In 1993, I was flying from Memphis to Myrtle Beach and brought Hemingway’s A Movable Feast as my airplane read. If you haven’t yet enjoyed it, I fully recommend reading it – it is an account of his days as an expatriate in France in the 1920s.
Among the gems, there are a couple of chapters that describe his friendship with Scott Fitzgerald. One, in particular, takes place over a lunch where Scott has a very personal problem that he shares with Papa. It was almost embarrassing how loud I was laughing on the airplane. I really recommend this book.
This edition was published posthumously (of note, it was 50 years ago this month that he took his life) and principally edited by his then wife Mary.
While stocking the Kindle, I discovered that a new edition has been issued (A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition, Scribner; Reprint edition, July 20, 2010). This one is edited by Hemingway’s grandson and features a forward by Patrick Hemingway – his son.
Patrick was half brother to John (Jack) who fathered the two actresses Margaux and Mariel and a third daughter. Patrick at one time owned a safari business during his 25 years living in Tanzania and is currently in Bozeman, Montana – where I got to meet him.
A very affable gentleman, he was full of wonderful stories including one about older brother Jack who at one point parachuted behind enemy lines during WWII – woefully distant from the mission. Patrick told us that Jack simply pulled the fly rod out of his pack and fished for a few hours. Jack eventually was wounded and captured by the Nazis.
I am currently reading this restored edition and enjoying every word. The stories related in A Moveable Feast and those shared by Patrick are of a different time. Of a time when men and women were immersed in the arts and their debates were over Cezanne, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and their passions were mid-American – hunting, fishing, sports, and finding gems in the rough. A time when honor was valued and defended and political correctness would have laughed away.
Hemingway also shares tips about writing in this book as well as other sources – one will always resonate with me. I paraphrase: begin each story or novel with the most simple and truest declarative sentence possible. As an example, the first line of The Old Man and the Sea:
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”
I’m not sure if one can become an expatriate anymore – globalization may have stolen that opportunity. There is no reason, however, why we can’t augment our lives with literature, art, great food, and memorable conversation.
I pulled out my copy of The Complete Short Stories when I heard it was the 50th anniversary of his suicide. I had read some of them, but not all, so I started at the beginning. This is so great to read as an adult, because of the depth of perspective that experience brings, I can now understand the different incarnations of human wreckage and attempts to deal with those disasters which make up these stories. But one thing stands out above everything else: the sense of acedia, of hopelessness, and of spiritual torpor. Hemingway's portrayal of it is masterful and horrifying all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI got out my copy of The Collected Short Stories this summer when I heard that it was the fiftieth anniversary of Hemingway's suicide.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how much richer the stories are now that I understand what the wreckage of life is, and the attempts to deal with it, the very stuff of these stories.
The sense of acedia really stands out here, the hopelessness for reconciliation, the spiritual torpor. And I say this without blame: this is a masterful portrayal of the horror of modernity.