The Paris of the 1920s was a crucible for some of the great artists and works of the early 20th Century (James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, T.S Eliot). While A Moveable Feast contains some fascinating tidbits of insight into Hemingway's writing process, what it really offers is a piece of literary history. The stories, which feature a multitude of famous writers and poets, are entertaining and at times scandalous (who knew that Fitzgerald was such a crackpot!) A Moveable Feast is often regarded as being a book about the city of Paris itself, but much more than that it reflects a melancholy nostalgia for the hunger and possibilities of youth - the discovery and development of artistic passion, and the competition to succeed in the company of such great minds.

زندگی یک نویسنده پر است از دغدغه..دغدغه شیرین آن زمان که چیزی برای نوشتن و اثری برای خلق کردن دارد..اما سایه شب های بایر و سرد که قلم به خشکی بیابان می گردد نیز همچون داس مرگی آویزان بر بالای سر این دغدغه شیرین را تلخ می‌کند..دغدغه دیگری نیز هست..این یکی اصلا شیرین نمی شود‌‌..دغدغه گذران زندگی..هزینه های زندگی واقعی..هزینه جهانی که دیگر جوهر آن تنها از تجربه و خیال نیست..جهانی که انسان هایش مخلوق او نیستند هر چند میشود از آنان جوهره ای قرض‌گرفت و به دنیای نوشتنش افزود..زندگی یک نویسنده تا مدت ها کشمکش میان او، کاغذ و ایده هایش است و سپس کشمکمش ایده های بر کاغذ آمده اش با اذهان مردم..فقر اغلب رفیق همراه یک نویسنده و ثروت و شهرت یار گریزپای اوست..در نهایت اما نویسندگان در مرگ برتر از دیگران زندگی می کنند..آن هنگام که همه خاموش می شوند‌‌..حداقل یادگاری از افکار و رنج ها و سازه های دست و ذهن نویسنده باقی میماند.
یادگاری که البته زندگی های فراموش شده بسیاری برایش فدا شدند.
در این میان همینگوی به نسبت زندگی ای پر ماجراتر گذرانده..از شرکت در جنگ ها تا زندگی در پاریس..شهر جشن بی پایان..شاید همینگوی نمایش زندگی در دهه ۲۰و ۳۰ میلادی باشد..نمایشی شگفت و پر ماجرا که در نهایت با یک گلوله پرده اش پایین می افتد..

I wouldn't consider myself a Hemingway fan. I've always been put off by his macho posturing, and while I recognize his talent with words and the massive influence of his prose style on subsequent English lit, I can only take so many droning strings of "and" and "good" before I start yearning for more energetic rhythms.

Nevertheless, I'm as susceptible as anyone to the romantic myths of Paris in the days of the Lost Generation. I first picked up A Moveable Feast, Hem's posthumously-published memoir of those days, several years ago during a slow evening at my library job. I read the first few chapters with relish but then, motivated I guess by the guilt of enjoying a Hemingway book, put it down and didn't return to it. But lately I've been catching up with a lot of modernists, and reading a lot of "youthful" books in preparation for my 30th birthday, and also reading books about the writing life in preparation for the MFA I'm about to pursue. It's spring, no less, and passions are high. If ever there was a time to read A Moveable Feast, it was now. I caved.

What can I say? The magic I'd found before and then smothered was still here. Hem's Paris is still just as enchanting. He describes working on a story in a café and then ordering some wine and oysters to celebrate a day's work and next thing you know you're looking at plane tickets. At one point he calls Paris "the town best organized for a writer to write in that there is," and, reading about how the young, no-name Hem could pay the rent with occasional journalism, loiter along the Seine every morning, drink wine and look at Picassos at Gertrude Stein's place in the evenings, stroll down to the Louvre with Scott Fitzgerald on a whim of an afternoon, and winter in Spain or Switzerland with the family when the fancy took him, it's not hard to believe that that was true, at least in those days. Yes, his glasses are rose-tinted and his privilege almost unfathomable. One World War had just obliterated Europe and another even worse one was brewing. But even so, will there ever be a time and place as perfectly suited to the artist's life as this one was? Is it any wonder it produced so many great names and works?

