A Moveable Feast

If you are debating if you should read this book or not there are things you should know:

-Read the restored edition of A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition. Chapters were rearranged in the original version. The restored edition will give you a better feel for what Hemingway intended. The book was published posthumously. It is his last writing before his suicide in 1961. This edition has a great introduction by the author's grandson. You should read it first.

-Don't read this book until you are well acquainted with Hemingway's life. There is much you will quite simply not understand without a thorough knowledge of his life. The more you know before reading the book, the more you will enjoy it.

-This book contains previously unpublished material. Fragments showing different wordings of the same text are included. These fragments show you the essential message Hemingway was striving for. They add a lot to the book...that is if you are trying to understand who Hemingway was before his death. His misgivings and what he would have perhaps liked to change and what he was proud of. Good memories and bad. I think this book gives you a feel for his opinion of himself.

-This book is an autobiography, but covers only his early years in Paris, the 1920s. It is about his love for Hadley, his first wife and the true love of his life, and a few of his close friends, particularly F. Scott Fitzgerald. Much is missing - trips and people and many landmark events. An autobiography can never be totally balanced; it is of course his own view of himself, but I think if you want to understand the man this is a must read, along with other biographies and his writing. You must read other books too; you will flounder without them.

Some people do not like the strength, the simplicity and the honesty of his writing. I do. I don't think you can be convinced to like it if you don't. It is that simple. I agree that what is not said can strengthen a book. What is removed is not gone. The underlying message is made stronger.

There is such humor in this book. Humor - what pleases one will not please another. My gosh, Fitzgerald is worrying that he can never achieve good sex since his penis is too little. His dear wife Zelda told him that! Well, they go out of the room and look at his prick. "Stop worrying. Forget it!" he says to his friend. "It is absolutely normal!" Then he takes him off to the Louvre to show him. He explains and advises, gives a mini course in techniques. I saw a side of Hemingway which I have never seen before - kindness and true friendship. He is not always an egotistical bastard. Artists, and good authors are artists, are imaginative, creative and very hard to live with, but if they don't believe in themselves who will?

The narration of the audiobook by John Bedford Lloyd is more good than bad. The humorous lines, well they shine. The French pronunciation isn’t a winner but it doesn’t matter since Hemingway tells the story and you don’t need good pronunciation from him. He wouldn’t speak good French.

No, the book isn't perfect. Parts drag. Parts are quite simply not finished. I still enjoyed this book very, very much. Part of my pleasure is quite simply because I like how Hemingway expresses himself. Part is because I learned more about the man Hemingway.

شاید برای شما هم پیش آمده باشد که بعد از خواندن اثری از خود بپرسید چرا این ؟
و این دقیقا همان پرسشی بود که من در انتها از خودم پرسیدم : اصلا چرا و چه شد که این کتاب رو خریدم؟؟ که من شدم صید و او صیاد !؟ و یادم آمد که بله ، عنوان خیال انگیزش، نام بزرگ نویسنده اش و یکی دو جمله زیبا از متنش که این سو و آن سو خوانده بودم ، بی اختیار مرا صیدی کرد که خود، مشتاقانه سوی صیاد می شتابد...اما ظاهرا هیچ کدام کافی نبود

کتاب، شرح خاطرات همینگوی جوان قبل از " همینگوی" شدنش در پاریس سالهای ابتدایی دهه بیست میلادی ست، خاطراتی که میتوانست تا ابد ادامه داشته باشد، دیدارهایش با برخی از نامداران آن دوره مثل فیتزجرالد، شرط بندی روی اسب ها، کافه گردی های بی پایان، جستارهایی از کتابفروشی شکسپیر و شرکا، نوشیدن فراوان و ...که اگرچه ضرباهنگش سریع بود ولی واقعا بعضی قسمت ها تکراری و خسته کننده می شد و بی هیچ جذبه خاصی پیش می رفت
امان از بوی الکلی که مدام از کتاب متصاعد می شد، آن قدر که همینگوی ازانواع شراب و شامپاین و عرقیاتش، گفت و گفت و گفت که بی اغراق گاهی حس می کردم اطرافم، دستهایم، برگ های کتاب و ... اشباع شده از الکل
به نظرم مشهودترین خوبی کتاب، ترجمه سلیس و روان فرهاد غبرایی بود و دیگر اینکه نویسنده خیلی، راحت و بی تکلف و حتی بی ملاحظه روزگارش را در پاریس شرح داده بود ولی راستش جذابیتی برای من نداشت
در واقع این کتاب برای من نه مثل دوستی که یادش سالهای سال همنشین خاطراتمان هست بلکه شبیه ده ها رهگذری بود که در طی روز ممکن هست ازکنارشان عبور می کنیم و عمر همراهی مان هم تنها کسری از لحظه است و بعد هم تمام، همین

