Paris est une fête

by Ernest Hemingway

book data

10,108 ratings, 4.06 average rating, 1,034 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		36%
4		38%
3		19%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

October 26th 1973 by Gallimard (first published 1960)

details

Paperback, 240 pages

isbn

2070364658 (isbn13: 9782070364657)

description

In the preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarks casually that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction"--and, inde…more

[close] In the preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarks casually that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction"--and, indeed, fact or fiction, it doesn't matter, for his slim memoir of Paris in the 1920s is as enchanting as anything made up and has become the stuff of legend. Paris in the '20s! Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had money for drinks at the Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishing trips to Spain. On every corner and at every café table, there were the most extraordinary people living wonderful lives and telling fantastic stories. Gertrude Stein invited Hemingway to come every afternoon and sip "fragrant, colorless alcohols" and chat admid her great pictures. He taught Ezra Pound how to box, gossiped with James Joyce, caroused with the fatally insecure Scott Fitzgerald (the acid portraits of him and his wife, Zelda, are notorious). Meanwhile, Hemingway invented a new way of writing based on this simple premise: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

Hemingway beautifully captures the fragile magic of a special time and place, and he manages to be nostalgic without hitting any false notes of sentimentality. "This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy," he concludes. Originally published in 1964, three years after his suicide, A Moveable Feast was the first of his posthumous books and remains the best. --David Laskin

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

In a series of wonderfully evocative vignettes Hemingway captures day-to-day life in Paris where he lived with his first wife Hadley in the early 1920’s. Despite being very poor he paints an irresistibly appealing account of that period. He was energized, optimistic, a very disciplined writer and seemed to relish his struggles to survive and make a name for himself. In twenty chronologically organized chapters he captures the Bohemian ethos of Paris life; provides insights to his writing process; states some style preferences; reveals his penchant for boxing, gambling, bicycle racing and skiing; specifies what he ate and drank on innumerable occasions; describes interactions with his friends and acquaintances and sometimes cruelly betrays them by revealing confidences and intimate details of their lives. His tone is both high spirited and mean spirited. With the exception of gambling he seems mostly unaware of/unconcerned about his personal excesses.

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Nov 13, 2009

Ellen rated it:

(review of other edition)

bookshelves: autobiography-memoir, re-read

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 be...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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26 comments

Jan 01, 2008

Larissa rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

bookshelves: 2008, americana, short-stories, vicarious-travel

Read in January, 2008

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 wr...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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5 comments

Dec 11, 2007

Kirk rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

bookshelves: essential-reference

Read in August, 1989

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 sel...more

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Aug 11, 2008

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

bookshelves: classics

Read in August, 2008

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 beautiful...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:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

Read in October, 2008

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 p...more

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Apr 30, 2008

Christine rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

bookshelves: biography

Read in May, 2008

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. ...more

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Jan 30, 2008

Becca rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: all people who appreciate beautiful language

Easily on my top 10 list of all time. Hemingway's memoirs from when he lived in Paris. My friend, who hates Hemingway, loved this one. More beautifully written than anything I've ever read, you'll get a kick out of what he has to say about the other American writers living in Paris at the time. It'll break your heart and make you cry but you'll be a more grateful person when you're through.

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Nov 24, 2008

Aaron rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

Read in December, 2008

recommended to Aaron by: Marin Heinritz
recommends it for: writers

A better writer told me this was a great guide to writing. So what did I learn? A few tips from Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast"

¤ Write until you know what comes next, then you won't worry about what to write about the next day.
¤ Transplant yourself.

"In one place you could write about it better than in another."
¤ Start with one true, simple, declarative sentence and then from there.
¤ When finished writing, read.
...more

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May 29, 2007

Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

bookshelves: 20th-century-early, fiction, owned, the-aftermath

Read in August, 2006

recommends it for: foreign travelers, fans of Lost Gen writers, writers

Who knew that Hemingway was a fanboy? After I read this novel, I found that out. This novel basically recounts Hemingway's days, mostly in Paris, among the famous of the Lost Generation, and his conversations and adventures with them across Europe.

I'll start with my problems with this book: The first 100 pages were incredibly difficult for me to get through, as I do not like Hemingway's writing style. I never have, and I very much doubt that I ever will (with the exception of Sun Al...more

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Jan 11, 2008

Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: EVERYBODY.

This book is both a collection of gems, and a gem in and of itself.

I read it for the first time a couple of years ago in Paris (I actually found it on one of the bookshelves on the quay, not knowing that such a book by Hemingway existed. What a find!) I read a lot, so I'd like to think I'm not overly easily impressed. But this book is breathtaking.

To me, the presence of Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald add nothing. The value here is not celebrity cameos, but the stren...more

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Apr 01, 2009

N.M. rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

I think all writers should read this book. It certainly gives you a sense of what Hemingway went through and what his life was life in Paris.

My favorite part was that I read a copy of the book printed in 1970. On the back cover it states, "Over 275,000 copies sold in the US in hardcover alone."

Given Harry Potter numbers, and most publisher's expectations today, it puts sales in perspective.

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3 comments

Feb 11, 2009

a well wisher rated it:

(review of isbn 0020519605)

bookshelves: my-boys, nonfiction

I dislike Hemingway. I dislike his writing and I dislike him as a person. Still, I couldn't resist a famous author writing about famous authors. Certainly, he described F. Scott Fitzgerald more eloquently than Sheilah Graham did. Ah, that reminds me...

