A Moveable Feast: A Love Letter to Paris
Hemingway's Parisian Odyssey
“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.”
My early impression of Paris was shaped by this quote from Hemingway. I don’t remember when or where I read or heard it, but it’s the most memorable description of a city I’ve ever encountered!
I remember buying the book many years ago, but either because of the Farsi translation or its ugly cover, I never got through it. Luckily, I donated all my translated books, and now I must read and reread all of them in English, without censorship!
Anyway, I listened to the audiobook, but when I like a book, I need a print copy to feel relaxed and happy. So, yes, I’ve ordered a secondhand 2000 Vintage edition to keep on my bookshelf!
listening to the audiobook, I was impressed by Hemingway’s narrative of his life! Some writers tell their stories like poems. Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is one of them, and A Moveable Feast—though it is a memoir—felt like I was reading a poem!
"You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen."
“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people, and if you could avoid making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few who were as good as spring itself.”
I could imagine spending my time with him in 1920s Paris, chatting and traveling with Fitzgerald, and receiving valuable advice:
“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
I liked his approach to writing—so disciplined, so confident, and professional. As someone who has always dreamed of being a writer, I hope to one day say:
‘I belong to this notebook and this pencil.’
A Moveable Feast is like a masterclass on how to be a great writer!
“I always worked until I had something done, and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way, I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes, when I was starting a new story and couldn’t get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the blue sputter they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before, and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally, I would write one true sentence and go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or heard someone say. If I started writing elaborately or like someone introducing something, I would cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away, starting again with the first true, simple declarative sentence I had written. Up in that room, I decided that I would write one story about each thing I knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was a good and severe discipline.”
“Since I had started to break down all my writing, getting rid of facility and trying to make instead of describe, writing had become wonderful to do.”
I also liked learning about his feelings and thoughts—how he loved his wife, how fragile he was when he thought he might hurt her, and how he still couldn’t help being young and acting juvenile.
“When two people love each other, are happy and gay, and one or both of them is doing really good work, people are drawn to them as surely as migrating birds are drawn at night to a powerful beacon. If those two people were as solidly constructed as the beacon, there would be little damage except to the birds. Those who attract people through their happiness and performance are usually inexperienced. They do not know how not to be overrun and how to go away. They do not always learn about the good, attractive, charming, soon-beloved, and generous rich, who have no bad qualities and who give each day the quality of a festival, and who, after taking the nourishment they needed, leave everything deader than the roots of any grass Attila’s horses’ hooves have ever scoured.”
His descriptions of food and drink are amazing! The way he describes his experiences makes you want to go to Paris and eat and drink whatever he had!
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
Café as the writer’s office:
Another remarkable aspect of the book is learning about the habits and culture of writers and young people at that time. Sitting in cafés as a writer’s workplace is one of the most important parts of the book for me, and it resonates deeply with my own culture.
“The people I liked and hadn’t met went to the big cafés because they were lost in them, unnoticed, and could be alone in them together.”
Sitting in cafés, writing, and having intellectual conversations with fellow writers, artists, and cultural and political activists was central to Hemingway’s time, and it has played a similar role for Iranian writers, poets, and artists—especially during the Pahlavi era. Where Cafés provided a platform for intellectuals to engage with new ideas and challenge traditional norms. Cafés have always been regular spots for them to gather. This could be due to the influence of French culture on Iranian elites at that time. It was common for them to travel to France for their studies, and French fashion and language remain popular among Persians. A great example is Sadegh Hedayat, one of the pioneers of modern Persian literature, who frequented cafés to write. His favorite spot in Tehran, Café Naderi, is still one of the city’s iconic cafés. He’s buried in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Today, despite all the limitations imposed by the government, cafés remain popular places for the younger generation.
And as we reach the end of Hemingway’s first Parisian era, we feel the same sentiment:
"But we were not invulnerable, and that was the end of the first part of Paris. Paris was never to be the same again, though it was always Paris, and you changed as it changed... this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."
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Thank you for this fantastic review