If you like craft talk, there's also plenty in here in about Hem's writing philosophy, daily habits, literary opinions, etc. Some of it is silly but I was surprised by how much of it I agreed with, given that I don't actually love Hemingway's writing itself. At one point he spends a chapter trying to find someone he can fanboy over Dostoevsky with, which I found extremely relatable. ("'I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky,' I said. 'How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?'") In general AMF is sprinkled with quotable lines and great turns of phrase; I was surprised by how many of the Hemingway quotes and anecdotes I've heard through the years actually originate from this specific work. But I guess that makes sense; this seems to be the Hemingway book you have to read if you like his others, but also the one you'll probably like even if you hate the rest.

On the other hand there are, of course, the almost uniformly unflattering depictions of Hemingway's literary acquaintances of the time, culminating in the infamous scene in which Scott Fitzgerald seeks Hemingway's reassurance about his penis size and confides that Zelda once told him he "could never make a woman happy." (In the 2009 "restored" edition I read this episode is literally the last chapter, the final note of the whole thing.) It seems noteworthy that virtually every writer Hemingway discusses was dead by the time he was writing this, with the sole exception of Ezra Pound, the erstwhile fascist propagandist and war criminal, whom Hemingway remembers as "a sort of saint" whose worst quality was that he wouldn't criticize his friends' work. Meanwhile Hem always portrays himself as the easygoing everyman, somehow both paternalistic and naïve, bewildered in a good-natured kind of way by the behaviors of these quirky artist types but totally free of fault when things go sour. These sections are undeniably interesting in the way celebrity tell-alls usually are, but they leave a bad taste and mix uneasily with the book's general air of romantic nostalgia. It's like Hem has realized he's the sole survivor from these already legendary Paris days and can have the final word about them, with himself cast as the hero.

Even if you can get past all that, this is still Hemingway, with all the baggage that entails. He's still the best and strongest and bravest and knows the most and is respected by the people he finds most worthy of respect. Every woman is a jumble of physical features roughly approximating a human being, while every man is either a replacement for his father or a rival to size up. He's deliberately obtuse about queer relationships ("She was a lesbian who also liked men"), which is ironic given that his descriptions of Fitzgerald are far more erotic than anything he ever writes about a woman. Any conversation with his first wife, Hadley, on the other hand, reads like one of those cringey dom-sub exchanges between "daddy" and his "kitten" you sometimes have the misfortune of seeing online. He thinks he's honoring her memory, even apologizing to her for past wrongs, which makes it that much worse.

So while I did enjoy AMF and got from it what I wanted to get, I'm thankful to report that its enchantment was not permanent or even especially powerful. I think the most intriguing thing about Hemingway for me is that he always seems like he's lying and telling the truth at the same time. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it seems like he believes he's telling the truth even when he's lying. As much as I want to file him away as an obnoxious self-promoter—and to be clear, that's still largely what I think he is—when I actually give his work a chance I find a disarming kind of sincerity in it. He reminds me of chronic liars I've known in real life, who lie convincingly and often with no obvious ill intent—just ill effects.

Either way, the effect is seductive. As long as the book in your hands, you do almost believe it's true.

To paraphrase ol' Hem, "This is a fine and true book. It is honest and good, and the stories are important and just."

Hem, as I shall forever call him now, wrote this memoir just a few years before he died in 1961. It's about Hem and his first wife, Hadley, when they were young and poor in Paris in the '20s, and Hem would borrow books from the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, and he would go to cafes to write.

