It’s a fully known fact that I’m a huge Hemingway fan. Reading The Old Man and the Sea for the first time was the a monumental event in my life, even though that was almost six years ago. I’ve always loved the way Hemingway could tell a story but at the same time, position sentences which contain some of the best advice in the form of a parable. I still remember sitting down at the top of the campus store drinking coffee early in the morning immersed in that book. While The Old Man and the Sea will always have a special place in my heart, I think his work, A Moveable Feast might be apropos to not only my life, but everyone’s. If you haven’t read that novel, I would suggest it be put on the list of books to read before you die. In this novel, which some may classify as a biography, Hemingway talks about his life as an up-and-coming writer living in Paris. He works under his mentor, Gertrude Stein, hoping to win her approval on his way to becoming a world famous novelist. While his goals are lofty, what really catches my attention is his life in Paris while trying to attain that goal.
He speaks about having nothing. He was just married to his first wife and while they did not have a lot, he was driven to become something, and that was enough. His tenacity and willpower to follow his dream was what kept him going, even in the face of failure. On many occasions he would face writer’s block. He could not think of anything. He had bouts of anger, his temper would flare, and his wife would have to console him and remind him that at the end of the day, resistance is a sign of progress.
Then came the breakthrough. Instead of looking outward for inspiration, he began to write about his circumstance. He wrote about his failures, his life, the friends he met in Paris, and the way he felt disappointing the people whom he admired. He wrote about drinking cheap wine, and strolling on the Champs-Élysées at night. He wrote about traveling to Spain and how much he loved watching bull fights. He wrote not to become but to escape. His recollection of the hardship he faced as a young writer in Paris has now become one of his most iconic works. There is a saying, “There is no good story, like a life well-lived.” In such, Hemingway turned the traditional sense of what a feast is, a place to which we come to, to enjoy and eat and be merry, to a place which can be anywhere if we have the right mindset. The feast has now become moveable. Hemingway’s work is a salient reminder that your next source of inspiration doesn't need to come from what you’re trying to conjure up, but from where you are right now. The test of a good writer is to be able to write with such conviction, such passion, that even in the most trying times, you can tell a good story.
Being happy is a lot like that. We’ve always heard it’s not a destination. It’s not even the journey, but it’s a choice to choose right now. As Matt Haig writes in The Midnight Library, “The prison is not the place, but the perspective.” So, make your feast moveable, dine and be merry wherever you go because life…is a moveable feast.
la vie en rose,
Daviel
Thing I read and love since my last post.
The Myth That Most Americans Hate Their Job by Derek Thompson
The Biographer’s Hat by Cynthia Ozick.
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan.
Currently readying The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.