Jan van den Berg

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Tag: ernest hemingway

  • A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

    Hemingway, the writers’ writer, is famously known for having spent his early years in Paris. Freshly married, this struggling and then unknown writer was honing his craft and subsequently defining what it means to be a writer in a vibrant post World War I Paris. Where he wrote his first big novel.

    A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway (1964) – 192 pages

    In later life Hemingway wrote up his 5 year experience in a couple of loosely related stories. Which involve interactions with other writers (mainly Scott Fitzgerald) and poets. And which offer very specific details (drinks, prices, addresses etc.). Which is almost odd, since the stories were written some forty years later? These stories were posthumously bundled and released as this memoir.

    This memoir offers a perfect insight in understanding Hemingway better and his writing. Blunt, scarce, dead-serious (to a point of being humourless even), and without pretense, A Moveable Feast is quintessential Hemingway and a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand him.

  • The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

    On my honeymoon in 2009 I asked the store clerk at the Hemingway house on Key West: “what’s a good book to start with?”. She recommended The Sun also Rises.

    The Sun also Rises – Ernest Hemingway (1926) – 222 pages

    And I understand why. Because this novel is probably the most accessible summary of the typical Hemingway writing style. Very much set in the 1920s — yet timeless — it is a story about classic themes such as friendship, love, morality and searching for meaning, told through sparse dialogue and with minimal background. And where the main characters drink, a lot. A whole lot.

    At the surface this book is, at most, an enjoyable adventure about a group of restless friends, who do a bit of travelling and go to see the bullfights. But when you dig a bit deeper: a lot more is going on. Which underscores the iceberg theory for which Hemingway is famous. There are many sources where you can read about what Hemingway supposedly meant. And while these can be a welcome addition to reading, I am sceptical about too much analysis. Sometimes maybe it just is what it is. Either way, one of the features of great art is that there is no definitive meaning and it is what it is to you.

    I read a book about flawed and memorable characters fleeing and navigating through the complexities of life and love. And they drank. A lot.