While there are stories about other writers in Paris at the time -- such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Ford Madox Ford -- much of the book is Hem talking about writing itself, which was interesting. He would sometimes worry that he couldn't write anymore and would have to reason with himself:

"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

My favorite story was a bizarre trip to Lyon that Hem took with Fitzgerald, who drank too much and became convinced that he was dying. There's a funny scene of Hem pretending to take Scott's temperature with a bath thermometer, and then plotting how to get Scott to stop drinking. "You could not be angry with Scott any more than you could be angry with someone who was crazy, but I was getting angry with myself for having become involved in the whole silliness."

Later, Hem meets Zelda, Scott's unbalanced and demanding wife, and understands why Scott has so much trouble being able to write.

Hem also has some amusing stories about Gertrude Stein, with whom he had a prickly friendship: "There is not much future in men being friends with great women although it can be pleasant enough before it gets better or worse, and there is usually even less future with truly ambitious women writers." (Having read and not liked Stein's memoir "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," I say that she was ambitious but not necessarily great.)

Overall, I greatly enjoyed spending time with Hem, even though I'm sure some of the stories were exaggerated. In the preface, Hem wrote: "If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact."

Finally, I want to honor the cleverness of the title, which came from a letter Hem wrote to a friend in 1950: "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."

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.

My favorite Hemingway. I first read this in my early 20s when I was lucky enough to live in Paris and as Hemingway prefaces the book: “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“. I'm sure that goes for young women as well.

The book is a riveting collection of vignettes of the artist life in 1920s Paris. Hemingway takes us through the streets, the cafés, small flats and quais of the city and along the way we encounter such luminaries as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. In short, a book that makes you dream of going to Paris and of a time long gone - and a book that I'm sure has shaped the lense that I see and remember Paris through.

61st book of 2022.

2nd reading. Our very own Ken Craft twisted my arm (hardly) into taking this with me to Paris along with Proust's final volume and I'm glad I did. I read this almost cover-to-cover yesterday on my return journey from Paris, most of it on the Eurostar, a bit more on the train from London and then polished it off this morning. As my 1st reading review suggests, I set out about, several years ago at university, reading an insane amount of Ernest Hemingway. Without hyperbole, I believed my thoughts were starting to sound like his simple declarative sentences. I took a long break. I last read this in 2017 and this was, in fact, my very first Hemingway book. Coming back to it now, having read most of his work, most of the work of those he talks about within, it felt like a different experience. I relished the snippets of Joyce. I remembered the Fitzgerald bits (they are hard not to). I realised that this memoir is the better side of Hemingway, the side that most people don't bother to look for or more aptly, see. He's gentle, he's funny, he's a man who was unbelievably, dauntingly, dedicated to the craft. The portraits within this book of Paris in the 1920s, when he was the same age I am now, twenty-five, are full of regret, nostalgia, pathos; Hemingway is a man who knew his flaws.

And of course, reading this on the Eurostar, I was doubled astounded by the images of Paris he creates, because they were so fresh in my own memory; in fact, many of them could well have been my own memories. It is testament to the immortality of Paris. Some of the roads and parks Hemingway mentions are ones I had, less than 24 hours ago, walked myself. On leaving university one piece of advice given by S. (the very lecturer detailed in my first review) was, "Travel the roads travelled by writers." In this way, we can feel their presence, perhaps somehow learn from them, feel their lasting power: these were things S. truly believed in; but I could write for too long about that. A wonderful book, Hemingway at his best, and at his best, he's up there with the rest.
________________________

1st reading. I read this back in my first year of University for a certain lecture about memoirs and such. I fancied myself top of the class choosing Hemingway. Our professor, Dr H., who is a very good poet (I went to one of his launches and was pleasantly surprised that through his insistent coughing, which none of us could work out, he read very well. I later found that the frequent short coughs he gave were due to a serious amount of smoking in his youth, apparently) asked us all to discuss our chosen books. I spoke about Paris as a setting, the writers Hemingway encounters, Joyce, Fitzgerald, the business with the latter's penis. I told everyone I thought it was very good.

