Ernest Hemingway’s classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, now available in a restored edition, includes the original manuscript along with insightful recollections and unfinished sketches. Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway’s most enduring works. Since Hemingway’s personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the … made to the text before publication. Now, this special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published.
Featuring a personal Foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s sole surviving son, and an Introduction by grandson of the author, Sean Hemingway, editor of this edition, the book also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, and his first wife Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, and insightful recollections of Hemingway’s own early experiments with his craft.
Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.more
One of my favorite Hemingway books. The Lost Generation truly was that when you think of WWI, the 1918 Pandemic and what awaited them with the Great Depression and then WWII.
I enjoy Hemingway’s sparse style. As a writer I marvel at how he honed his craft.
A Moveable Feast is one of those memoirs you can read again, and again—especially if you are a writer, or aspiring to be one. In the exemplary Hemingway style of exquisite simplicity, he paints a loving portrait of the Paris he shared with his first wife, Hadley in the 1920’s, while weaving in his remarkable friendships with Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford and other notable expats. Writers will home in on Hemingway’s rituals around writing. In a later chapter, Hemingway writes about their time skiing in the Alps. It is a lovely and somewhat metaphorical chapter that bleeds into a poignant bitter reflection written with the clarity that decades of hind-sight provided.
I read the original 1964 edition with the Black & White cover of Paris café which is the preferred edition of most literary folk. You can find this edition in a used bookstore.
“A Moveable Feast” is a wonderful, if not completely factual, look at the Ex-Pat Paris of the early Twentieth Century. If nothing else, it is fun to see who Hemingway throws to the wolves, and who he exalts. At times self-aggrandizing, this is still a worthwhile read.
Hemingway’s first novel is short and spartan, as his writing style would become known for. It’s semi-autobiographical, focusing on his time living in Paris as a writer with his young wife, Hadley, as he meets fellow American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and looks to Gertrude Stein for advice. You feel like you’re in a Paris cafe’ with Hem and his friends, drinking too much Pernod and dissecting the secrets of life. If you want a taste of Hemingway before diving into his other works, start with A Moveable Feast, and get caught up in 1920s Paris before Hem became Papa.
A memoir of Hemingway’s time in Paris in the early 1920s, “A Moveable Feast” seemed right up my alley: I like Hemingway and I like France. However, the book didn’t offer as much of either as I’d hoped. Hemingway spends most of his time listing the places he got drunk, patting himself on the back for being a writer, and name-dropping every famous person he ever knew. The chapters are a rundown of petty grudges mined 30 years later, each writer or artist described with a maximum of spite. Hemingway has no problem airing everyone else’s dirty laundry (overheard fights between Gertrude Stein and her partner, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s marital problems, stating that one acquaintance had the “eyes of an unsuccessful rapist” despite this person’s not factoring into the narrative at all), but reveals nothing about himself. He refers to his own infidelity and let’s-say-poor-manners with such oblique language that it’s hard to even tell what he thinks went on, and describes his first marriage like a fairy tale. I didn’t believe it for a second. The book was enjoyable in its specific references to people and places in Paris, but all I learned from it was that Hemingway despised most people and couldn’t let anything go, no matter how trivial. For a man so concerned with writing things that are “true,” he couldn’t bring himself to be vulnerable and honest when it counted.
Love or hate Hemingway, this book is a classic. He lived in the same area as I did in Paris, so I was constantly reminded of scenes from this book during my year there. Evocative, spare, and achingly brief.
I’ve been to Paris six times and I read it at least once per year. For me, it’s poignant, and realistic.
I felt like I was there. I could relate to the emotions he experienced. His lusts, cravings, frustrations, and inspirations – all were very relatable. Despite the lack of a true plot, it was a very enjoyable experience. I think it was his ability to make you say, “Yes, Hem. I get it. France is the shit.”
not my cup of tea
Interesting to read, but couldn’t wait until it ended.
Interesting particularly as to some of the notable and famous names mentioned therein. And written with that affectionate fondness for Europe that brought Paris to life in one’s lap.
I have been wanting to read this book ever since I finished A Paris Wife last year, and really the two go hand-in-hand. A Paris Wife takes a more intimate look at the day-to-day life of the Hemingways in Paris, and especially their relationship with one another, but A Moveable Feast paints a beautiful picture of a time and place that exists today only in literature and the imagination. Hemingway opens the book with a preface that some names, places, and faces may have been omitted or changed, but really the expatriate world of 1920s Paris is the star: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, and entirely too much time imbibing wine in smoky cafes while filling reams of paper with the books that were to become a staple of many a high school’s American literature courses. Turning the pages of this book, the reader can not only picture but can truly feel Paris as it was.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2012/12/vacation-reading.html)
It takes you to the 30’s in Paris with all the wonderful characters of that era. Fantastic!