A Moveable Feast

published	June 1971 by Scribner's
first published	1964
binding	Paperback
isbn	0684718049 (isbn13: 9780684718040)
ebook
pages	211
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 [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 [close]
date added	05-16-07 edit book

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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!
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