A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway - Book Review

No analysis can convey Ernest Hemingway’s writing style and rich work. Hemingway isn’t only a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner, but he is also celebrated as the greatest and most influential American novelist in the 20th century.

His most memorable novels include “The Old Man and The Sea”, “A Farwell To Arms”, and “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. These books showed his machine-like writing style and how precise and austere it was.

The latter inspired many, including the famous metal band Metallica who released a song with the same name. While the title of the novel itself was inspired by a poem that was published by John Donne and the entire poem can be found in this book.

 “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

A Moveable Feast was one of Hemingway’s earliest writing that was published posthumously in 1964 after the author had taken his own life almost 3 years earlier.

The young author had worked in journalism and served in World War I. His time in Paris right after the war has ended inspired him to write this memoir that describes, in detail, his struggles with money and how he managed to live off what little he made.

Some controversy surrounded the publication of this novel by Mary Hemingway as many of Ernest’s fans believed that Mary had made some alterations to the original novel.

Mary was believed to remove a lengthy apology for Mr. Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, while others defended by ensuring that she has published the novel just like the novelist intended without any adjustments.

This novel showed so many sides of Hemingway that has led to disagreements between different generations of readers, critics, and academics. Some viewed Hemingway as sexist and closed-minded for mocking many sensitive subjects.  While others believed that he defied society’s untouched norms way long before the era of political correctness.

This memoir features some of the most celebrated authors in history including Sylvia Beach, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott and his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald.

His interaction with the Great Gatsby’s author has raised many controversies around the author’s sexuality as there was a discussion about Fitzgerald’s manhood where Hemingway reassures him to get over his sexual difficulties. Hemingway’s recollections are almost gossipy throughout the memoir. 

The reason why people never agreed on a certain evaluation of this book is that this book's evaluation is a reflection of personal taste and opinions rather than the quality of the memoir and how well it was written. However, it still managed to reveal many insights from Hemingway’s life, beliefs, writing struggles, and style.