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A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
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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 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, Seán 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.
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 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, Seán 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.
Book Actions
Start ReadingBook Information
A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition
Description
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 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, Seán 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.
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 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, Seán 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.
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Reviews
In the Preface, Hemingway writes: "If the readers prefer, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw light on what has been written as fact".... One feels intrigued and disappointed at the same time about such a statement. But one reads eagerly nonetheless. Because right from the start, Hemingway's way of narration flows so easily, not overrun by flowery metaphors and yet so compelling. A certain unavoidable feeling of rhythm to his writing. Yes, probably romanticized a bit - or even more than a bit! - it having been written so much later in life, but I couldn't let that bother me: the writing was just too good.During these years in Paris (1920s), still as a young writer, Hemingway encounters interesting personalities and describes them to the fullest: Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Scott Fitzgerald are in particular given colorful portraits. Also, I couldn't help being impressed at his fascination with the Russian writers - Turgenev, Tolstoi, Dostoyevsky:"From the day I had found Sylvia Beach's library, I had read all of Turgenev, what had been published in English by Gogol,... translations of Tolstoi and Chekhov.... In Dostoyevsky there were things believable and not to be believed, but some so true they changed you as you read them; frailty and madness, wickedness and saintliness, and the sanity of gambling were there to know as you knew the landscape and the roads in Turgenev, and the movement of troops , the terrain and the officers and the men and the fighting in Tolstoi.... To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you." Strangely enough, there is only faint mention of Hemingway's wife Hadley and their child in the whole of the narration. She comes through as a pale background to all his wanderings on Paris streets and meetings at cafes. Her portrayal (or what there is of it) is very sweet and genuine in the few words that the writer allots her, but not sufficiently "real" for a constant companion. He gives much more colorful description to the character of Zelda Fitzgerald (who, as he witnessed, turned out to be a bad influence on her husband) than to his own wife.As for Scott Fitzgerald, his portrait is probably the most revealing. At first we see certain contradiction of attitude during their first meeting, during their unusual and troublesome car trip, but little by little (and especially after reading "The Great Gatsby") Hemingway puts aside the weird idiosyncrasies of the man, his hypochondriac character, his problems with his wife Zelda - to give him full credit as a great writer - and gives himself a promise to always be there for him.Among the good times, there were bitter disappointments - like when all his manuscripts were lost in a robbery, and he had to start writing all anew. Or hardships - when he had to go hungry and "invent" meal invitations (while simply going on long walks and later retelling his wife at home the menus and what he ate at such "invitations") to save money on food. But the general feel to this time in Paris (as well as short trips and stays outside the city during the winter) is a good and treasured one, one that probably stayed with the author throughout his life.
Rating: 5Hemingway's description of Scott Fitzgerald is my favorite paragraph in the book: "His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless."
Rating: 4Vooral documentair interessant, over zijn verblijf in Parijs in de jaren 20. Duidelijk verfraaid. Soms ontluisterend over collegaschrijvers.
Rating: 2One of the ones you sometimes re-read, partially or entirely.
Rating: 4In this collection of short, autobiographical essays, Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley drink, gamble, and hobnob with expatriate writers in post WWI Paris and elsewhere in Europe. Sometimes, in between meals and trips to the racetrack, he settles down and "works" (writes).This book was very different, and not nearly as compelling, as I thought it would be. The essays are too brief and disconnected to allow for indentification with any of the characters, and the narrative (or lack of the same) often failed to hold my interest. It would have helped me if the edition I read had annotations to put the essays into context.
Rating: 3A glimpse of Paris in the 20s and the lives of Hemingway and his contemporaries. I love the immediacy of Hemingway and this book transports you to a very specific time in his story. I enjoyed it.
Rating: 4Brilliant. Fitzgerald could create a flawless story, Hemingway could create a flawless sentence.
Rating: 5Vooral documentair interessant, over zijn verblijf in Parijs in de jaren 20. Duidelijk verfraaid. Soms ontluisterend over collegaschrijvers.
Rating: 2I had actually read this last year, but never entered it into my read books. Reading each vignette about Paris (and the mountains Hem skiied in) reminded me of the wonderful time I had there. My favorites were about writing in the cafe, his initial meetings with G. Stein, and the first times they went skiing.
