A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

 

This is the story of Ernest Hemingway's life in Paris in the 1920's.  This was a good time for him.  He was married to Hadley who was probably the love of his life and they had just had their child, Jack, called Bamby.  One could live in Paris very inexpensively and they did.  Hemingway had been in the war but that was over and now he would try to support his family by writing.  He was not writing novels at this point but short stories.

He talks about the people he met and spent time with.  One of the first was Gertrude Stein who had a salon for writers she liked.  She knew everyone and it was a great contact but she would drop people immediately if they disagreed with her.  She not only knew literature but had many wonderful paintings in her house and suggested that Hemingway buy paintings from the artists of his generation before they became famous.

A great friend of his was Ezra Pound, the poet.  Both Pound and Hemingway helped other writers whenever they could and spent time trying to help them get published.  He also spent much time with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda although he tried to avoid her as much as possible.  He felt that Zelda was jealous of Scott's success and that she tried to keep him drinking and partying as a way of preventing him from working.  

I'm so glad I read this book.  The hype about Hemingway is that only men can enjoy his writing, that it is all masculine posturing.  I found a likeable man in the book, a man who loved his wife and his friends and that worried about the truth of his writing.  This makes me ready to tackle all the Hemingway novels I have waiting on my shelves.  This book is recommended for memoir readers.