A Moveable Feast

by Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast

by
Ernest Hemingway

book data

6052 ratings, 4.10 average rating, 650 reviews (more data...)

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5		38%
4		38%
3		18%
2		3%
1		0%

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published

January 1st 1964 by Jonathan Cape

binding

Hardcover, 192 pages

isbn

0224608568 (isbn13: 9780224608565)

description

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

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Kirk rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

12/11/07

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 self-re...more

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Larissa rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

01/03/08

bookshelves: 2008, 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 Hu...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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Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

08/12/08

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 beautifully, ...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!
...less

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Christine rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

05/05/08

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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Ryan rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

06/03/08

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 strength and color of...more

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James rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

10/10/08

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 peeki...more

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Ann rated it:

(review of isbn 0684833638)

08/03/07

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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Cheri rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

05/10/08

bookshelves: classics-american

There is one passage in A Moveable Feast that always gets me. Hemingway describes his poor but happy life in Paris with his first wife, at the end he describes how he left her for her friend. Knowing that this is what happened makes the passage even more poignant as he fills the last few sentences with a palpable sense of regret. Even though I know it's a pretty self serving version of events, I choke up every time.

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Becca rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

05/10/08

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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Brad rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

08/02/08

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: Francophiles, People who love shotguns

Reading Hemingway is like getting rythmicaly punched in the chest with a brick. I understand his style is short and sweet, but it's hard to get into a reading rhythm.

As far as the book goes it was very good I wish I could give it 3 1/2 stars; but it seems that a general knowledge of post-war Parisian ex-pat writers is a good idea.

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GraceAnne rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

05/13/08

This is the only Hemingway I really love. I read it in college decades ago, and then bought a copy in Paris, somewhat fewer decades ago. I reread it again in 2006, before a beautiful Paris vacation.
On a very contemporary note, give a listen to Roseann Cash's bittersweet and very lovely ballad, "Sleeping in Paris"

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Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

05/16/07

bookshelves: lit

Though I don't care much for Hemingway, in this book he seems to have come to the belated conclusion that he has, in fact, been an asshole for years. This gives the book a depth of poignant insight his other works lack. It's a wistful and lovely memoir. Get the edition with the pictures, they're worth it.

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Stephanie rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

10/11/08

I love Hemingway's style. This memoir-like novel is chock full of references to other early 1900's literature, so I'll be catching up on James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and many others after this.
I should have read this before I went to Paris. Now I'll just have to go back.

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Mary Jane rated it:

(review of isbn 5954200416)

09/21/07

bookshelves: recommendations

Read in January, 2006

I am not a Hemingway fan, but I enjoyed this one.

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Kim rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

11/17/08

bookshelves: 08books, nonfiction

Read in November, 2008

I liked this better than I expected to. It is a memoir of the years Hemingway spent living in Paris after choosing to focus on creative writing instead of journalism. And it's not often that I recommend something I've finished to my husband, but this one I did.

I didn't know much about this before I read it, and so the gossip (such as it is) surprised me. It was lovely to be reading the terse narrative and find myself happening upon a complex sentence that was beautiful, thoughtful, and loft...more

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Roxy rated it:

(review of isbn 068482499X)

11/02/08

bookshelves: autobiography, fiction, non-fiction, school-reading, short-story-essay-collections

Read in November, 2008

Compared to how much I loathed Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, I adored A Moveable Feast. Well, maybe understandably. It is nothing like Hemingway's other work, and it covers the whole American Expatriot thing from the 1920's, along with other sweet 1920-ish Parisian things like Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald, and Picasso. I had to read this book for my Arts and Ideas in the 20th Century course. I'm happy we did. This book is entirely autobiographical (though Hemingway allows readers to q...more

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Tom rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

10/25/08

The title ‘A Moveable Feast’ in its brevity tells a lot and is a good example of Hemingway’s tight writing style. Hemingway exacted severe discipline upon himself regarding his work, and he set a goal to write one story about each thing that he knew about. An important lesson he learned about writing was to not think about anything that he was writing from the time he stopped writing one day until he started again the next. That way the subconscious mind could be working on it and at the...more

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Rachael rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

09/11/08

I've never read this before, despite having bought it a few months back at a library sale. So I picked it up the other night and read it through in an hour.

I loved this--it was classic Hemingway, and particularly enjoyable to read because I know quite a bit about his life, so it was interesting to read the semi-fictionalized version. I also particularly enjoyed the chapters about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway's commentary on the relationship between Scott and Zelda. And as always, I r...more

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Crysta rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

09/09/08

Read in July, 2008

I've always been a Hemingway fan, but had never read A Moveable Feast. It was very autobiographical, but beyond that, it really brought to life Paris during the Roaring 20s. Hemingway and his wife were broke - living on less than $5 a day - but were constantly on the move, interacting with the other great minds surrounding them. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald weren't just fellow writers - they were friends of the Hemingways. Numerous other writers flit through the story.

I kept finding myself ...more

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Elise rated it:

(review of isbn 0099285045)

09/01/08

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Elise by: Adam

"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 wrote these memorable words to a friend in the 1950s, and it is that quote about Paris being a moveable feast, presumably to be consumed wherever one ends up, that so aptly captures the spirit of this book. Rather than being a story, each chapter is a type of vignette about Hemingway's time spent in that vene...more "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 wrote these memorable words to a friend in the 1950s, and it is that quote about Paris being a moveable feast, presumably to be consumed wherever one ends up, that so aptly captures the spirit of this book. Rather than being a story, each chapter is a type of vignette about Hemingway's time spent in that venerable city during the 1920s with his wife and child. He befriends James Joyce, and Sylvia Beach, the proprietress of what would become the beloved Shakespeare and Co. bookshop. He gambles at the races, argues with Ford Madox Ford, drinks wine, acts as savior and confidante to F. Scott Fitzgerald... the list goes on and on. In retrospect, it is a life to be envied, romanticized here, with Hemingway enjoying friendships with many of that day's great luminaries.

I am not what would be considered a Hemingway fan. I've read a few of books, and while I do enjoy reading stories about his life, such as Lillian Ross' Portrait of Hemingway (a short biography of Ernest which I highly recommend, especially to fans of the gentleman), I've never been able to get caught up in his stories themselves. I read A Farewell to Arms, which is wonderfully conceived and told, and yet end up feeling as if it doesn't elicit the proper emotions that one should feel for the characters. This book, to me, reads largely the same way. I am interested in his daily details, find Ernest's turn of phrase to be sublime, and yet leave feeling as if, well, I have no feelings. I am detached throughout, and as such, find it highly interesting in a biographical sort of way, but leave feeling as distant as ever.

I do recommend the book-- he writes so beautifully and sums things up in a way that is pure genius (such as his "moveable feast" quote). My only regret is that I want him to make me cry-- to make me feel sadness when he writes about falling in love with another woman that is not his wife. Instead, I sit back and observe, and then, turn a page and move on with life....less

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