A Moveable Feast
Encyclopedia
A Moveable Feast is a set of memoirs by American
author Ernest Hemingway
(July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) about his years in Paris
as part of the American expatriate circle of writers in the 1920s. The book describes Hemingway's apprenticeship as a young writer in Europe (especially in Paris) during the 1920s with his first wife, Hadley. Some of the later prominent people who are featured in his memoirs include Aleister Crowley
, Ezra Pound
, F. Scott Fitzgerald
, Ford Madox Ford
, Hilaire Belloc
, Pascin
, John Dos Passos
, Wyndham Lewis
, James Joyce
and Gertrude Stein
.
The book was not published during Hemingway's life, but edited from his manuscripts and notes by his widow and fourth wife, Mary Hemingway. It was published in 1964, three years after Hemingway's death. An edition revised by his grandson Seán Hemingway was published in 2009.
The memoir consists of Hemingway's personal accounts, observations, and stories of his experience in 1920s Paris. He provides specific addresses of cafes, bars, hotels, and apartments, some of which can be found in modern-day Paris. The title was suggested by Hemingway's friend A.E. Hotchner, author of the biography, Papa Hemingway. He remembered they had a conversation about the city during Hotchner's first visits there: "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."
in Paris. The trunk contained notebooks he had filled during the years he lived in Paris. He had the notebooks transcribed. During the period when he worked on the book, The Dangerous Summer
, he also brought the Paris memoir to a final draft stage. Scribner's published A Moveable Feast in 1964 after Hemingway's death, when it had been edited by his fourth wife and widow, Mary Hemingway.
, in her capacity as Hemingway's literary executor, edited the manuscript.
Literary scholar Gerry Brenner from the University of Montana documented her edits and questioned their validity in his 1982 paper, "Are We Going to Hemingway's Feast?". He concluded that some edits were misguided, and others derived from questionable motives. He suggested the changes appeared to contradict Mary's stated policy for her role as executor, which had been a hands-off approach. Brenner and other researchers have examined the collection of Ernest Hemingway's personal papers, which were opened to the public in 1979 with the completion of the John F. Kennedy Library
, where they are held in Boston. Included are Hemingway's notes and initial drafts of A Moveable Feast. Brenner indicates that Mary changed the order of the chapters in Hemingway's final draft, apparently to "preserve chronology". Brenner notes the change interrupted the series of juxtaposed character sketches of such individuals as Sylvia Beach
(owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company
) and Gertrude Stein
. Additionally, Brenner points out that one chapter, titled "Birth of a New School", which Hemingway had dropped in his draft, was re-inserted by Mary. Brenner alleges the most serious edit was deleting Hemingway's lengthy apology to Hadley
, his first wife. This apology appeared in various forms in every draft of the book. Brenner suggests that Mary deleted it because it impugned her own role as wife.
In contrast, A.E. Hotchner has said that he received a near final draft of A Moveable Feast and the version that Mary Hemingway published is essentially the draft which he had read in 1957. Therefore, the original publication is the version Hemingway intended and Mary Hemingway did not revise or add chapters. He believed it represented Ernest's intentions.
pointed out the artificially heroic nature of Hemingway's self-portrait in A Moveable Feast. He contrasted it with the sexual ambiguity and fascination with androgyny
found in Hemingway's unfinished novel, The Garden of Eden
. Kennedy examines how textual evidence from both published material and unpublished papers from the collection at the JFK Library seem to project a contrasting picture of Hemingway's sexuality. Noting that the clumsy "created" nature of the young Hemingway in A Moveable Feast is well-established as fraudulent (e.g., Hemingway had access to large sums of money during the time he was in Paris, yet portrayed himself as "starving"), Kennedy points out that Hemingway writes as if he were the only person in his literary circle in Paris who was sexually stable and healthy, in contrast to F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Gertrude Stein
. This self-assured image, however, is in stark contrast with the confused and experimenting protagonist of The Garden of Eden.
Kennedy notes significant textual clues, such as a fascination with androgynous haircuts and the redacted sections of A Moveable Feast, which refer to the period when Hemingway was having an affair with his second wife Pauline
while still married to Hadley. Kennedy concluded Hemingway's "obsession" with indistinct gendering was central to his character, a conclusion also alleged by the critic Mark Spilka and biographer Kenneth Lynn.
and grandson of Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer
. He made numerous changes:
From the new foreword by Patrick Hemingway
:
, a granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and first wife Hadley Richardson, had acquired the film and television rights to the memoir with American film producer John Goldstone.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
(July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) about his years in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as part of the American expatriate circle of writers in the 1920s. The book describes Hemingway's apprenticeship as a young writer in Europe (especially in Paris) during the 1920s with his first wife, Hadley. Some of the later prominent people who are featured in his memoirs include Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
, Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature...
, Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
, Pascin
Pascin
Julius Mordecai Pincas, known as Pascin, Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was born in Bulgaria to parents of four ethnicities. During World War I, he worked in the United States. He is best known as a painter in Paris, where he was strongly identified with the Modernist movement and...
, John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos
John Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos , a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia. The elder Dos Passos...
, Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
.
The book was not published during Hemingway's life, but edited from his manuscripts and notes by his widow and fourth wife, Mary Hemingway. It was published in 1964, three years after Hemingway's death. An edition revised by his grandson Seán Hemingway was published in 2009.
The memoir consists of Hemingway's personal accounts, observations, and stories of his experience in 1920s Paris. He provides specific addresses of cafes, bars, hotels, and apartments, some of which can be found in modern-day Paris. The title was suggested by Hemingway's friend A.E. Hotchner, author of the biography, Papa Hemingway. He remembered they had a conversation about the city during Hotchner's first visits there: "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."
Background
In 1956 Hemingway found a trunk he had left years before in the basement of the Ritz HotelHôtel Ritz Paris
The Hôtel Ritz is a grand palatial hotel in the heart of Paris, the 1st arrondissement. It overlooks the octagonal border of the Place Vendôme at number 15...
in Paris. The trunk contained notebooks he had filled during the years he lived in Paris. He had the notebooks transcribed. During the period when he worked on the book, The Dangerous Summer
The Dangerous Summer
The Dangerous Summer is a book written by Ernest Hemingway published in 1985, which describes the rivalry between bullfighters Luis Miguel Dominguín and his brother-in-law Antonio Ordóñez during the "dangerous summer" of 1959...
, he also brought the Paris memoir to a final draft stage. Scribner's published A Moveable Feast in 1964 after Hemingway's death, when it had been edited by his fourth wife and widow, Mary Hemingway.
Commentary on editing
Ernest Hemingway worked on the manuscript of A Moveable Feast during his later years, rewriting several key passages. He had prepared a final draft before he died. After his death, his fourth wife MaryMary Welsh Hemingway
Mary Welsh Hemingway was an American journalist and the fourth wife of Ernest Hemingway.Born in Minnesota, Welsh was a daughter of a lumberman. When she was 32, she married Lawrence Miller Cook, a drama student from Ohio. Their life together was short and they soon separated...
, in her capacity as Hemingway's literary executor, edited the manuscript.
Literary scholar Gerry Brenner from the University of Montana documented her edits and questioned their validity in his 1982 paper, "Are We Going to Hemingway's Feast?". He concluded that some edits were misguided, and others derived from questionable motives. He suggested the changes appeared to contradict Mary's stated policy for her role as executor, which had been a hands-off approach. Brenner and other researchers have examined the collection of Ernest Hemingway's personal papers, which were opened to the public in 1979 with the completion of the John F. Kennedy Library
John F. Kennedy Library
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and museum of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. It is located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, next to the Boston campus of the University of...
, where they are held in Boston. Included are Hemingway's notes and initial drafts of A Moveable Feast. Brenner indicates that Mary changed the order of the chapters in Hemingway's final draft, apparently to "preserve chronology". Brenner notes the change interrupted the series of juxtaposed character sketches of such individuals as Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach , born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and II.-Early life:...
(owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company or Shakespeare & Company may refer to:*Shakespeare and Company , an English-language bookshop in Paris, France; hosts the annual Shakespeare & Company Literary Festival in June....
) and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
. Additionally, Brenner points out that one chapter, titled "Birth of a New School", which Hemingway had dropped in his draft, was re-inserted by Mary. Brenner alleges the most serious edit was deleting Hemingway's lengthy apology to Hadley
Hadley Richardson
Elizabeth Hadley Richardson married writer Ernest Hemingway in 1921. She was born the youngest daughter to a St. Louis family. After Hadley fell out of a window as a child, her mother became overprotective and curtailed her activities from then on...
, his first wife. This apology appeared in various forms in every draft of the book. Brenner suggests that Mary deleted it because it impugned her own role as wife.
In contrast, A.E. Hotchner has said that he received a near final draft of A Moveable Feast and the version that Mary Hemingway published is essentially the draft which he had read in 1957. Therefore, the original publication is the version Hemingway intended and Mary Hemingway did not revise or add chapters. He believed it represented Ernest's intentions.
