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Why
we chose this book
Hemmingway
is the ultimate Man's Man. Rough and unrepentant. And yet, in A Moveable
Feast we're allowed a secret glimpse of his passionate love of writing
and his enthusiastic joy of living. Just a few pages in and suddenly
you're wandering down the Boulevard St. Michelle by his side. Bon
Voyage! ~Beth
From
the Publisher
His classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent
portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and
insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant
mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled
creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself
epitomized.
Amazon.com
Editorial Review
In the
preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarks casually that "if
the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction"--and,
indeed, fact or fiction, it doesn't matter, for his slim memoir of Paris
in the 1920s is as enchanting as anything made up and has become the
stuff of legend. Paris in the '20s! Hemingway and his first wife,
Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had money for drinks at the
Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishing trips to
Spain.
On
every corner and at every caf?table, there were the most extraordinary
people living wonderful lives and telling fantastic stories. Gertrude
Stein invited Hemingway to come every afternoon and sip "fragrant,
colorless alcohols" and chat amid her great pictures. He taught
poet Ezra Pound how to box, gossiped with James Joyce, caroused with the
fatally insecure Scott Fitzgerald (the acid portraits of him and his
wife, Zelda, are notorious). Meanwhile, Hemingway invented a new way of
writing based on this simple premise: "All you have to do is write
one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."
Hemingway
beautifully captures the fragile magic of a special time and place, and
he manages to be nostalgic without hitting any false notes of
sentimentality. "This is how Paris was in the early days when we
were very poor and very happy," he concludes. Originally published
in 1964, three years after his suicide, A Moveable Feast was the first
of his posthumous books and remains the best.
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