Goodreads | Kirsten's review

Kirsten's review

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4631.A_Moveable_Feast?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="A Moveable Feast" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165447519m/4631.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4631.A_Moveable_Feast?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">A Moveable Feast</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1455.Ernest_Hemingway">Ernest Hemingway</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24484776?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>I really haven't read much Hemingway-- a few of the Nick Adams stories in high school, but I somehow missed A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises.  I read The Old Man and the Sea when I was 12 or 13, didn't like it, and decided at that point that I didn't like Hemingway.  So I was interested to read this book for my book group to see if my opinion had changed at all in the last 19 years.  I found this book fascinating because it's a memoir that works on a lot of levels: Hemingway remembering himself as a poor, adventurous and aspiring writer; Hemingway remembering his friends, mostly expatriate writers, that he knew during this time; and Hemingway remembering Paris in the 1920's.  Paris is as vivid a character in this work as Gertrude Stein or Fitzgerald.  I loved getting to know the personalities of these writers a little better by reading Hemingway reminisce and recall conversations he had with them-- especially the section on F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was in Paris with Hemingway shortly after The Great Gatsby was published.  The book definitely grew on me as I moved through it, and by the end I felt like I knew Paris, what it was like to be 'poor' and a writer in the 1920's, and Hemingway's contemporaries better than I had before.  But I'm not sure if I know Ernest Hemingway himself any better after reading this book.  Despite the fact that he's the narrator and in every scene, I feel like he used his declarative, unadorned writing style to hold the reader at arm's length.  If that was the intent...well done.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/734165?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Kirsten's review
rating:
bookshelves: book-club

I really haven't read much Hemingway-- a few of the Nick Adams stories in high school, but I somehow missed A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises. I read The Old Man and the Sea when I was 12 or 13, didn't like it, and decided at that point that I didn't like Hemingway. So I was interested to read this book for my book group to see if my opinion had changed at all in the last 19 years. I found this book fascinating because it's a memoir that works on a lot of levels: Hemingway remembering himself as a poor, adventurous and aspiring writer; Hemingway remembering his friends, mostly expatriate writers, that he knew during this time; and Hemingway remembering Paris in the 1920's. Paris is as vivid a character in this work as Gertrude Stein or Fitzgerald. I loved getting to know the personalities of these writers a little better by reading Hemingway reminisce and recall conversations he had with them-- especially the section on F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was in Paris with Hemingway ...more

Like this review? yes flag

comments (showing 0-0 of 0)

newest »

date

all Kirsten's books »