At this time I was getting into Hemingway properly for the first time and struck the deal with my housemate, the year later, I think, to read everything Hemingway ever wrote before he read Ulysses. At some point we met with one of our professors, our favourite, Dr S., in a coffee shop and this challenge of ours came out. He told us he had, on getting his job as professor at the university many years ago, left his wife for a weekend and pitched a tent somewhere in the countryside and read Ulysses over two days. He had then packed up and come home again feeling "ready". He also admitted that when he had done his own MA he asked if his professor could simply teach him to, "write like Hemingway". Since then, I've been surprised to find many people in my creative circles dislike old Hemingway. In fact, if I could distil the opinions I've seen from my own experience they would be this: They don't like Hemingway, they don't bother trying with Joyce and everyone tells them that Fitzgerald is a supreme novelist and they aren't so sure. On my own MA I found a huge abundance of Paul Auster fans, more than anything, oddly.

Dr S. laughed at our challenge anyway over his coffee and expressed his joy at such a prospect; he said we were mad, competitive, it was great, he wished us all the best, that reading was the most important thing in life, etc.

عالی. عالی عالی عالی. داستان نبود و خوندن چیزی که داستان نیست واسه من خیلی عذاب‌آوره. اما به‌قدری جذاب بود که هم سریع می‌خوندم هم هی مکث می‌کردم که بعضی تیکه‌هاش توی ذهنم بشینه. چه دیالوگ‌هایی، چه شخصیت‌هایی، چه دغدغه‌هایی. همینگوی ازین کافه می‌ره اون کافه، مشروب می‌خوره، خوش می‌گذرونه، غذاهای خوب می‌خوره، اطرافیانش رو می‌بینه و حرف می‌زنه، و می‌نویسه، می‌نویسه، می‌نویسه. درآمد داره و حتی اگه یه شب جای نه چندان راحتی بخوابه یا غذایی که دوست داشته نخوره یا با کسی که خواسته حرف نزنه، راضی و خوشحاله و می‌نویسه. دقیقاً یه نویسنده. تمام چیزی که یه نویسنده می‌خواد باشه.

شیفتۀ ازرا پاوند شدم! مهربونی و سخاوتمندی و توجهش، و البته توصیفات همینگوی از ظاهرش. جویس و فیتزجرالد و خانمش. میس استاین. همه‌ش آدم‌های هم‌ردیف خودش با دنیاهای متفاوت و رنگارنگ و بیکران. پاریس جشن بیکران یه جشن بیکران واقعی بود. یه تیکه‌ای که دوست داشتم و خواستم اینجا بنویسم، رابطۀ فیتزجرالد و خانمش بود. علاقه درعین حسادت. فیتزجرالد از کارهای خانمش حرصش می‌گرفت و مجبور بود توی مجالس مختلف همراهش باشه از بس توجه‌ مردهای دیگه رو جلب می‌کرد، از طرفی هم خانمش حسودیش می‌شد که فیتزجرالد هی می‌شینه خونه می‌نویسه و به بهانۀ مهمونی‌ها می‌کشوندش بیرون. بعد هم جنونش. باعث شد برم دربارۀ این زوج به‌یادموندنی تاریخ هنر(ادبیات؟ هنر؟ بابا تاریخ به‌هرحال) مطالعه کنم. اون‌قد این کتاب رو دوست داشتم که بعد از تموم شدنش برای اینکه این حال و هوا توی ذهنم موندگار بشه، رفتم فیلم گتسبی بزرگ رو دیدم.

و زن همینگوی که بعد هربار برگشتنش به خونه، ازش می‌پرسید چی یاد گرفتی. بابا زنش هم پاریس جشن بیکرانی بود واسه خودش. :))

This memoir (Hemingway coyly says in the preface that the reader may consider it fiction), with its idyllic tone, surely romanticizes Hemingway's life in France with his first wife and their child. It includes rather unflattering portraits of Stein, Madox Ford, and the Fitzgeralds, while certainly leaving out things that would've made Hemingway himself look bad. But, perhaps, it is as he says here of his fiction writing: what is omitted is what strengthens the story.

