"A Moveable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway

I decided to read A Moveable Feast after reading and enjoying Enrique Vila-Matas’ novel Never Any End to Paris which was inspired in part by this Hemingway favorite . In some ways, it was about time. I had known about the attraction of this book and the idea of a young artist run off to the Left Bank to find his self. Julio Cortazar had done just that in the 1950s; his reminiscents are recorded in Hopscotch. Roberto Bolaño leaves his impression of being in Paris in The Savage Detectives. A descendent of Hemingway used the title in a similarly-titled cookbook filled with recipes for picnic foods. When you consider how poor and hungry Hemmingway was during his time in Paris, the appropriation of the memoir’s title might be considered facetious.
The book was written at the end of the author’s life and published after his death. It’s about the beginnings of his literary career when he was working on his first great novel The Sun Also Rises. With him in Paris were other members of the Lost Generation (so named by his mentor Gertrude Stein) including James Joyce, Ford Maddox Ford, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Besides recounting his adventures and impressions with them and others, the memoir is a testimony to his love for his first wife Hadley and the time they spent together in the City of Light.
This was a good book; I recommend it to all Hemingway fans.