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Summary: Read for Hemingway, not for Paris
Review: In preparation for an upcoming vacation to Paris, I thought I'd give "fine literature" a try. I have to admit I'm no fan of Hemingway. I just thought it would be great to see the City of Lights through a writer's eyes. My mistake was choosing an writer I don't really enjoy. Hemingway depresses me and this memoir was no different.Bottom line: If you are a Hemingway fan, you'll love his take on the city. If you are looking for a book set in Paris and aren't already a Hemingway fan, this may not be the book for you.
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Summary: This is actually my favorite Hemingway book
Review: Written in a welcoming and engaging style, A Moveable Feast reads as if Hemingway wasn't trying to be HEMINGWAY. It's light and funny, a little rambling in spots, which he never was in his 'literature,' and simply delightful. It focuses on that golden era in Paris when starving young artists didn't really have to starve as they gathered in the cafes and discussed life and art and literature and politics.
Peopled with memorable and well-known (try Gertrude Stein and Picasso) characters, Moveable Feast is a delight for modern readers.
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Summary: Hemingway's truth in 200 pages
Review: A moveable feast is honest and warm. The tales of a lost generation in Paris. To hear Hemmingway speak of Joyce, Pound, Fitzgerald etc. is almost seeing them there yourself. Living modestly him and his wife in a flat in Paris still have time for the joyous things. He recalls his tribulations as a journalist and a struggling story writer. I'm also delighted by the passage in which Aleister Crowley is walking the streets and is then referred to as "The wickedest man in the world", the entire book is charming.
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Summary: Invigorating tour de force
Review: Hemingway's classic lucid and laconic trademark writing style is indeed fully alive and well in the posthumously published A Moveable Feast. A Moveable Feast, the unique term used to describe Paris of the 1920's, reads like The Sun Also Rises - with great dialogue and characters. In fact, in the preface, Hemingway states, "If the reader prefers, this may be regarded as fiction." Hemingway admits to leaving out some details and happenings - some that were widely known and others that were "secrets". That being said, Hem(as he is affectionately called - seeing as he loathes Ernest) nonetheless emits a plethora of juicy details and tidbits that make A Moveable Feast a compelling and delightful novella - even if it is nonfiction. Hemingway runs the entire gamut(a word F. Scott uses much to Hem's displeasure) with his eclectic cast of expatriates including the virtually blind James Joyce, the alcoholic genius hypochondriac that is F. Scott Fitzgerald, the influential & eccentric Gertrude Stein, the elitist Ford Maddox Ford, the bel esprit of Ezra Pound, the selfish, insane, and terribly jealous Zelda Fitzgerald, a fellow who he profanely derides named Hal whom I suspect is Henry Miller and many, many more. By the way, we learn that La Generation Perdue inadvertently was coined by a garage mechanic of Gertrude Stein, not Gertrude herself. An indescribable feeling of vibrancy, vigor, and passion emanate from A Moveable Feast as Hemingway, despite being poor, inherently loves his life, writing, sipping his cafe de cremes and white wines in Paris cafes, as well as his continuously changing circle of friends. I highly recommend this short, yet unforgettable work, to all who want to learn what it truly was like when Hemingway was poor and unestablished living check to check - and nonetheless exerting an invigorating joie de vivre. Paris in the 20's - a time and place magically unlike any other in history. "It was all part of the fight against poverty that you never win except by not spending. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other." - Hemingway.
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Summary: How Paris was in early days, when we were poor & happy
Review: In those days there was no money to buy books or food, but we went to the racing every day. You could sit in a cafe to work until Ezra or Miss Stein or that cad Ford Madox Ford showed up. It was a fine time in Paris and every cafe he passed he saw writers whose stories were wonderful to read. He wrote about himself and his friends. His odd way of writing seemed good and true and fine. Even if you did not always like his novels his own story was amusing. "Hem," he said to himself, "To have come on all this new world of writing...was like having a great treasure given to you." Ah, there was a memoir worth the reading.