I enjoyed the style; the stories he tells; and, yes, the gossip. I especially liked the masterful use of indirection at the end. Despite what he was deflecting, it was beautifully written, almost poetic.

4.25★
“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.”

Published posthumously, according to forewards by Ernest Hemingway’s son and grandson this restored edition is truer to the author’s vision than the original text overseen by his fourth wife. He ended his life before choosing a beginning, an ending, and a title. Some of his memories were damaged or missing due to the electric shock therapy he had undergone. According to son Patrick these were some of his dad’s last professional notes: “This book contains material from the remises of my memory and of my heart. Even if the one has been tampered with and the other does not exist.”

The setting is Paris after WWI and each chapter is a snapshot of memories when he and wife Hadley “would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.” He hung out with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce when they were all so very young and poor and not so famous. He went to the museum often and “learned something from the painting of Cézanne that made writing simple true sentences far from enough to make the stories have the dimensions that I was trying to put in them.” At night as the lights come on, people are “hurrying to some place to drink together, to eat together and then to make love.” . . . “Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary…” Friends, you knew a wine quote was coming right?

It’s been 35 years since I read all my Hemingways. There were low expectations on my part for an incomplete manuscript but needing to take a virtual trip to France for a group reading challenge I thought this might do. It sure did, and then some. I was surprised by how much I loved it and up until I had finished would have told you “No, I’ve never been to Paris.”
His prose made me want to go back and maybe do some rereading but I cannot reconcile myself to his love of bullfighting and big game hunting which was absent in these recollections.


**Note: This version had additional material following the main text which was sourced from ten additional chapters in varying stages of completion which Hemingway felt should not be included (deciding less would be more). I chose to read it as he intended and so left off where he did leaving them unread. Anyone who has ever wanted more of Hem might be thrilled to read them.

Ernest Hemingway. A big name in the literary game. I was always hesitant to read him. Mainly due to his book titles, they never really grabbed me, feeling masculine and daunting. I thought he was a author I would struggle to connect with. How wrong I was. This retrospective memoir of his early writing life in Paris as an expatriate set in the 20’s was a great place to start, getting a good sense of Ernest as a young man before his fame as a well loved author.

There’s so much beauty and wonder in the writing. Some of my favourite things to read about are all contained in this book. Paris, books, art and the decadent feasting on a budget all whet my appetite for this book. I felt excited being transported back into that bygone era where Paris becomes the literati playground for indulgence in the pursuit of passion and living the good life despite monetary limitations. It’s a name dropping paradise and I lapped it up. Especially the chapters on his relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really liked the way he describes the struggles and the distractions during the writing process. Who would have thought that would be so interesting to read about! Even the poverty seems like a minor inconvenience and part of the whimsy! It’s all part of the glittery appeal of a struggling author finding his forte in the city that is the background to so much inspiration for so many artists!

Отнасям тази книга като съкровище със себе си , толкова прекрасно и обаятелно написана , Париж през 20 те на миналият век с неговите кътчета и онзи дух на бохемство , пролет, надежда , Хемингуей прави магия каквато само той може , усетих онзи Париж в онова време чувствах всяка болка и надежда на писателя. Разкошна книга , празник за душата.

In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway presents vivid and interesting observations on his days struggling to make it in post WWI Paris. Interacting with other writers described by Gertrude Stein as being members of the lost generation, A Moveable Feast shows a young Hemingway defining himself as a different kind of writer. The connections to The Sun Also Rises are readily apparent. However, Hemingway’s thoughts about art and his writing are relevant to all his novels and short stories. This is another of my recent Hemingway rereads. It was a memoir I’ve always enjoyed and this time was no exception.