"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 movable feast." -1966
It's a quote from Ernest Hemingway's memoir, "A Moveable Feast" which records his early years living in Paris during the twenties, sitting in cafe circles with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Papa Hemingway, besides being an established writer in the classic American literary canon (and one of my personal favorites), was truly a man of his time. He was a man of the Lost Generation. He was recruited as an ambulance driver during World War I, which inspired A Farewell to Arms. He went on safari in East Africa, inspiring Green Hills of Africa and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. He fished on the Cuban coast, inspiring The Old Man and the Sea. He used the happenings of his everyday life and the world at large to cultivate stories. For Hemingway, life was a moveable feast. Life was something to be gobbled up and digested, and what produced were his stories.
Something we started discussing in class is this idea: that a person is a reflection of the time period he or she lives in, how literature and time are a reflection of each other. Its that idea of how life imitates art and vice-versa. And authors are still doing this fifty years after Hemingway's time, now, today in the twenty-first century.
This is a blog meant to record my thoughts, questions, and impressions of the required readings for the UNH course English 745 "Contemporary American Literature." Our readings, which span the 21st century are a reflection of the people, places, and politics of our time.
I hope to get to know all of you better in class!
And, as Papa Hemingway would, partake in your moveable feast!
