i could always be wrong
In my effort to reads outside my usual, I picked up A Moveable Feast thinking that it was probably time I got over my prejudice against Hemingway and a memoir was probably a good place to start. I enjoy reading about the lives of writers. Their writing philosophy and process is fascinating to me. Hemingway is no exception. He wrote ritualistically: in the morning in a particular room. He wrote like a job (or perhaps a quest) and left when he was right in the middle of it, so that he would be able to begin with a clear idea in mind. As a writer he was interested in people and places, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in language. Language is a necessary tool, nothing more, which is why he wrote so simply. He didn’t bother with flowery words or florid reflection. His focus was on action, and he would have us say, truth.
His quest, as a writer, was of truth. I appreciated the passage where he wrote about his desire to write one true sentence and follow it with another. However, he was known to “embroider” facts a bit, and he warns us in the preface to A Moveable Feast that this book may well be taken as fiction. Are the vignettes of his life in Paris in this book true? Does that matter? It was written thirty years after the fact, and he looked back on those years in Paris as when they were very poor and very happy. He writes of his friends, his work, and his city. Paris, the moveable feast, where one could live cheaply in the company of the writers and artists of the day.
I appreciate his “iceberg principle” of writing, but I need to read more closely in order to see it, I think. Some of the best writing advice I ever received came from a friend who knowingly or unknowingly referenced Hemingway’s idea of omission. He said that writers don’t have to tell everything. Some things need to be left for the reader, so that the story will move with dignity. Perhaps I haven’t read closely enough, for other than the end of AMF where Hemingway describes the affair that ends his first marriage, I felt like he told me everything. But I think that this is because I am used to reading books with more reflection, and action or other details are left to the imagination. This was a very different read for me, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was not as tedious as it was different. I agree very much with his philosophy, but I have a different perspective, it seems.
It was hard for me to really engage with this book because I don’t have a nostalgic view of poverty. It’s hard for me to relate to people who choose to be poor because it makes their lives more romantic or it makes their art more valid/true. But for Hemingway, this was the time when he was happy. He was still crafting his trade, getting to know other writers, and questing for truth. Life was simple, and it could be anything. I can appreciate that.
He ends the memoir with a vague description of his affair with a friend of his wife’s that effectively ends the happy years. Some have said that it is bizarre to read of how he takes no responsibility for his actions, placing the blame squarely on the woman who became his second wife. It was sort of strange to read. It seemed such a shift from the rest of the story. While he didn’t seem to take responsibility for the infidelity, he did speak with regret for what the affair ended.
This book didn’t make me love Hemingway, but I hope that it helped me to understand where he was coming from as a writer. Perhaps the next Hemingway I read will be read more open mindedly.
On a side note, I am now interested in reading some more Fitzgerald.