Publication
Book of the Month Club (1993), Edition: Book of the Month Club Edition, 211 pages
Original publication date
1964 (original edition)
Status
Available
Call number
Description
Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.
Physical description
211 p.
Genres
Awards
Language
Media reviews
Important note!: this review is of the edition that Hemingway's grandson revised because he didn't like the original's contents. Hotchner argues for ignoring this edition in favor of the original.
"The grandson has removed several sections of the book’s final chapter and replaced them with
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other writing of Hemingway’s that the grandson feels paints his grandma in a more sympathetic light. Ten other chapters that roused the grandson’s displeasure have been relegated to an appendix."
"All publishers, Scribner included, are guardians of the books that authors entrust to them. Someone who inherits an author’s copyright is not entitled to amend his work. There is always the possibility that the inheritor could write his own book offering his own corrections. Ernest was very protective of the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. Surely he has the right to have these words protected against frivolous incursion, like this reworked volume that should be called “A Moveable Book.” I hope the Authors Guild is paying attention." Show Less
He is gentle, wistful, and almost nostalgic. One writer friend once described Hemingway to me as "that bully" and in many ways my friend was right. Hemingway had created his own public personae that included a brusque way of conducting himself; of a kind of machismo that would be called out for
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what it was these days; and an insensitivity to other people that bordered on the cruel. A lot of that 'Grace under pressure" is crap, and in his better moments, Heminway probably knew that. But the stories in A Moveable Feast belie all that. He remembers those days in Paris with a fondness and kindness that is remarkable, considering his usual public displays. Show Less
Ernest was very protective of the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. Surely he has the right to have these words protected against frivolous incursion, like this reworked volume that should be called “A Moveable Book.”
For that voice of a shattered Hemingway alone, the new edition of A Moveable Feast is worth taking note of. Otherwise, what I'm calling the "classic" edition is the more coherent narrative.
"Though this may seem at first blush a fragmentary book, it is not so. It should be read as a novel, belongs among the author's better works and is, as 'mere writing,' vintage Hemingway."
"Here is Hemingway at his best. No one has ever written about Paris in the nineteen twenties as well as Hemingway."