امتیاز واقعی تر هم 2.5
:)

عالییی، وقتی سفرهای پیاپی و ماجراجویی های بی پایانش همراه با ذهن خیال انگیزش معجونی می شود دلنشین که هر عاشق سفر و طبیعتی را به هیجان وا می دارد.
کتاب بیشتر از این که درباره پاریس باشد، درباره آدم هاست درباره سفر و در آخر درباره عشق به زندگی است.
تمام کتاب سرشار از زندگی است و همین باعث می شه که بخش اسکات فیتزجرالد که در واقع سفر همینگوی با فیتزجرالد به لیون هست با تمام بدبختی هایی که درش بود یکی از خنده دار ترین و جذاب ترین بخش های کتاب باشه.
بخشی از کتاب که دوستش داشتم:
"دختری به کافه آمد و تنها پشت میزی نزدیک پنجره نشست. بسیار زیبا بود و چهره ای داشت به تازگی سکه ی تازه ضرب شده- البیته هرگز سکه ای با نسوج صاف و پوست باران خورده ضرب نشده است. موهایش، به سیاهی پر زاغ، صاف و اریب روی گونه هایش ریخته بود.
نگاهش کردم و از آنچه دیدم آشفته شدم و به هیجان آمدم. آرزو کردم که او را هم در داستان یا هر جای دیگری جا بدهم، اما او خود چنان روی صندلی اش جا گرفته بود که بتواند خیابان و در ورودی را زیر نظر داشته باشد. فهمیدم منتظر کسی است، بنابراین نوشتنم را از سر گرفتم
دیدمت، ای زیبارو، و دیگر از آن منی – حال چشم به راه هر که خواهی گو باش و چه باک که دیگر هرگز نبینمت. تو از آن منی و سرتاسر پاریس از آن من است و من از آن این دفتر و قلمم."

The Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is an intriguing read.

It’s an odd little novel, more biography than fiction. Hemingway recollects his youth, the days where he had no money and lived from story to story before he had his first major novelistic breakthrough.

The reader that will take most from this will be one that has read a lot of 20th century literature and is aware of the interactions between writers and the ways in which they supported each other through their careers. Ezra Pound was a central figure who helped form a community of writers and organised donations for T.S Eliot so he could quite his job and write poetry. James Joyce was also important though quite hard to actually talk to (and even find.) Hemingway recollects the conversations he had with such men, and how they helped him hone his craft.

More importantly though, Gertrude Stein, writer and homosexuality advocate, was perhaps the one who influenced him most strongly. From reading this, it is clear that she was one of the truest friends Hemmingway ever had. I found the sections with her far more compelling than those with the other literary figures, and I would gladly have read a novel just about their curious friendship. There were some good bits here, though the novel took a repetitive tone as each new section only introduced a new writer and the novel as a whole didn’t feel like it was progressing.

The strength of the writing is at its peak when Hemingway describes Paris (where he met Stein.) He creates a vivid picture of a city that he clearly adored, one that shaped him as an individual.

Although I had my reservations about this work, I know I must try more of his novels in the future. This may have been a bad place to start (quite a few readers suggest that this is the last novel of his one should read) because it is a retrospective piece about how he became a writer. He is looking back from a place of sucess.

A Moveable Feast deals with Ernest Hemingway sharing an account of the years he spent in France in the 20's and especially in Paris.


A TEMPLATE FOR 'THE SUN ALSO RISES' :

In many ways, this book is the canvas for The Sun Also Rises. In the end, you get to sort out the characters in Hemingway's roman à clef The Sun Also Rises, for instance Lady Brett has a tinge of Zelda about her, while Harold Sternes has definitely some likeness to Cohn, that is, the same looks and demeanour of an unsufferable bore as Cohn is given in TSAR.


The big strengths are how apt Hemingway is when reenacts his years in Paris, staging conversations and giving out a cluster of places and restaurants and books and wine vintages, and racing tracks, and bicycle races, and boxing contests and skiing and living the bohème life on a narrow budget.

Yet, throughout, Hemingway comes out as quite self-important while being quite petty about other writers, without even allowing himself to appear so in earnest. Additionally, he systematically berates Gertrude Stein and FSF on the sly, while praising them in tepid terms to say the least.

