Rating: 
Summary: A real life 'The Sun Also Rises'
Review: Man...this book was...wow...not at all what I expected. I picked it up for a few cents at a used book store, intrigued by the description of it as "the wild young years of the lost generation in paris". Frankly I was thinking that it was probably going to be something akin to The Sun Also Rises, one of my favorite novels. But wow was I mistaken. Instead it is a memoir of 5 years of Hemingway's life in paris. These are the pre-Sun Also Rises and international fame years. He's a starving artist, living with his wife, Hadley, in the romantic, bohemian Left Bank of Paris. We are treated, and treated is the only word I can use, to many anecdotes of his life writing and socializing with his fellow expatriates. Hemingway gives us amazing portraits of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford (one of the most hilarious characters in his real life story), and, above all in my opinion, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Any literature buff will be in ectasy unimaginable by anyone else. There's an ancedote towards the end of the memoir where Scott Fitzgerald tells Hemingway that Zelda was complaing about his..er..'size'. To convince him that Zelda is just being difficult, Hemingway takes Fitzgerald to the Louvre to see the nudes. You just don't get that anywhere else....
Rating: 
Summary: A Rare Look at a Young Hemingway
Review: This book could very well be the best of Hemingway.A Moveable Feast was published after Hemingway's death and many feel that he would never have wanted it published. I'm very glad they did. It is a memoir of Hemingway's time in Paris during the 1920's. During that time he and his first wife, Hadley, lived on $5.00 a day. I first heard of this book in the movie, City of Angels (Nicholas Cage, Meg Ryan). In it, Cage reads a quote from it to Ryan. The quote interested me and I bought the book. I was amazed. The characters in this book are extroridnary including everyone from Ezra Pound to Aleister Crowley. He narrates stories including F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda that are so acidic they almost hurt to read. Hemingway was at his best when he wrote this book. It is a memoir of an aging man looking back on a very happy time in his life. Its a great place to start for Hemingway beginners and a touching read for Hemingway veterans.
Rating:
Summary: Sad and inspiring
Review: I used this book for my English practice to prepare to the GMAT and get better at writing essays. I know it is bizarre, but it is a gerat book for international students looking for style. Not a hard one, and a pleasant read. Especially good for RC and SC. Hemingway has good grammar. I borrowed one from a friend and i really wish I owned a copy... I even wanted to buy it right now from Amazon for $0.85. I love the many moments of Hemingway's student life in Paris. His encounters with many prominent writers, and struggles to have meals regularly. Eventually, as he got broke, he was forced to go to Austria to a ski resourt... I guess that's exactly what I will do when I run out of my loan money. By the way, when you get to the Bschool, make sure to get as much money as you can...it is easier to return than to get. Great for pensive melancholy evenings after a ding letter ;)
Rating:
Summary: Charming Memoir of a Young Hemingway in Paris
Review: This posthumously published short book is a memoir of Ernest Hemingway's Paris years in the mid 1920's. It is written as a series of brief vignettes with real names. Hemingway looks back, writing in the late 1950's in Cuba to the days in Paris when he was poor, young and happy. Hemingway describes coming to Paris from America in the early 1920's and meeting some of the literary expatriates of the Left Bank. He describes his friendship with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Ford Maddox Ford. He recalls a rainy road trip taken across France with F. Scott Fitzgerald. He joins Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company lending library and takes vacations to Italy, Austria and Spain. He works as a journalist for the Toronto Star while writing short stories and seeking to make a name for himself as a writer. He describes his discovery of and passion for bullfighting. He publishes collections of short stories and begins work on his first real novel. Hemingway's Paris days are spent sitting in cafes. He takes the act of writing seriously and sets out rules to keep his mind clear and prevent writer's block. He takes delight in discovering Shakespeare and Company, the Paris bookstore selling English language books. He has plenty of time to go sightseeing with his first wife Hadley during those years in Paris when they were "poor and happy." There is palpable sense of the older Hemingway looking back nostalgically on the good old days. He speaks frankly of his old friends, pulling no punches even to the point of portraying them quite unflatteringly. Most interesting of all is his ritualized approach to writing. He writes only in the morning, usually alone in a small room he has rented just for that purpose. He forces himself to stop while his story is still unfolding in his mind so that he will have something to write about the next day. He makes a point of reading books, visiting museums and especially observing Parisians going about their daily business. These things he incorporates into his writing. This is not a novel in the traditional sense, nor is it a rigidly chronologically ordered memoir. The starting and ending points of the vignettes are not specifically defined. I would recommend that anyone who reads this follow up by reading Michael Reynolds's "Hemingway, The Paris Years." The timeframe of the two books almost perfectly coincides and Reynolds's book will give you a perspective on the things Hemingway leaves unsaid. The final chapter in which Hemingway places the blame for the break-up of his first marriage to Hadley on his second wife Pauline Pfeifer, while not taking any responsibility for his unfaithfulness, is almost bizarre to read. Since this book was published after his death, it is surprising to me that his children by Pauline did not wish to see it suppressed. Pauline is portrayed as a husband stealing, back stabber single mindedly luring an unwilling Hemingway away from his loving gullible wife and young child.
Rating: 
Summary: alright...
