Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast

Review by Carina Chavarria-Chairez

As a student who’s been at rest all summer, I was somewhat uneasy about jumping into a book as I simultaneously begin classes for yet another year. However, I was pleasantly relieved as I began reading A Moveable Feast.

The book is Hemingway’s personal account of his time in Paris during the 1920s. He speaks of his shift to writing as a full-time job, and we discover his “starving artist” lifestyle.

The reader gets to follow Hemingway’s relationships from his collaboration with other writers such as Ezra Pound to his eventual deteriorating bond with his wife. The diction is simpler than several works I have read recently, yet the writing still emanates a charming tone. It’s a nice read on a lunch break or before bed, for it’s not something that requires great amounts of intellectual energy. Even so, the stories are captivating.

Hemingway manages to give extremely clear accounts of the numerous, varied settings throughout the compilation of tales. On that note, it might bother some that A Moveable Feast is not simply a whole and linear tale, but I found that the subplots were easy to digest nonetheless.

As a huge admirer of social history, this is a book I would certainly recommend to other Wonders & Marvels readers. I find firsthand accounts very helpful in truly understanding time periods, for it is interesting to compare our self-narrative thoughts of today to the narratives of eras that sometimes feel so very far away.

Carina Chavarria-Chairez is an undergraduate student living in Manhattan trying to establish a good balance between feeding and clothing herself.