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10 comments

Aug 03, 2007

Ann rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833638)

recommends it for: writers and fans of the lost generation

Perhaps I've got a wicked sense of humor, but I adore this book in part for the obvious smallness Hemingway shows toward Fitzgerald, the man who really gave him his start. And it seems so fitting that a man like Hemingway, such a manly man, would always resent someone who would offer him a hand. The lack of factual truth makes for good fun. And I actually adore the style of his prose...more effortless than in earlier works. I guess I'm in the minority on this one. Finally I guess I love it ...more

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Mar 06, 2007

Cody rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

bookshelves: favorites, modernism

Without a doubt my very favorite Hemingway. For me, the key difference with *A Moveable Feast* is his honesty (how's that for a loaded term!). I feel that there is a genuine candidness to be found here, which is often lacking elsewhere in his body of work; the layers of prentention have been peeled away, leaving us with a work that is at once confessional and nostalgic.

Admittedly, it also holds a very sappy place in my personal/literary/travel history, as I first read it just pri...more

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Mar 04, 2009

Jennifer Donahue rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

Read in January, 2009

I just finished reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast over the weekend. It took me a while to get through this small work, but it always does when I'm reading old Ernest. I love his short stories, but his longer works are difficult for me. I know- it is me Ernest, not you.

Hemingway relates his time in Paris in the circle of fellow artists like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others. I bristle at his descriptions of Fitzgerald --there is too much jealousy hiding...more I just finished reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast over the weekend. It took me a while to get through this small work, but it always does when I'm reading old Ernest. I love his short stories, but his longer works are difficult for me. I know- it is me Ernest, not you.

Hemingway relates his time in Paris in the circle of fellow artists like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others. I bristle at his descriptions of Fitzgerald --there is too much jealousy hiding there. It almost feels like Hemingway doesn't think Fitzgerald deserved to write such a good book as The Great Gatsby. In a 209 page book he spends 45 pages on Fitzgerald relating everything from his drunkenness to his fears about the size of his manhood. Okay, I know that is a silly way to describe it, but stay with me here.

Outside of this snarkiness, Hemingway provides remarkable insights into his craft, his practice of writing and the challenges his faced. I gathered some interesting ideas like cleaning your brain after writing by reading. I think I will try this too. He discusses how being poor and hungry had him focus on characters with big appetites. I thought, this sure explains a lot. Hemingway is dedicated to his craft, working and reworking a single paragraph. He is true to his own vision, and believes that saying less is really more. All good stuff.

There are some great gems I found, reflection on life, like this one about the false spring, "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, wintry light. But you knew there would always be 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 had died for no reason" (Hemingway, p. 45).

Beautiful, really.

The ending left me cold. After his long rant about Fitzgerald he concludes by describing his book publication and his affair with another woman. I think this felt so sour to me because since the beginning of the work he would make references to his wife, and all I could think was What is HER story? That would be worth reading. What did she do all day when he was out writing at cafes or meeting with other artists? I think she might be more honest and sympathetic.

Once I longed for a group of writers and artists that I had heard about gathering in Paris. Now, I wonder if it was just messy. It sounds like Hemingway engaged, but kept the scene at arm's length. So, maybe I am better off with the less eccentric folks in life. You know, ordinary real people.(less)

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Aug 07, 2009

Annie Garvey Jagielski rated it:

(review of isbn 1416591311)

Read in August, 2009

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

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Aug 01, 2009

Maggie rated it:

(review of isbn 1416591311)

Read in August, 2009

I've never been much of a fan of Hemingway. I understand how his lean prose can appeal to people, but I'm more of a dense, rich Victorian melodrama sort of gal. But I can appreciate his work in small doses, which is what you get in this restored version of his Paris memoirs. Each chapter works as a vignette and as a part of a larger vision. The spareness of his language works with this sort of reflection, since memoirs and journalism aren't terribly far apart, stylistically speaking. There ...more

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Jul 21, 2009

Ryan Sigg rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

Read in July, 2009

An enjoyable look back at Hemingway's time in Paris; not nearly as wistful or romantic as I had been led to believe, and all the better for it. It's still the hard-edged, shit-talking (for example, he makes an unflattering comment on the purported size of F. Scott Fitzgerald's penis) Papa Hemingway, and I can't make any bones about that.

Here's an interesting article from the NYT about the new version from Scribner, altered by the son of Hemingway's first wife, who didn't like the por...more

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Jun 11, 2009

karen rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833638)

Read in June, 2009

Okay, don't laugh, but "A Moveable Feast" is the first Hemingway I've ever read. I don't know what I was expecting but I had the vague idea it involved French food.

Actually, the book is a collection of stories about Hemingway's time in Paris, when he was just getting started in his writing career. He met a lot of recognizable people and wrote about them in here, and his anecdotes are interesting and insightful and, more often than not, FUNNY, which surprised me. I totally d...more

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Dec 28, 2008

Laura rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

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
to a friend, 1950

This book was a feast. Hemingway writes about living in Paris with his new wife and young baby. He tells about his friendships with Gertrude Stein (which was very interesting for me as an art history major) and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The details were fascinating and left me wanting mo...more