31. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Category: 50 Books

Lately I’ve felt the need to read some American authors so I can beef up my literary chops. So I figured, hey, why not start with Papa, right? But I wanted a short book and something easy on the brain. What better than a dishy autobiography, yeah? I mean, those are right up my alley. Plus, that’s the thing about Hemingway anyway. You can’t read one of his novels without bringing his bio into it. Or is that just me? Plus, his books are usually about Guy Things. I don’t care about hunting. I’m not a fan of war stories. Bull fights? Gross. I hate to play the gender card, but I feel like Hemingway is Books For guys Who Like Books, or something.

So, A Moveable Feast. Dishy autobiography. This I can handle.

On one hand, it gets a pass because it was published posthumously and maybe he would’ve changed the whole thing, right? Or maybe he would have never published it. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don’t know. So it’s a book with short chapters of his life in Paris with his first wife and some of the famous writers he knew at that time. It was short and sweet.

On the other hand, my more expectant and judgemental hand, this book was terrible. I know, who the hell am I to call a Hemingway book terrible, I get it. I feel awful for saying it out loud even. But it’s true. I’m calling shenanigans.

1. The first 50 pages are unbearable. It gets a little better after that.

2. ALL OF THE DIALOGUE IS SHIT.
A. I don’t expect the man to remember everey word spoken in every conversation, okay? But I would expect better than this. He makes everyone sound like idiots. And I realize that this is the 1920s and that people may have talked differently back then, but I’m fairly certain that people weren’t ridiculous.
B. Every time his wife, whom you know he loved, speaks it sounds like the fakest, most simpering treacle.
C. I’m calling bullshit on all the dialogue with the other famous writers as well. He makes them look like idiots and makes himself seem like he was the only sensible person in Paris at that time.

3. While the stories of the other writers are dishy, they go beyond dish and straight to mean. He picks on Stein, Fitzgerald, Pound (though you can tell he generally liked Pound), I mean, in one chapter he actually talks about Fitzgerald’s penis. I get that that chapter was really him hating on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, you can tell he hated her, but dude, his penis? And it wasn’t that he makes fun of his penis (he doesn’t) but it’s that it shows that Fitzgerald doesn’t know what a normal-sized penis is? So that in itself (with Hem explaining to him) makes it seem like Fitzgerald is less than a man. Or something. It was just a mean story to add, is all.

4. I’m being redundant but in 2C? How he writes himself as sensible and everyone else as ridiculous? Hate.

5. He is constantly talking about being poor in Paris. Is this true? was Hemingway, a popular journalist who gave up his journalism job to write novels and such, ever actually poor? When I say he is constantly talking about being poor, I mean CONSTANTLY. But also, he is CONSTANTLY eating, drinking, meeting people, and writing in cafes. How damn poor are you when you’re eating and drinking wine and liquor in a cafe every damn day? I think he paints himself as poor, and it doesn’t work because it doesn’t ring true. It makes him look better somehow, next to the rich and famous he writes so loathingly about. They look like fools and he comes out smelling like a rose.

So if you want to read a fake autobiography of the “Lost Generation” might I suggest you read something by Lillian Hellman. She did a much better job with much better dialogue and even with her rapier-like wit and razor-sharp tongue, she was less mean-spirited.

If you think less of me because I called shenanigans on this book, I’m sorry. I really am. I wanted to be all, “Yay! Hemingway! Finally something refreshing after all of this crap crime fiction I’ve read, hooray for American authors!” I should’ve probably eased into it really, and started with something I know I like. But my favorite American authors are Poe and Shirley Jackson. And it feels like cheating to start out with favorites, right? Plus when you say you like Poe and Jackson it’s like saying, “I like ghost stories!” but see, that’s not exaclty right. I like very well-written ghost stories. thbpbpbpb!

We’ll see where my Great American Author Reading Fest goes from here.

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