'Scott was very articulate and told a story well. He did not have to spell the words nor attempt to punctuate and you did not have the feeling of reading an illiterate that his letters gave you before they have been corrected. I knew him for two years before he could spell my name ; but then it was a long name to spell and perhaps it became harder to spell all the time, and I give him great credit for spelling it corrrectly finally. He learned to spell many more important things and he tried to think straight about many more.'
(p.148)

I am not used being judgemental in my reviews but so is Hemingway, wallowing in the volleying of biting, bitter words against his fellow writers.

And he comes out of it by stating this is but fiction. Fortunately, there are some momentary lapses of sympathy in this hail of criticisms (e.g. when it is about The Great Gatsby).


IN PRAISE OF TERSENESS :

Finally, the book itself seems like a silent eulogy of writers of few words :

'I have tried to write by the old rule that how good a book is should be judged, by the man who writes it, by the excellence of the material that he eliminates.' (p.234)

What comes out essentially is a book about conversation, writing, good cheer and feasts with friendships wearing out. And despite the economy of words, a good deal of the throes FSF endures and that goes for Hemingway's entourage too.


THE GUESTS :

Sylvia Beach, Ernest Walsh, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, Nicolai Gogol, Guy de Maupassant, Joyce, Turgeniev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoi, Simenon, Apollinaire, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, Cendrars, Trollope, Fielding, John Donne, Aleister Crowley, Karen Von Blixen, Sir Samuel Baker, Stephen Crane, Stendhal, Dunning, Robert Desnos, Joan Miro et al.

I started this book calling him Ernest Hemingway. Midway, my friends pointed out that I was referring to him as Hem. By the end, I knew never to refer to him as Ernest. More please...more nonfiction/memoir from Hem, if only it existed (some say there's more that was never published??...)

This book was an intimate portrait of Hemingway. I was never a big fan of his fiction: though his simple, deliberate, sentence structuring still leave me in awe, I've never really been a fan of the flow of his stories. But even Hemingway admitted struggling with novels--he was the short story guy who was trying to piece it all together. He wrote "The Sun Also Rises," in six weeks, then spent months trying to put it into novel format. F Scott Fitzgerald wanted to help him edit but he refused because he wasn't thrilled about letting anyone other than his editors read it during the draft stage.

Speaking of Fitzgerald--what great insight you get about Scott and Zelda. Zelda was a case, let's just say that. You also get to read about Ezra Pound, Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Ronald Firbank, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Walsh, and more. What about the females? I had to remind myself that it was the 1920s. Though you do see him interact with Gertrude Stein (though she's not portrayed in a good way), you hear a mention of Katherine Mansfield (not in a good way either), quick mention of Karen Blixen (who he thought wrote the best book he had read about Africa) and Hadley (his wife) and the loving thoughts he had of her as he foreshadows their demise--making it clear that it was all his fault.

"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight."

I felt as if I was breathing the same air as I read what he wrote, you could see the vulnerability, see his descriptions clearly, walk through Paris with him--cheers to young, up-and-coming writers in Paris (as if those days he describes still exist). He was poor, writing during the day, socializing and drinking at night (yay, writer stereotype) struggling with his writing, and upset whenever anyone talked about it to his face or told him he was a good writer. Pay that no mind though, because he makes it clear that he knows he didn't have the best attitude, he had a temper and somewhat of an obnoxious outlook.

I enjoyed the personal rants, the writer who quit journalism to focus on his dream of writing fiction, but every now and then, he realizes how poor he is, and goes off on himself: "I was doing what I did of my own free will and I was doing it stupidly. I should have bought a large piece of bread and eaten it instead of skipping a meal. I could taste the brown lovely crust. But it is dry in your mouth without something to drink...You dirty phony saint and martyr, I said to myself. You quit journalism of your own accord."

There were lessons littered throughout this book for writers. If you were to say Hemingway was imparting one in particular, it would be this perhaps, what he told himself when he couldn't start a story: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

”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

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The Lost Generation: Hemingway and the circle of ex-pat friends he later immortalised in The Sun Also Rises. More friends, including Harold Loeb, the model for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises, on the left, Hemingway in the centre and Hadley on the right.


I hadn’t planned to read this book until I read this great article in the The Atlantic that was published recently by Joe Fassler that consists of a conversation he had with Daniel Woodrell. This article which whether you care one wit about Woodrell or for that matter Ernest Hemingway is still an inspiring read. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainm... Woodrell while bumming around Mexico found himself negotiating a trade with a hungry young American of a meal for a copy of A Moveable Feast. Woodrell ended up buying two tacos for a book that changed his life. He was ni-ni-nin-teen. He read the book through several times and for the price of two tacos it set him on the course to being a writer.

