Yes. It's in the sequence about Ford Maddox Ford, who also
doesn't come across too well. He and Hemingway are sitting at
a cafe and a man walks by. Ford says to Hemingway, "Did you
see me cut him!" meaning that he hadn't acknowledged knowing
him. Ford told Hemingway it was a writer known by reputation
to both of them, but H found out later it was Crowley. His
point was that Ford had very low priorities and for the most
part, didn't know what he was talking about. A pretty funny
sequence.
Fitzgerald's family was crashing at that time. It's the era
Fitzgerald memorialized in TENDER IS THE NIGHT. I don't have
a problem with any of it. Hemingway was no saint nor did he
try to portray himself as one. He does seem to think he's
smarter than everyone else, but who doesn't? I think his
attempt in A MOVEABLE FEAST was to show his acquaintences,
warts and all. His initial meetings with Stein are
delightful. As he became successful, his friends began to
resent him, and he tended to resent them for doing so. I
think the emotions are best captured by Bob Dylan in his '65
song POSITIVELY 4TH ST. Hemingway's career soared past many
of the very great artists he knew in Paris and when you
become that successful, people do tend to hate you no matter
how close you were previously. People are seldom secure
enough to feel good about a friend's success. A MOVEABLE
FEAST captures the struggle to become an artist, and the
stupification of success. His explaination of how he
developed his short story techinque by meditating on
paintings in Louvre was more useful to me than any writing
course I've ever taken.
Patrick King
--- Michael Robison <
miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Patrick King wrote of A MOVABLE FEAST:
>
> It's a great portrait of people struggling
to
> create;
> chooseing alies and dealing with
professional
> jealousy, their own, and jealousy aimed at
them.
>
> ***************
> I have mixed feelings about it. I liked it
because
> of
> the wicked gossip woven into it. Really
nasty
> towards
> Gertrude Stein and Fitzgerald didn't come
out
> looking
> very good either. It's been a while since I read
it
> but doesn't it portray the beginning of the
collapse
> of the Fitzgerald family, with Zelda heading
towards
> crazy? My problem with it, though, is that it
shows
> Hemingway's tendency to turn against his
former
> friends, something pointed out earlier by
Richard
> Moore.
>
> As a side note on the who's who in A Movable
Feast,
> I
> think that there's a reference to a man walking by
a
> cafe with a cape on. It doesn't say, but I've
heard
> it's Aleister Crowley.
>
> And The Sun Also Rises is as near perfect as I
need
> in
> life.
>
> miker
>
>
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