Review: well as a Hemingway fan,this was one of the reasons why I choose to read it. I enjoy Hemingway's attention to detail which is why I love reading his works, but I must confess I did not see what all the hype was about this book. I was quite frankly bored with it. I finished it, but if you want know Hemingway read any other of his novels and then read this one.
Rating:
Summary: One of Hemingway's Best
Review: This is my 100th review and when I realized I was approaching number 100, I puzzled over what book to make my list as my 100th review. Hemingway immediately came to mind, but then the question was, which one? I finally decided on this, which may well be my favorite Hemingway work. Even though it was published posthumously, this book does not reek of other hands having been all over it as have some other posthumous Hemingway publications. It has been questioned as to how much of this book is fact and how much fiction. Even Hemingway raised the issue at the beginning of the book. It doesn't really matter. In this book Hemingway is recollecting events that occurred over roughly a five year period which were over thirty years past when he started on the book. So, no doubt of it may well be fiction, given the passage of time. But the book is monumental in that it is perhaps the quietest and most elegant of Hemingway's books. It is broken into chapters that recount various episodes in his life during that period he dwelled largely in Paris. It is sometimes funny, occasionally sad, but always intriguing. As I write this, I'm slowly convincing myself that it is my favorite work by him. We are introduced to Hemingway's circle of friends and acquaintances from that period: Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, and the always interesting F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. It's amazing how many other literary figures Hemingway came in contact with during his life and he gives interesting tales of all of them. Even if you normally dislike Hemingway, I truly believe you will love reading this memoir. A true literary triumph and recounting of a time like none we will ever see again.
Rating:
Summary: Poetry in Prose
Review: This was the second book I read by Ernest Hemingway, but it was the book that I most wanted to read. I have always heard how beautiful this novel was, and it was underestimated. This novel is like poetry in prose. The descriptions of Paris are enough to make anyone romaticize about this city and his descriptions of his friends, family, and colleagues will make them seem almost more than human. There is a mixture of happiness, that he obviously felt during these years, and of melancoly of a man remembering a better time in his life. His love for his first wife is so obvious here that it seems so sad when, in the end, it fails. But most of all I loved the idea that Paris was a moveable feast, meaning that no matter where he goes in life he can take the experiences, feelings, and innocence of this time in his life with him to keep him warm. No matter how cold and rainy the winter may be, there will always be a spring.
Rating:
Summary: Celebrity
Review: A great book for die-hard fans of Hemmingway, A Moveable Feast will disappoint many readers. For the average person, it would make more sense to read his famous novels first. While it is interesting to know what Paris was like between the Wars, and to read about some of the other famous people Hemmingway knew (Fitzgerald, Stein, Joyce, Elliot, Pound), it's not half as engaging as great novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, or The Old Man and the Sea. So check those out first. And if you already have and are getting into the rest of his stuff, good for you, but I bet there is plenty of other "rest of" to get to ahead of this. Of course, if you are really into Paris, writers from the turn of the century, and/or dirty laundry, then feast away.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful description of Fitzgeralds
Review: Honestly, I am recommending this book solely on the last three or four chapters where he talks about the Fitzgeralds. In those pages, Scott Fitzgerald comes to life and is held immortal in its print. The rest of the book is interesting and held my attention even though I don't know who everyone is that he talks about. I recognize their names though - Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound - and believe those parts would have been a lot more enjoyable if I had already read their work. One thing at a time ... I'll get to them eventually. It would also help to be familiar with the layout of Paris for he describes his the routes of his walks in detail. It strikes me, though I am not a writer, that this book should be read by anyone who aims to write. He describes the "writing process" and talks about what worked for him and what didn't. More importantly, he talked about being hungry as a new writer ... words of encouragement no doubt when those to follow his footsteps and wonder if hunger is the precursor to failure.
Rating:
Summary: ...beauty is truth, truth beauty.
Review: I like a good story as much as the next guy. But this is not a good story. This is a compilation of encounters between Hemmingway and various well known figures in Paris during the 1920's and his reflections of his own life and those of others. Although the author states that it may be considered a work of fiction, it has the feel of an autobiography, sort of. No, it is not a good story. As a story goes, it is quite dull. The plot is non-existent and a seemingly enless train of mostly unrelated mundane anecdotes populate the slim novel. A day at the races, the fishermen on the Sein, a full description of every meal eaten in a scene (as well as the extensive list of alcohol imbibed) do not make for riveting fiction. It is brilliant. Here is a work that is almost all style and no substance. This is art at its most sublime level. What Hemmingway did put in this novel was Truth. Truth with a capital T because I am not referring to the synonym of factual but instead the conveyence of reality. The rythym of the words set the pace of the city. The descriptions of things and places are brought to life with hypnotic clarity and with such consumate skill with words that it is difficult to put the novel down; not because you simply must know what will happen to the hero next, but because it seems a jolt to your own reality to be suddenly extricated from Paris. And yet, the simplistic sparse Hemmingway prose which brings these images to life, seem now as transparent as air. No flowery phrases, no poetry, just Truth. For anyone who is curious what Hemmingway thought about Ezra Pound or Gertrude Stein, for anyone who is curious what F. Scott Fitzgerald was like, and wonder about Hemmingway's opinion of him as a person and a writer, this should be the next book on your list. This is truly a work of literature.
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