( goodreads )
Let me be honest up front: until a few months ago, Hemingway was on my list of "authors I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read even though I have a degree in English Literature". Aside from reading
The Old Man and the Sea in middle school and barely retaining a thing, I had never bothered to make friends with another Hemingway work; I had always written him off as stuffy and boring American Literature that I'd probably never like, and with no real reason for doing so.
I think my tipping point was watching the movie,
Midnight in Paris, and when I realized that Hemingway was more linked with some of my favorite authors, poets, and artists than I had initially known, I resolved myself to reading some of his works to form an opinion on my own. I've been building up to
A Farewell to Arms, but figured I ought to read some of his other works before throwing down my thoughts on such a big-ticket work. A read through
The Sun Also Rises and
re-read of
The Old Man and the Sea later and I found myself at
A Moveable Feast - a text I was probably most looking forward to after my recent infatuation with the Jazz Age.
In short,
A Moveable Feast is a memoir of Hemingway's time in Paris in the '20s. I'm normally not one for short story-like pieces, or non-fiction for that matter, but Hemingway manages to capture something magical about the time. His writing isn't overly flourish-y, but somehow beautiful in its honest succinctness. I don't like to make these reviews particularly long, but even so, were I to tell more I fear I'd give away some of the wonderfully intimate little moments.
I don't think I've ever been so engrossed in a memoir like this, feeling as if I'm in Paris all this time, amongst the names of famous writers and artists that are so renowned today. It's utterly magical, yet in a way that's so realistic that it subtly takes you somewhere else for a few hundred pages.
How have I gone twenty-odd years without reading Hemingway? I realize he's not for everyone, or at least so I'm told, but I'm in love.
What's your favorite of Hemingway's works? Are you a fan? Not so much?