Criticism
A.E. Hotchner, a friend and biographer of Hemingway, alleged that Seán Hemingway had edited the new edition, in part, to exclude references to his grandmother, Hemingway's second wife Pauline Pfeiffer, which he had found less than flattering. Other critics also have found fault with some of the editorial changes. Irene Gammel writes about the new edition: "Ethically and pragmatically, restoring an author's original intent is a slippery slope when the published text has stood the test of time and when edits have been approved by authors or their legal representatives." Pointing to the complexity of the author-function, she concludes: “Mary's version should be considered the definitive one, while the ‘restored’ version provides access to important unpublished contextual sources that illuminate the evolution of the 1964 edition.”Implications of sexual identity and androgyny
In discussion of other issues related to the memoir, the literary critic J. Gerald Kennedy of Louisiana State UniversityLouisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
pointed out the artificially heroic nature of Hemingway's self-portrait in A Moveable Feast. He contrasted it with the sexual ambiguity and fascination with androgyny
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
found in Hemingway's unfinished novel, The Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is the second posthumously released novel of Ernest Hemingway, published in 1986. Begun in 1946, Hemingway worked on the manuscript for the next 15 years, during which time he also wrote The Old Man and the Sea, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, and Islands in the...
. Kennedy examines how textual evidence from both published material and unpublished papers from the collection at the JFK Library seem to project a contrasting picture of Hemingway's sexuality. Noting that the clumsy "created" nature of the young Hemingway in A Moveable Feast is well-established as fraudulent (e.g., Hemingway had access to large sums of money during the time he was in Paris, yet portrayed himself as "starving"), Kennedy points out that Hemingway writes as if he were the only person in his literary circle in Paris who was sexually stable and healthy, in contrast to F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
and Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
. This self-assured image, however, is in stark contrast with the confused and experimenting protagonist of The Garden of Eden.
Kennedy notes significant textual clues, such as a fascination with androgynous haircuts and the redacted sections of A Moveable Feast, which refer to the period when Hemingway was having an affair with his second wife Pauline
Pauline Pfeiffer
Pauline Marie Pfeiffer was the second wife of the writer Ernest Hemingway. She was born in Parkersburg, Iowa, on July 22, 1895, moving to St. Louis in 1901 where she went to school at Visitation Academy of St. Louis...
while still married to Hadley. Kennedy concluded Hemingway's "obsession" with indistinct gendering was central to his character, a conclusion also alleged by the critic Mark Spilka and biographer Kenneth Lynn.
2009 edition
In 2009 a new edition, titled the "Restored Edition," was published by, Seán Hemingway assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
and grandson of Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer
Pauline Pfeiffer
Pauline Marie Pfeiffer was the second wife of the writer Ernest Hemingway. She was born in Parkersburg, Iowa, on July 22, 1895, moving to St. Louis in 1901 where she went to school at Visitation Academy of St. Louis...
. He made numerous changes:
- The previous introductory letter by Hemingway, pieced together from various fragments by Mary Hemingway, was removed.
- The chapter called "Birth of a New School" and large sections of "Ezra Pound and the Measuring Worm," "There is Never Any End to Paris," and "Winter in Schruns" have all been re-added. The unpublished "The Pilot Fish and the Rich" has been added.
- Chapter 7 ("Shakespeare and Company") has been moved to be chapter 3, and chapter 16 ("Nada y Pues Nada") has been moved to the end of the book.
- Hemingway's use of the second person has been restored in many places, a change which Seán asserts "brings the reader into the story."
From the new foreword by Patrick Hemingway
Patrick Hemingway
Patrick Hemingway is Ernest Hemingway's second son, and the first born to Hemingway's second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. During his childhood he travelled frequently with his parents, and then attended Harvard University, graduated in 1950, and shortly thereafter moved to East Africa where he lived for...
:
- [H]ere is the last bit of professional writing by my father, the true foreword to A Moveable Feast: "This book contains material from the remises of my memory and of my heart. Even if the one has been tampered with and the other does not exist."
Film and television adaptations
On September 15, 2009, Daily Variety announced that Mariel HemingwayMariel Hemingway
- Early life :Hemingway was born in Mill Valley, California, the third daughter of Byra Louise Hemingway and Jack Hemingway, a writer. Her sisters are Joan Hemingway and Margaux Hemingway...
, a granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and first wife Hadley Richardson, had acquired the film and television rights to the memoir with American film producer John Goldstone.
Cultural references
- The book is featured in the movie, City of Angels (1998), during an exchange between Nicolas CageNicolas CageNicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
and Meg RyanMeg RyanMargaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
. - Woody Allen's Midnight in ParisMidnight in ParisMidnight in Paris is a 2011 romantic comedy-fantasy film written and directed by Woody Allen. The plot centers on a small group of Americans visiting the French capital for business and pleasure...
(2011) is partly set in the Paris of the 1920s evoked in Hemingway's book. The movie features the Owen WilsonOwen WilsonOwen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
character interacting with the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and uses the phrase "a moveable feast" on two occasions.