Rating: 4I can't help thinking that "A Moveable Feast" is a kind of Facebook into Hemingway's Parisian past. Hemingway writes of himself and in particular, Scott Fitzgerald, as if he were posting on social media private details about a recent event. I don't mean to cheapen the work by comparing prosaic Facebook with Hemingway's genius but the raw public openness is analogous. I felt Hemingway's poor and happy nostalgia marks the end of his innocence and the very ending made me tingle all over - at once identifying with him while hoping it is all in the past. In short, a masterpiece.
Rating: 5My first Hemingway book and it took me a chapter or two to hear his voice. Thankfully the chapters are short or I may not have persevered. I'm glad I did. This is a remembrance of Hemingway's life in Paris at that time early in the 1920s when the Bohemian Set were starting to assemble themselves in this city full of expatriates. He was friends with some of the big names, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford, Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald. A bookshop called Shakespeare and Company run by Sylvia Beach was where they could all meet and talk about their writing, and it was Sylvia Beach who published Jame's Joyce's Ulysees, which was banned in Britain and the United States! Hemingway has a particular writing style, very pared back and yet descriptive. How he manages to do both at the same time is indeed his special skill. I was reminded of the writing style in Early Readers, where the sentences are short and clipped - We went to the zoo. We saw a lion and a tiger. This made us happy. But then Mr Hemingway will give you a sentence like this - " To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you." (page 117) Paris in the 20's was where Ernest and his wife lived happily with their first born son, poor financially but rich in the happiness of their life.
Rating: 4I read a lovely high-quality Book-of-the-Month Club edition of this book from 1964 that still had a flyer with discussion by Clifton Fadiman in it. His remarks heightened my appreciation of this interesting book. I hesitate to call it a novel - it is really a memoir of Hemingway's time in Paris in the 1920's - pieces of it told via 20 remembrances of people and places as well as his own struggles with writing and defining himself as a writer. He and his wife Hadley, and son, were quite poor. Hemingway started writing this in Cuba in 1957. Hemingway was writing this thirty years after the events and many of his thoughts do not treat his companions of the times well. Hemingway can flatter and praise some, but he reveals his true thoughts on others quite a lot. Altogether this was a fascinating look at life, love, racing, cafes, just all the places in Hemingway's rather small area of Paris that is just fun to read and drift back into history.There are some lines throughout the book that just zing you when you come across them. Perhaps the most famous is the epigraph: If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. Ernest Hemingway to a friend, 1950" The very last words of the book zinged me: "But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy." I think I got teary-eyed there.
Rating: 4I'm an author and I enjoy reading Hemmingway to see how he creates his stories. In [A Moveable Feast], Hemmingway describes life in Paris with his wife Hadley among American expatriates like Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. He gives vivid personality portraits with very few words. His descriptions of weather and food are also terse, yet vivid. Hemmingway also discusses writing and his process at that time, as he was becoming a known author.The book is a series of vignettes that hang together chronologically over a year in Paris. It was written long afterward in the 50s, and there is an aura of nostalgic melancholy about the book.This book is an American classic; one of the few that has been read for 60 years and will continue to be read as long as there is an America.
Rating: 5My first Hemingway. I don't like memoirs, esp vague ramblings like this, but there is such gorgeous writing and hints of the genius in his work, that now I feel like I have to read him.
Rating: 3A Moveable Feast is a series of stories about Hemingway's life in Paris in the 20s with his first wife, before the publication of his first novel. Ford Madox Ford, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald all have a chapter. This is a fun Hemingway (perhaps the only one), and everything has a happy nostalgic patina, even when he's digging viciously at Zelda Fitzgerald.
Rating: 4Apart from an abortive attempt at "The Old Man and the Sea" in high school, I managed to avoid Hemmingway for fifty years. Now I wonder why. "A Moveable Feast" is so enchanting, so fascinating with its tart, funny, incisive portraits of Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald and others that I feel sad to have missed it for so long.Why Hemmingway took so long to write this memoir is anyone's guess, but perhaps the older writer understood things the younger one only lived. Whatever the reason, AMF is a wonderful mixture of the perspective of age and the enthusiasm of youth. It's a lovely portrait of a city where people too poor to own a cat can afford a cook and a nurse for their son. It's a tale of a writer writing, reading everything he can borrow from Shakespeare and Company, getting to know artists and authors and loving Paris and Parisians. If you read no other Hemmingway in your life, read this.
