That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan, #48 (showing 1-3 of 3)

[Ibis3 comment history]

This one should be interesting. The story of Morley's friendships with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and their time in Paris. I've just barely started it so far.

[Ibis3 comment history]

I'm enjoying this immensely. Callaghan is a great guide to the literary world of the twenties. He was obviously well-regarded by his slightly older contemporaries, including Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis and Ezra Pound and James Joyce. I love his enthusiasm as he meets up with his idols one by one. In between stories of these encounters, he talks about his day to day (or night to night) routine of walking around Paris and discussing literary and other things in the cafés over wine, punctuated by weekend boxing matches with Ernest. It's inspiring and fun.

[Ibis3 comment history]

I really loved this book, and I highly recommend it. From a coming-of-age, portrait of the artist as a young man in the first part of the book, we move to an older man's reflection upon the sincere friendship of three men gone awry in the last act. (view spoiler)[The breakup of the friendship of the three men over something so small and inconsequential was sad and unnecessarily unfortunate. Or, perhaps, according to Morley's analysis of their natures, unavoidable. (hide spoiler)]