Day 94: A Moveable Feast First Impressions

Reading Hemingway is so inspiring to me because he can take a 'boring' scene and turn it into something powerful with just a few key details. This book is no different. The intro for A Moveable Feast sets the scene in Paris, from his apartment, to his daily routine as a writer, the café on the Place St. Michel, and a wide strip of city that he clearly knows like the back of his hand. Somehow, he's able to take the most mundane (and even outright disgusting) details and turn them into something that feels magical. He's able to convey the complex blend of feelings that a day spent in Paris in the good café gives him, first describing the building he lives in, the ugly café across the street where only the drunkards dare go, the way the sewage carriages don't stop there, and the smell that lingers around the place. Then he carries you to the nicer parts of the city, the finer things he gets to enjoy on a daily basis, the wonder he experiences when he watches the beautiful people there. While getting a sense of the setting, he's also able to convey his feelings as a writer and a young man, the mental state he's in, and even some of the most important practices in his writing. I can't believe how he's able to pack so much into so little.

I think I'm really going to enjoy this book. Even if the story doesn't take me in (which it probably will anyway), Hemingway is putting on such a master class with this book that I won't be able to put it down. Everything flows perfectly from one scene to the next, every detail is perfectly placed to add to the story rather than distracting, every moment feels special somehow, even if it is literally a description of the way some parts of the city leave their feces running down a wall. I haven't made it very far yet because I keep rereading passages that grab me trying to figure out how on Earth they're pulling me in so effectively. It's just the setting for crying out loud. How?!

I'm excited to continue reading this one, as you can probably tell. I'll probably have this one finished up sooner rather than later so be on the lookout for a full review next week.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley