There’s nothing like following Hemingway through the streets of Paris, meeting his friends and hearing his stories.

A Moveable Feast is a tiny glimpse into the day to day life of the lost generation. It captures those years that came and went in the interbellum, and you can really feel Hemingway reminiscing and celebrating those times in his way. “They’re all dead now,” he says later. He lived long enough to see the other become legends. It’s really bittersweet how he seems to me to be going back and setting the record straight, letting us in on the secrets they shared, granting us the privilege to hear Miss Stein’s thoughts on Huxley or Lawrence, or introducing us to people who were so central in that expat life like Sylvia Beach. 

This may very well be the Paris book. “We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. 

Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.” I do wish we also had evidence from the later times, when Hemingway was no longer a struggling aspiring writer. That should really have been something.

Closing remarks on the Zelda shaped elephant in the room. Obviously Hemingway blaming her for Scott’s being the absolute idiot he described is misguided. It’s also not his place to dismiss her as crazy. But I think he captures two things with his descriptions: how toxic their marriage undeniably was, which is again the stuff of legend; and his own jealousy for not being able to bring the best out of his friend. It’s really quite touching, he humbles Scott one moment, and the next he’s saying what a pure talent he is in better words than anyone ever could. I think the frustration that Ernest feels with how things ended for Scott really transpires and it’s moving. Also just love how this is the third book where the story of Zelda’s cheating is recounted, apart from Zelda’s own account and then Scott’s, and I love how Hemingway points out how the story gets repeated to friends all the time and is always different. Like these two literally just did it all for the plot. And we got three five-stars books out of it, so I’m not complaining.