Rating: 5I had never read Hemingway before so thought a small book would be something to try and see if I enjoyed it.Turns out I picked an Auto-biography of his time in the 20's in Paris where he was starting out as an unknown. You get the atmosphere on Paris in the 20's and the cliques that existed of the in crowd and the writers and the painters. You see that even then distractions existed for the famous but, as was life, were simpler than those of today.No laptops to write with just pen and paper and the local cafe to sit in Hemingway paints the picture of a Paris which once it has you will not let you go. And people who are interesting but have something held back that keeps you wondering.As well as learning about his life in those early years it is a book from which you can pick up his style of writing. And I can say now it will lead me to read more.
Rating: 4This memoir, published posthumously, covers Hemingway's early days in Paris, right after he decided to leave journalism to become a writer of fiction. He was married, a father, constantly writing, friends with some very intelligent and very successful writers (Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald), and - to use his words - "very poor and very happy." In this series of short essays, he sheds his skin to expose his heart.
I was struck with the sense that Hemingway found every day an adventure. He is constantly stringing together sentences as run-ons with the connectors of "but" and "and." It's like he is spinning some yarn and can't wait to get to the end. So he rushes and avoids the periods and the commas. He is ready to tell his tale no matter what comes. Such was his sense of determination to become a writer while in Paris.
It is good for this aspiring writer to read of his struggles. He knew not how to make money. He just worked on his craft. This is good advice for anyone starting off in any profession or station in life. Work on the craft; be dedicated to the work; hone your skills; don't be discouraged by rejection. Such was Hemingway's time in Paris, whose lesson of being "very poor and very happy" is the path to success.
Rating: 4I was struck with the sense that Hemingway found every day an adventure. He is constantly stringing together sentences as run-ons with the connectors of "but" and "and." It's like he is spinning some yarn and can't wait to get to the end. So he rushes and avoids the periods and the commas. He is ready to tell his tale no matter what comes. Such was his sense of determination to become a writer while in Paris.
It is good for this aspiring writer to read of his struggles. He knew not how to make money. He just worked on his craft. This is good advice for anyone starting off in any profession or station in life. Work on the craft; be dedicated to the work; hone your skills; don't be discouraged by rejection. Such was Hemingway's time in Paris, whose lesson of being "very poor and very happy" is the path to success.
The passages about Gertrude Stein and Fitzgerald and writing and Paris are fantastic. The stuff about horse racing and skiing vacations, much less so. But then, maybe that says more about my interests than anything else.
Rating: 4I have to confess that I have never understood the acclaim afforded to Ernest Hemigway, and this book has done nothing to assuage my doubts. I know that he is revered as one of the great writers of the twentieth century, and seen as some sort of embodiment of the writer as a man of action, but his works simply leave me cold.I was looking forward to this account of his life in Paris between the World Wars. After all, with such a setting, and the added frisson afforded by accounts of F. Scott Fitzgerald (one of my all-time literary heroes), how could the book fail to enthral? Well, somehow, it managed to overcome the integral advantages, and somehow claw back defeat from the jaws of victory. The foreword and preface to this edition, written by one of Hemingway’s sons, and one of his grandsons, made much play of the considerable efforts to edit the manuscript undertaken by Mary, Hemingway’s final wife, and the rest of the family. I must say that if this manuscript was the consequence of intense and dedicated editing, I dread to think how dreadful the original must have been.Far from an enlightening selection of memoirs recounting scintillating encounters between prominent figures of the world of the arts, it is a series of inconsequential and rambling recollections of tedious meetings, recounted in appalling, inchoate prose. I think we would all have been better served if this book had been edited through the medium of a shredding machine.
Rating: 1Yes, Hemingway is a giant of American literature. Still, I do not like his writing style. His descriptions are literal but his sentences can be long, rambling and nonsensical. While this was interesting to read as a writer, only readers well versed in Hemingway’s biography will be able to fill in all the blanks Hemingway leaves.
