Comprehensive Companion to Hemingway’s a Moveable Feast- Volume 1

". . . by far the most comprehensive and exhaustive guide to Hemingway’s posthumous memoir. Professor Brenner provides everything one would need to know or be likely to ask about this book, perhaps more than most need. He provides maps, pictures of the main characters, biographies of all the known and little-known people mentioned by Hemingway, and thorough bibliography. He fills in the biographical and literary background so that allusions by Hemingway nowmake sense, along with a chronology of the events and a helpful appendix on Hemingway’s finances at the time – useful for judging Hemingway’s pose as a starving garret artist. . . . also points out the ambiguities in the text, the multiple ways in which it can be read. Noting Hemingway’s insistence on the fictional aspects of the memoir (and Brenner’s introduction, including a discussion of Feast’s composition and the hands involved in its publication, is extremely valuable), Brenner treats the text as one open to analysis, and then proceeds to give us multiple readings of passages that too many readers simply take literally. . . will be a valuable addition to any school library and to the collection of any Hemingway scholar. It will be the source par excellence for questions about A Moveable Feast." Peter L. Hays

"His authority is everywhere evident. He does not approach this work as a worshiper at a shrine, but as a scholar trying to uncover the meaning of the many puzzles that Hemingway’s writing typically provides. Recognizing the complexity of the man, Brenner suggests Hemingway’s duplicities as well as his artistry. . . . Brenner’s prose is crisp and clear. He does not let manner interfere with content. . it will deserve and surely find a place in every serious reference library. Many Hemingway scholars will want to own their own copies not only for such times as they consider Feast, but whenever they need a quick framework of the large gallery of players who are described in the guide. The index will quickly make accessible much valuable material. Critics and readers dealing with texts thematically related to Feast notably The Sun Also Rises and The Garden of Eden and certain short stories –will find themselves looking back at this guide." Joseph M. Flora

Table of contents:

Commendatory Foreword by Susan F. Beegal

Foreword

Introduction

A Good Café on the Place St.-Michel

Miss Stein Instructs; Une Génération Perdue

Shakespeare and Company

People of the Seine

A False Spring

the End of an Avocation

Hunger was Good Discipline

Ford Madox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple

Birth of a New School; With Pascin at the Dôme

Ezra Pound and his Bel Esprit

A Strange Enough Ending

The Man Who Was Marked for Death

Evan Shipman at the Lilas

An Agent of Evil

Scott Fitzgerald

Hawks Do Not Share

A Matter of Measurements

There Is Never Any End to Paris

Appendix I A Hemingway Chronology

Appendix 2 Money Matters

Appendix 3 Paris An Overview and Maps
(Europe 1922-27; France, 1922; Paris Jet View, Dirigible View; Latin Quarter ; First neighborhood; Montparnasse, St. Germain des Pres; la Seine, The Right Bank)

Bibliography

Index