ever was capable of realising.

LATER: I have been doing some further research on EH, especially as I recalled hearing about a new edition of "A Movable Feast", revised by EH's grandson, Sean. Some very unflattering comments about EH's 'Boswell', A.E.Hotchner. Everyone seems to have added to or subtracted from this book for various reasons...a real'Jamesian' type situation, as the critic below wryly observes.
"Hemingway's Paradise Lost - Love and Remorse:Life.Art.and Paris" was the title of the article in Princeton's "TownTopics" paper by Stuart Mitchener which I highly recommend.
He is much kinder to Hotchner; much more wary of the motives of the 'fiddlers'; and totally aware of EH eg."EH could be nasty, petty and self-indulgent in his personal life as well as his writing"...but in this last piece of writing he self-censored as "he knew when he was going over the top and was usually able to balance his score-settling with his art." One of the 'over the top' chapters "Birth of a New School" was published in the 1963 publication because, although EH had finally omitted it, his last wife, Mary, had seen to it that it was included. It was also Mary who gave the final chapter its inappropriate title.
Inappropriate to ME, that is. Because finally it all becomes a bit Miss Marple-ish. How can we ever know!! Are mere words ever enough to pass any sort of judgment on the writer. We must take what is written and how we react all with a grain of salt.(less)

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About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collec...more Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1922, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent, and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s "Lost Generation" expatriate community. The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's first novel, was published in 1926.

After his 1927 divorce from Hadley Richardson, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from Spanish Civil War where he had acted as a journalist, and after which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. They separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II; during which he was present at the Normandy Landings and liberation of Paris.

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two plane crashes that left him in pain or ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.(less)

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“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.” — 672 people liked it

“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.” — 393 people liked it

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