Sipping a Café au Lait with Papa Hemingway
Pros:
Crisp simple writing that tells of a magical creative time, 1920s Paris.
Cons:
Not sure if this is the edition Hemingway would have wanted.
The Bottom Line:
A must-have for aspiring writers, fans of the memoir and Hemingway, and anyone who is interested in the literary expat community living in 1920s Paris.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of you life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” That is part of a letter Ernest Hemingway wrote to a friend in 1950. A Moveable Feast is posthumously published (1964) look at what Gertrude Stein labeled a generation perdue (lost generation), American expatriates living in 1920s Paris. Hemingway’s writing is everyday simple; in fact, you will have no need to peek into a dictionary. Yet, this memoir manages to captivate as Papa strolls through twenty vignettes as if retelling his youth from one of Paris’ many sidewalk cafes.
Perhaps the inside look and humanization of literary stars such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound satiate our need for celebrity gossip. Or worse, the curious satisfaction of seeing successful people stumble and fall from their godly thrones. Ardent fans of Fitzgerald will surely protest, as Hemingway does not spare the writer’s male insecurities and other frailties. In addition, as you sip your café au lait, Hemingway shares writing techniques as he recalls his awkward transition from short story writer to novelist. For aspiring writers, listening to Hemingway recount his struggles and insights while working out the kinks to complete The Sun also Rises (1926) is an invaluable treatise in figuring out how Hemingway became Hemingway.
“When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day. It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved.” Besides musing on the muse, he mentions reading other writers such as Aldous Huxley and Fyodor Dostoyevsky with a bare-bone honesty that is a trademark of this collection. Hemingway also recollects his times and travels in Europe with his first wife, Hadley and their baby boy, Bumby. In short, Moveable Feast clearly shows the fertile ground that the young seedling Hemingway successfully planted himself in to become a literary giant.
Bohdan Kot
Barnes and Noble
