I've done it. First Zelda, then Hadley, then Scott, and finally Hem. Completing A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's recollection of his first five years in Paris,  felt like completing a jigsaw puzzle. Z taught me about Zelda Fitzgerald and how she felt about her husband and the Hemingways. The Paris Wife introduced me to the tragically romantic life of Hadley Hemingway, and it showed me how she felt about the Fitzgeralds. Between the Short Autobiography of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tender is the Night, I feel like I know F. Scott Fitzgerald and his perception of the people around him.  And A Moveable Feast was the perfect way to wrap it up.

Since people in the book call Ernest "Hem" (except Hadley, who calls him Tatie), that's exactly what I'm going to do. Hem is admirable. His writing oftentimes mirrors his personality - it's simple and straightforward, it's got depth and it can rip your heart out. At least, A Moveable Feast did that to me. By reading The Paris Wife before this memoir, I had excellent background information while I cruised through this novel.  I think I have a secret obsession with the romance between Hadley and Hem, because I found myself rereading the chapters in which she was mentioned.  I have a very strong inkling that he wrote this book as an apology to her.

Although the author discusses his relationship with several friends (Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Sylvia Beach), I learned the most about Fitzgerald from this book. Hem painted a picture of a man who couldn't hold his alcohol and desperately needed his wife's approval - but, he also seems to enjoy his company. They feed off of each other's strengths. While Fitzgerald can offer the advice of a published author, Hem can offer the social maturity and cool-headedness that Scott and Zelda lack.  Their friendship is both deep and shallow. They might be guilty of using each other to further their own careers,  but they genuinely wanted to see each other succeed.

I highly recommend reading the restored version of this memoir. Originally, the book was edited for publication by Mary Hemingway after Ernest's death; however, his sons, Patrick and Sean, poured through the original manuscripts to put together this version of the book, which stays truer to Hem's intentions for his readers. It also includes a very interesting collection of scrapped introductory paragraphs for the memoir, all of which address Hadley directly. Here's what I mean: 

And there's also:

Are you sensing a theme? Here's one more (remember that last phone call Hadley had with Tatie in The Paris Wife?):

As you can probably gather from these drafts, the book is full of praise for Hadley. It talks about how much fun they had together, how pleasant she was, and how he broke her heart. And it breaks my heart all over again to read about their romance from Hem's vantage point. It really is a fantastic book, and I hope any lover of this generation's work will take the time to read it. 

PS: If you haven't read any of the books in this blog yet, the order in which I've read them has been amazing - like they were intended to be read in this sequence. If you follow in this order, let me know what you think! Happy reading.

After finishing Z (and recommending it to all of my friends), I was compelled to read as much as I possibly could about the expatriates in the social circle of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. One of the books recommended to me was the best-seller "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain, a novel told through the eyes of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife. I am so glad I read it when I did.

If you're a serial reader like myself, you can't go wrong reading this book after you've finished the story of Zelda's life with husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Z narrates the intricate F. Scott Fitzgerald-Ernest Hemingway bond formed in Paris through Zelda's eyes, The Paris Wife does the same through Hadley's eyes, also shedding light on how other people perceive Zelda and her eccentricities. It's the perfect recipe for obsession. 

The story paints a bleak picture of a girl in her twenties, slightly depressed, uninvested in her own life. Both of Hadley's parents had passed away, her depressed father committed suicide in their family home, and her controlling, feminist mother had recently died of an illness. Hadley, who could have had her own job and home at this point in her life, was single and living temporarily with her sister and her husband in St. Louis. Then she met Ernest.

It's another whirlwind romance, much like the Fitzgeralds: an unlikely match - naive, understated Hadley and exciting, ambitious (and younger) budding author Ernest that begins on a trip to Chicago and results in an abundance of heartfelt letters written back and forth. The transformation of Hadley's attitude is nothing short of captivating - the once emotionally-drained girl in her mid-to-late-twenties becomes excited, eager to receive mail from Ernest. After reading their many correspondences, I honest-to-God wanted to start writing love letters to my husband from work. Handwritten letters are such a lost romance.

The two marry quickly. They venture to Paris, living in a meager apartment as Ernest begins his writing career. They soon find friends in the same expatriate circle as Z - Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hadley has few friends and often finds herself biding her time alone at the apartment, waiting for Ernest to come back from his writing quarters elsewhere. Hadley would do anything for the betterment of Ernest, something that Ernest reciprocates for a while, but stops dramatically toward the end of the novel.

Hadley isn't your typical 1920s Parisian housewife - instead of joining the latest fashion trends, she sticks to her modest attire. She bobs her hair but instantly regrets it. She's a stark contrast to Zelda Fitzgerald's lavish Parisian lifestyle. And Ernest loves her all the more for being that way, appreciating her sensible nature. 

Allow me to digress for just a few sentences. If you read Z before you read The Paris Wife, you learned that Ernest Hemingway is not the man that Hadley thinks he is. He attempts to seduce Zelda, and Zelda sees him all over town with other women, including the tragic antagonist in the novel, Pauline. You would think that reading Z first would spoil the ending of The Paris Wife. However, it intensifies the reading so much more - you know what's really happening, and you want to yell things at your book to get Hadley to stop it. But you can't. You can only sit back and read it as it plays out.

Moving on, there's a turning point in the book, when Hadley joins Ernest on a trip, attempting to take his life's worth of writing in a valise so he can show it for possible publication, but it gets stolen on the train. His forgiveness is never complete. He tries, you can tell, but the wound it causes in their relationship never completely heals. 

As you continue to read, you can see the relationship unraveling as Hadley tries harder and harder to win Ernest's affections back. It's difficult to read, as you might find yourself pulling so hard for the sake of Hadley, who has devoted the last five years of her life to Ernest's work and has repeatedly been slighted by the person she loves most. Ernest and Hadley's relationship began so pure and true, so simple and passionate. As it draws to the end, you want so badly for Hadley to win. I find it hard to believe that all readers are not heartbroken as they read the final pages.