A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (restored edition)

My reading experience, thoughts and camparison of the book to the 1964 edition.

[jbsubscribes]

I have seen waaayyy too many photographs of Hemingway proudly standing over the bodies of animals he has murdered to spend another second reading anything he wrote. ( I was assigned a few of his works in school...but I barely remember them.) Loved hearing your thoughts about A Moveable Feast though. Have a fabulous week ahead, Wiebke.

[BookishTexan]

I really enjoyed your thoughts on this book and agree with all of them with the exception of your thoughts on the writing itself.


In my youth, when I wanted to be a writer, this was my guide. I dreamed of writing in Paris Cafes, being poor, traipsing across Europe, talking to other writers, etc. I was a real Hemingway fan boy (not unusual among young men in the US who wanted to write until recently). I still find the Paris sections in which he describes food, drink, smells, the streets of Paris, and writing charming. But, we grow up and our heroes become people. The Hemingway who wrote _A Moveable Feast_ was already legendary and he knew it. He wrote to burnish that legend and did so, often, by trashing the other writers of his generation.


Great review.

[HannahsBooks]

Wildly, I read this book in very early high school (while sitting on the beach one magical weekend) and I absolutely loved it--despite that I'm sure I didn't know who most of his compatriots were. I must read it again sometime soon. I can't imagine that it will hold up to my memories. Meanness does not sit well with me... Still--I'd love to join you (and probably most readers) at a café in Paris, writing and talking with brilliant people. I suspect that experience is what really drew me in.

[danecobain]

It's been a while since I've read this one, but I seem to remember enjoying it!

[ofbooksandtrees]

I've never really had an interest in reading Hemmingway, but I enjoyed hearing about your reading experience :)

[aminthereader]

Very good review! Wouldn't have thought this was your kind of thing. Hemingway was a good fabulist, he twisted anecdotes to his advantage, so a lot of them are not quite true. Highly recommend Mary Dearborn's biography of him, she does a forensic job of examining his life.

[paulwinchell]

I could see you doing the whole grab a pen and paper and write in cafe thing. On to E. Hemingway there is a a argument for not knowing anything but the bare basics about a writer. So you either like or dont like the book based only on the book. But thats now a impossible thing. Click he did that click he said that click he holds those political views. Hemingway was a writer first and a celebrity second and somewhere those things blurred together. Been a while since i read Hemingway. I was force fed him in high school. For who the bell tolls. The only enjoyment i got was reading everything that he wrote that was banned in schools. For which i thank my parents my english teacher and the school librarian. I think they all took a certain amount of glee in pissing off the school board.