Free «Reflection on E. Hemingway’s Memoir» Essay Paper

Ernest Hemingway’s memoir “A Moveable Feast” is a series of short stories, flashbacks, and recollections of the author’s life during the 1920s. At that time, E. Hemingway lived in Paris and actively participated in the public life of the city. It was also a period when he married his first wife Hadley Richardson and actively improved his journalistic profession. The memoir of Hemingway provides vivid details and images of life in Paris, gives the names of bars and hotels, and describes passerby. They also inform the readers about interesting events in the life of the author, his troubles and achievements, accidents and funny occasions. The memoir preserves the typical style of E. Hemingway, who valued pithiness, small descriptions, and extended dialogues.

The memoir begins with the description of the crowded café in the center of Paris. The author clearly depicts the place, informs about its visitor, and even describes the weather. Such a beginning looks very familiar to many readers since everyone can imagine the café, its visitors, and design. Thus, the memoir seems comprehensive and intriguing. The readers want to know what will happen next in that place.

Generally, E. Hemingway follows some chronological order and logical structure. However, it is true that many events and ideas, expressed in the memoir, do not have any logical connection with each other. The author just presented information, which was important to him at that period of life. He did not take much care of the rightness and appropriateness of the writing style and sequence of events. Nevertheless, such structure amplifies the feeling of reading some personal and intimate details of the author’s life.

Moreover, all the events of the memoir seem alive and real. The matter is that the author carefully describes the colors, smells, sounds, and passerby. As a result, the readers have a clear picture of the time and place of events and can reproduce them in their imagination. Besides, the author does not use complicated vocabulary or specific words. The memoir seems familiar and comprehensive.

When writing the memoir, E. Hemingway wanted to reflect on the real events and situations, which had occurred in his life. He did not try to overestimate his personality and present himself in an especially positive light. The memoir is the pure reflection of the objective events. They show that the author was both right and wrong, positive and negative, depending on the situations and his attitude to them. Furthermore, the memoir is not aimed at creating a purely positive picture of the author. E. Hemingway did not try to hide any events and depicted an objective self-portrait. However, this feature shows his openness and reveals his good personality, both in the past and present.

Actually, it has been already mentioned that the memoir is easy to read and analyze. The readers can get the main idea and understand the main events in the biography of the author. Therefore, there are no difficulties with perceiving and interpreting the memoir correctly and appropriately. Notably, the memoir resembles the publicist story, which is perceived as the mere abstract from the news or blog.

In my opinion, the memoir of E. Hemingway is valuable due to the following reasons. Firstly, the author pays great attention to the details and vividly describes all the sounds, smells, architecture, and people around him. As a result, this strategy helps to make the story alive and bright. Secondly, the author mentions the real names of the bars, music albums, streets, people, and various places. The memoir seems reliable and credible since it describes the places and people that really existed and influenced the life of the author. Finally, the memoir reflects the author’s writing style and can be regarded as a meaningful work of fiction. I think it is a great advantage because not all people like to read a mere list of autobiographical facts.

Overall, I would recommend this memoir for reading. E. Hemingway managed to present the familiar events and situations in an intriguing, interesting, and outstanding way. Moreover, the memoir provides valuable information about life in Paris during the 1920s. In any case, the reading of this memoir is of great value for those, who are interested in fiction and life of E. Hemingway.