Ryan and I like to talk about moving to Paris and working in a bakery. She promises that she won't get caught eating the product, and I tell her that I can only cover for her for a certain time before things get out of hand. "And! Then we'll transport the product, but we'll take it in equal measure, so no one product looks too empty." Sounds reasonable enough, I tell her, but what if she's caught eating bread and cake, thereby getting us both fired from the bakery? "No worries--I'm good at surreptitiously stuffing my face." We'll brush up on our French and get visas and then be on our way.

This is only a preamble to A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's literary memoir of 1920s Paris. It's not one of Hemingway's best books, and certainly not a memoir in the classic sense--it's really just a bunch of short, irreverent vignettes, in which Hemingway recounts meeting with the various literary giants living in post-World War I Paris: there's Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, and, in the centerpiece of the book, F. Scott Fitzgerald, among smaller, lesser-known luminaries. (One of the most amusing scenes comes during after Hemingway has finished drinking with Ford: "'That's Hilaire Belloc,' I said to my friend. 'Ford was here this afternoon and cut him dead.' 'Don't be a silly ass,' my friend said. 'That's Alestair Crowley, the diabolist. He's supposed to be the wickedest man in the world.'")

Though Hemingway began A Moveable Feast in 1957, it reads as though he'd recorded the events and conversations as they happened. The style is classic Hemingway: spare and unsentimental, even self-deprecating, with Hemingway showcasing his rule to create (or, in this case, recreate), rather than describe. Even without concrete times or settings--the little stories are never conclusively dated--Hemingway, using the language of the era, still evokes the mood of Paris, transporting to a place that's inspiring and mythical. Here, we're given a Hemingway who's naive and enthusiastic, a young man sure of his talent but unsure of his voice. This is a far cry from the Papa Hemingway of later years, the older man consumed by alcoholism, a fiery temper, and suicidal depression. A Moveable Feast reveals Hemingway at his most vulnerable--he doesn't take center stage, but like the characters in his fiction, we're still offered glimpses of a tragic man who lived one of the most amazing lives in American letters.

Comments

[Bookie]

"showcasing his rule to create (or, in this case, recreate), rather than describe."

Nice.