Customer Reviews

A Moveable Feast

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A great book for die-hard fans of Hemmingway, A Moveable Feast will disappoint many readers. For the average person, it would make more sense to read his famous novels first. While it is interesting to know what Paris was like between the Wars, and to read about some of the other famous people Hemmingway knew (Fitzgerald, Stein, Joyce, Elliot, Pound), it's not half as engaging as great novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, or The Old Man and the Sea. So check those out first. And if you already have and are getting into the rest of his stuff, good for you, but I bet there is plenty of other "rest of" to get to ahead of this. Of course, if you are really into Paris, writers from the turn of the century, and/or dirty laundry, then feast away.

Honestly, I am recommending this book solely on the last three or four chapters where he talks about the Fitzgeralds. In those pages, Scott Fitzgerald comes to life and is held immortal in its print. The rest of the book is interesting and held my attention even though I don't know who everyone is that he talks about. I recognize their names though - Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound - and believe those parts would have been a lot more enjoyable if I had already read their work. One thing at a time ... I'll get to them eventually. It would also help to be familiar with the layout of Paris for he describes his the routes of his walks in detail.

It strikes me, though I am not a writer, that this book should be read by anyone who aims to write. He describes the "writing process" and talks about what worked for him and what didn't. More importantly, he talked about being hungry as a new writer ... words of encouragement no doubt when those to follow his footsteps and wonder if hunger is the precursor to failure.

I like a good story as much as the next guy. But this is not a good story.

This is a compilation of encounters between Hemmingway and various well known figures in Paris during the 1920's and his reflections of his own life and those of others. Although the author states that it may be considered a work of fiction, it has the feel of an autobiography, sort of.

No, it is not a good story. As a story goes, it is quite dull. The plot is non-existent and a seemingly enless train of mostly unrelated mundane anecdotes populate the slim novel. A day at the races, the fishermen on the Sein, a full description of every meal eaten in a scene (as well as the extensive list of alcohol imbibed) do not make for riveting fiction. It is brilliant.

Here is a work that is almost all style and no substance. This is art at its most sublime level. What Hemmingway did put in this novel was Truth. Truth with a capital T because I am not referring to the synonym of factual but instead the conveyence of reality. The rythym of the words set the pace of the city. The descriptions of things and places are brought to life with hypnotic clarity and with such consumate skill with words that it is difficult to put the novel down; not because you simply must know what will happen to the hero next, but because it seems a jolt to your own reality to be suddenly extricated from Paris. And yet, the simplistic sparse Hemmingway prose which brings these images to life, seem now as transparent as air. No flowery phrases, no poetry, just Truth.

For anyone who is curious what Hemmingway thought about Ezra Pound or Gertrude Stein, for anyone who is curious what F. Scott Fitzgerald was like, and wonder about Hemmingway's opinion of him as a person and a writer, this should be the next book on your list.

This is truly a work of literature.

In preparation for an upcoming vacation to Paris, I thought I'd give "fine literature" a try. I have to admit I'm no fan of Hemingway. I just thought it would be great to see the City of Lights through a writer's eyes. My mistake was choosing an writer I don't really enjoy. Hemingway depresses me and this memoir was no different.

Bottom line: If you are a Hemingway fan, you'll love his take on the city. If you are looking for a book set in Paris and aren't already a Hemingway fan, this may not be the book for you.

Written in a welcoming and engaging style, A Moveable Feast reads as if Hemingway wasn't trying to be HEMINGWAY. It's light and funny, a little rambling in spots, which he never was in his 'literature,' and simply delightful. It focuses on that golden era in Paris when starving young artists didn't really have to starve as they gathered in the cafes and discussed life and art and literature and politics.
Peopled with memorable and well-known (try Gertrude Stein and Picasso) characters, Moveable Feast is a delight for modern readers.