I have not read Hemingway for decades. I often think of him as a gateway drug to better literature. As you can imagine ever since my son was old enough to read I’ve been chucking books at him that I felt that he should read with frankly disappointing results. Books stabbed with bristling bookmarks littered his room and were left for dead. I realized I was trying to move him forward too fast and so I thought about what I liked to read when I was first becoming a reader. I tossed Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs into his room. The books came back gnawed and masticated.

I did a little dance.

Then I gave him Hemingway.

I heard the snap of the bear trap.

He read everything he could get his hands on by Hemingway. In fact he has now read more Hemingway than I have. He then went on to Fitzgerald and expanded out to reading some film history books. By the whisker of my chiny chin chin he became a reader.

Despite the ease in reading Hemingway’s sparse prose I found myself squirming every time I sat down to read this book. I like vocabulary and the Oxford English Dictionary has listings for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words. So when we write we have a choice of 228,132 words to express ourselves. It feels like Hemingway cuts out 227,000 of them. The average literate adult knows 50,000, but may only use 17,000 and some studies show as low as 5,000. If you count for instance DRIVE, DRIVER AND DRIVES as three separate words our language blossoms to over 600,000 entries.

Hemingway was bucking against the establishment when he decided that adjectives were not necessary and sliced his prose down to just the bare minimum of what the reader needs.

Short sentences, short words.

I don’t mind some purple in my prose. William Faulkner’s famous epic opening sentence for Absalom! Absalom! was 1,288 words long. James Joyce in Ulysses made a mockery out of that with a sentence 4,391 words long. The fact of the matter is Hemingway has been canonized and his minimized writing style had a huge impact on the next generations of writers. I cringe whenever I hear anyone say if there is a simpler word use it. This all said a writer does have a responsibility to write to their audience.

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The One and Only Gertrude Stein

Hemingway had some...well... interesting conversations with Gertrude Stein. Stein for the record gives me the willies more so when she expresses her opinions. The Lost Generation, as this group of creative people in Paris were called, flocked to her door and fell at her feet. She commanded respect and if you did not give that respect you were not invited back.

”I had started this conversation and thought it had become a little dangerous. There were almost never paused and there were something she wanted to tell me and I filled my glass.
‘You know nothing about any of this really, Hemingway,’ She said. ‘You’ve met known criminals and sick people and vicious people. The main thing is that the act male homosexuals commit is ugly and repugnant and afterwards they are disgusted with themselves. They drink and take drugs, to palliate this, but they are disgusted with the act and they are always changing partners and cannot be really happy.’
‘I see.’
‘In women it is the opposite. They do nothing that they are disgusted by and nothing that is repulsive and afterwards they are happy and they can lead happy lives together.’
‘I see.’”

I see. I see. I see.

Hemingway also spent some time with Fitzgerald. His portrayal of F. Scott is not the most endearing, but then I have no illusions about Fitzgerald and his destructive lifestyle, in particular, his debilitating drinking. Hemingway did admire Scott’s writing.

”His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a Butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it was effortless.”

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Ernest Hemingway (The Bull) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Butterfly).

Hemingway becomes exasperated with the devastating influence that Zelda had on Fitzgerald’s life and writing. She wanted to drink, party, and be merry all the time. Zelda Sayre broke up with F. Scott after they became engaged. He was determined to become famous in an effort to win her back. He wrote This Side of Paradise and sent it out for consideration to publishers. The result: he lined the walls of his study with the rejection slips. After a third revision Maxwell Perkins went to bat for him and Scribners decided to publish. The book sold out in three days.

It makes me wonder if F. Scott had never met Zelda would he have ever become a successful writer? She was his muse and his kryptonite.

One thing I have discovered over the years in watching the relationship gymnastics of my friends is that we can not help who we fall in love with. It is mystical and sometimes makes no sense even to ourselves.

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I’ve always liked this picture of the The Fitzgeralds.

A source of contention between Zelda and F. Scott was that all those wonderful witty bits of dialogue that came out of her mouth ended up in his writing. She had literary aspirations herself and felt that he was stealing her best material.

I wish I’d read this book when I was ni-ni-nin-teen because maybe I’d be a brilliant regional writer like Daniel Woodrell. (It could have been me being knocked silly on an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.) If you do not know much about the Lost Generation and their time in Paris this isn’t a bad place to start. It will be a quick read and should lead to other books and a new found interest in a period of time when it felt like everything was possible and change wasn’t something to be feared.

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there is nothing that i love more than knowing all the geographical references in a book so may hemingway be blessed for talking about Paris.