Rating: 3I recognize that Hemingway's memories of Paris are flawed and romanticized, but I still love this book, one of my go-to comfort reads. I never get tired of it.
Rating: 5Published after Hemingway's death, "A Moveable Feast" is a progressive dining experience with some of the great (and some lesser) lights of the post WWI expat literary community in Paris. It interesting to see what personal qualities he zeroed in on, while spending time with Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and others. While moving distinctly from person to person, the backdrop throughout is 1920s Paris and its café culture. Sales of this book spiked in Paris after the extremist attacks in November 2015; perhaps a touchstone for how Parisians see themselves and a vision they don't want to slip away after such a shock. The most quoted paragraph of the book --- one that could be a suitable hook -- lies at the very end. Hemingway sums it up: "There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it."
Rating: 4I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Hemingway's stories of life in Paris as a young man.
Rating: 4Had read this before so listened to it this time. Unfortunately, there's a reason Hemingway is subject so often to parody. His intentional avoidance of all adjectives or variation in sentences makes him difficult to listen to as well as to read. Enjoyed his portraits of his peers, but would not have made it all the way thru had this not been for a book club.
Rating: 33.5 really, I couldn't go the whole four. I listened to the audio version of the restored edition, and the narration was out of this world. The type of narration that lifts a story up. There are a number of fragments at the end, from his historical collection, and I have to say that audio is perhaps not the best venue for really soaking this sort of thing up. One of things noted about this restored edition is that it did not flow chronologically, which did in fact end up a little confusing, but that is not a major issue.
I am keeping this book - I keep only a fraction of the books I read, that is notable. There were a number of parts of this memoir/work of fiction (in his words), that I really enjoyed. I loved hearing about their winters in Schroontz, which I am entirely sure I have misspelled, but hey, I never saw it in writing. And I absolutely adore the dialogue. There is something unique about his dialogue, and between his words and this narration, it was just outstanding. Some of the things that were really small were amazing to ponder, such as leaving their baby son home alone in the crib with the cat as a babysitter
His writing about Scott Fitzgerald was sadly distressing. I will follow up soon by reading Z, about Zelda, as it also fits in my challenge.
If you like Hemingway, this is worth your while. If you don't already care for him, this probably won't, change your mind.
Rating: 3I am keeping this book - I keep only a fraction of the books I read, that is notable. There were a number of parts of this memoir/work of fiction (in his words), that I really enjoyed. I loved hearing about their winters in Schroontz, which I am entirely sure I have misspelled, but hey, I never saw it in writing. And I absolutely adore the dialogue. There is something unique about his dialogue, and between his words and this narration, it was just outstanding. Some of the things that were really small were amazing to ponder, such as leaving their baby son home alone in the crib with the cat as a babysitter
His writing about Scott Fitzgerald was sadly distressing. I will follow up soon by reading Z, about Zelda, as it also fits in my challenge.
If you like Hemingway, this is worth your while. If you don't already care for him, this probably won't, change your mind.
Hemingway is not one of my favorite authors, but in this book his description of Paris in the 20s is wonderful. He plays around with some of the facts, but captures a time and a place in history that fascinates me. Paris was the center of the world then and so much that was groundbreaking was happening there in the way of music (jazz), painting (cubism), and writing. Hemingway shows us his take on this magical time.
Rating: 3I read this book because I had just read The Paris Wife, and it was a good companion to that book. However, I am just not a Hemingway fan, and I can't say I liked this book at all. He really seems like he's full of himself. Sorry to all Hemingway lovers!!
Rating: 2Reading Hemingway's sketches is a journey backward, and a wonderful one. With the intimate glimpses into his life that the book provides, and his beautifully simple language, each sketch of a chapter takes on a beauty of its own. Any reader of Hemingway should at some point find their way here, to this simple and lovely book.Absolutely recommended.
Rating: 5Absorbing reading. Features a snarky "new introduction" by Jane Kramer that wasn't even bound into the book, and badmouths him pretty much from start to finish. He probably deserved it.
Rating: 4