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Summary: Romantic
Review: The undercurrent here is Hemingway's love for his wife, how they make their way through their poverty in a city as fabulous as Paris, at a time after WWI when there was magic. Details into Hemingway's determination to be not just an author, but an excellent author; his meetings of, and friendships with, people who became famous later or were famous then. You are captured once you start, doesn't take long to read, a simple, clean style; satisfying, fascinating and inspiring; a must read.
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Summary: A Corps of Classic Artists in Paris in the 20s
Review: Hemmingway describes the people he cavorted with in France during the 1920's as Vonnegut portrays fantastic characters in his novels. The prose tells the idiosyncratic tales and eccentricities of writers making their way, or trying to make their way, on the streets of Paris after World War I. I enjoyed the book immensely, especially as it provided insight into the lives of many writers whom I had previously read, but never read about. Hemmingway describes reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gadsby when it was first published. He tells of his relationship with Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. He writes about visiting Gertrude Stein and others in his younger days in Paris. Hemmingway's vivid portrayal of many of the '20s most famous personalities has given me renewed interest to read their works, and his. I look forward to rereading The Sun Also Rises and other works of literary greatness. He also writes about what it is like to be a writer. Holding counsel with Fitzgerald and others, Hemmingway provides a snapshot into his discipline. This work presents great insight into the life of a truly great author.
Rating: 
Summary: a literary feast
Review: A Moveable Feast is a short book that glances over Hemingway's years in Paris. I don't know that you could call this much of a memoir, it doesn't go into great detail, and just sort of skims over his years in Paris. It was definitely written by an older Hemingway, one who was full of himself and bitterness. The style of writing seems different. This isn't the Hemingway I know from his short stories. The narration seems almost child-like, and definitely not written as well as his short stories. But don't let me make you think I didn't enjoy this book. Hemingway is still the greatest and A Moveable Feast was a wonderful book to read, if only for his portrait of Scott Fitzgerald. And there is a lot more humor used here than in his short stories. This book didn't break into my list of favorites, but it came close. (As a sidenote, if you enjoyed reading this, or want more like it, pick up Scott Berg's biography of Maxwell Perkins, _Max Perkins: Editor of Genius_, who was Hemingway's and Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner's.)
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Summary: Beautifully Melancholy
Review: What a fine book. The remembrance of Papa Hemingway of the time when he was simply Hem. The work is sparse. Certainly, many of the details are intentionally ommitted. In many ways A Moveable Feast is a big tease. Just like Hemingway's best short stories. Hemingway gives the reader the gift of a small insight into the life of a young artist in 1920s Paris. We see Hemingway hard at work writing in the cafes; hard at play flirting with painters' models; at home loving his young wife; at the foot of the looming Gertrude Stein. Hemingway also sketches his thoughts on Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, Pound, and Fitzgerald. Lots of kernals--nothing fully flushed out. That's why it works, I think. If Hemingway sat down and wrote a full memior, I am sure the reader eventually would fly away screaming, "enough is enough, you big gasbag." But Hemingway knew that his best work left the reader wanting more, left the mystery intact. We only get a glimpse of Hemingway which does not begin to explain his complex self-destructive personality--but it is a glimpse of genius, which, in this case, is enough.
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Summary: A remarkable introduction to Hemmingway
Review: Apart from an abortive attempt at "The Old Man and the Sea" in high school, I managed to avoid Hemmingway for fifty years. Now I wonder why. "A Moveable Feast" is so enchanting, so fascinating with its tart, funny, incisive portraits of Stein, Pound, Fitzgerald and others that I feel sad to have missed it for so long. Why Hemmingway took so long to write this memoir is anyone's guess, but perhaps the older writer understood things the younger one only lived. Whatever the reason, AMF is a wonderful mixture of the perspective of age and the enthusiasm of youth. It's a lovely portrait of a city where people too poor to own a cat can afford a cook and a nurse for their son. It's a tale of a writer writing, reading everything he can borrow from Shakespeare and Company, getting to know artists and authors and loving Paris and Parisians. If you read no other Hemmingway in your life, read this.
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