A moveable feast is honest and warm. The tales of a lost generation in Paris. To hear Hemmingway speak of Joyce, Pound, Fitzgerald etc. is almost seeing them there yourself. Living modestly him and his wife in a flat in Paris still have time for the joyous things. He recalls his tribulations as a journalist and a struggling story writer. I'm also delighted by the passage in which Aleister Crowley is walking the streets and is then referred to as "The wickedest man in the world", the entire book is charming.

Hemingway's classic lucid and laconic trademark writing style is indeed fully alive and well in the posthumously published A Moveable Feast. A Moveable Feast, the unique term used to describe Paris of the 1920's, reads like The Sun Also Rises - with great dialogue and characters. In fact, in the preface, Hemingway states, "If the reader prefers, this may be regarded as fiction."

Hemingway admits to leaving out some details and happenings - some that were widely known and others that were "secrets". That being said, Hem(as he is affectionately called - seeing as he loathes Ernest) nonetheless emits a plethora of juicy details and tidbits that make A Moveable Feast a compelling and delightful novella - even if it is nonfiction.

Hemingway runs the entire gamut(a word F. Scott uses much to Hem's displeasure) with his eclectic cast of expatriates including the virtually blind James Joyce, the alcoholic genius hypochondriac that is F. Scott Fitzgerald, the influential & eccentric Gertrude Stein, the elitist Ford Maddox Ford, the bel esprit of Ezra Pound, the selfish, insane, and terribly jealous Zelda Fitzgerald, a fellow who he profanely derides named Hal whom I suspect is Henry Miller and many, many more. By the way, we learn that La Generation Perdue inadvertently was coined by a garage mechanic of Gertrude Stein, not Gertrude herself. An indescribable feeling of vibrancy, vigor, and passion emanate from A Moveable Feast as Hemingway, despite being poor, inherently loves his life, writing, sipping his cafe de cremes and white wines in Paris cafes, as well as his continuously changing circle of friends. I highly recommend this short, yet unforgettable work, to all who want to learn what it truly was like when Hemingway was poor and unestablished living check to check - and nonetheless exerting an invigorating joie de vivre. Paris in the 20's - a time and place magically unlike any other in history.

"It was all part of the fight against poverty that you never win except by not spending. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other." - Hemingway.

In those days there was no money to buy books or food, but we went to the racing every day. You could sit in a cafe to work until Ezra or Miss Stein or that cad Ford Madox Ford showed up.

It was a fine time in Paris and every cafe he passed he saw writers whose stories were wonderful to read. He wrote about himself and his friends. His odd way of writing seemed good and true and fine. Even if you did not always like his novels his own story was amusing.

"Hem," he said to himself, "To have come on all this new world of writing...was like having a great treasure given to you." Ah, there was a memoir worth the reading.

Man...this book was...wow...not at all what I expected. I picked it up for a few cents at a used book store, intrigued by the description of it as "the wild young years of the lost generation in paris". Frankly I was thinking that it was probably going to be something akin to The Sun Also Rises, one of my favorite novels. But wow was I mistaken. Instead it is a memoir of 5 years of Hemingway's life in paris. These are the pre-Sun Also Rises and international fame years. He's a starving artist, living with his wife, Hadley, in the romantic, bohemian Left Bank of Paris. We are treated, and treated is the only word I can use, to many anecdotes of his life writing and socializing with his fellow expatriates. Hemingway gives us amazing portraits of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford (one of the most hilarious characters in his real life story), and, above all in my opinion, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Any literature buff will be in ectasy unimaginable by anyone else. There's an ancedote towards the end of the memoir where Scott Fitzgerald tells Hemingway that Zelda was complaing about his..er..'size'. To convince him that Zelda is just being difficult, Hemingway takes Fitzgerald to the Louvre to see the nudes. You just don't get that anywhere else....

The undercurrent here is Hemingway's love for his wife, how they make their way through their poverty in a city as fabulous as Paris, at a time after WWI when there was magic. Details into Hemingway's determination to be not just an author, but an excellent author; his meetings of, and friendships with, people who became famous later or were famous then. You are captured once you start, doesn't take long to read, a simple, clean style; satisfying, fascinating and inspiring; a must read.