The Paris Wife in The Importance of Reading Ernest

May 12, 2011 Brad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, exceeded-my-expectations, kept-me-up-at-night, with-marci, reimagined-tales

I've never been a fan of fictionalized works of authors' lives, and the fact that The Paris Wife recounts my favourite author's life during the writing of my favourite book of all time, The Sun Also Rises, antagonized the hell out of me. It didn't bode well.

But I promised my sister I'd give it a go; she wanted me to read it because we'd just read A Moveable Feast together, and she sent me the hardcover that she'd read for a recent book club. I couldn't say no.

Then, straight away, Paula McLain p I've never been a fan of fictionalized works of authors' lives, and the fact that The Paris Wife recounts my favourite author's life during the writing of my favourite book of all time, The Sun Also Rises, antagonized the hell out of me. It didn't bode well.

But I promised my sister I'd give it a go; she wanted me to read it because we'd just read A Moveable Feast together, and she sent me the hardcover that she'd read for a recent book club. I couldn't say no.

Then, straight away, Paula McLain pissed me off with some of her early writing in the book. They pulled me out of the immersion I prefer to give myself over to when I read; I would just start to lose myself in Hadley's Chicago, or Hemingway's Michigan cabin, and she'd do something inauthentic to break the spell. Things were getting worse.

Later on, my own personal feelings, connected to a long dead relationship of my own, a relationship I always thought of in terms of Hadley and Ernest, yanked me out of my immersion -- not once or twice but many times -- and I would be forced to take a break and try to immerse myself all over again. But I blamed myself and tried not to let my attitude spill onto McLain.

Around the same time, some clever moments marrying Papa's fictional writing with his "real" world were appearing, which had to be McLain's fault, and I asked myself: "Why do we even need books like this? If a book is just retelling the stories another author already told so well, fictional or autobiographical, surely a fiction that retells these already told tales is superfluous?"

The answer, I must admit, took me by surprise and changed my relationship with The Paris Wife. We need books like this because sometimes the finest stories are the ones we already know told from another direction by someone who loves the original stories and people just as much as we do. It seems obvious to me now, as I write it, but it wasn't at all obvious to me while I was reading.

It is beautiful the way McLain loves her subjects. She is fair to them all. She understands them in her own way, a way new and compelling to me, and she overcame all my prejudices, eventually suspending me in my immersion despite herself and her source material and me.

I wanted to hate this book. I set out to destroy it and tear it apart. I wanted to come on here and thrash it and Paula McLain. But I can't. I think this book is something special. And it will take its place on the right hand side of my Hemingway shelf, just this side of the biographies, and the Michael Palin Hemingway books. McLain's earned it.

Always read with a mind willing to open itself (even when you find it difficult to open your mind from the start). You never know what joys you'll find. ...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Shane rated it really liked it

A fictional inside view by the first wife of one of the most enigmatic writers of the 20th century.

Hadley Richardson is portrayed as a weak woman, indecisive, subservient to her effusive husband, a heavy drinker herself and an absentee mother who is relieved when her baby spends more time with the nanny; a woman without the guts to tear the eyeballs out of the wily opponent who steals her husband.

This is Paris in the 20鈥檚, filled with American expatriates who see their dollar go very far against A fictional inside view by the first wife of one of the most enigmatic writers of the 20th century.

Hadley Richardson is portrayed as a weak woman, indecisive, subservient to her effusive husband, a heavy drinker herself and an absentee mother who is relieved when her baby spends more time with the nanny; a woman without the guts to tear the eyeballs out of the wily opponent who steals her husband.

This is Paris in the 20鈥檚, filled with American expatriates who see their dollar go very far against the impoverished franc, who drink their days away to escape the horrors of the last war and to blind themselves to the inevitable coming of the next, a place where everyone is sleeping with everyone else, and where families and children are obstacles to the creation of great new art. A time of self-induced routines: champagne breakfasts, sunning, swimming, bridge, cocktails and the annual pilgrimage to Pamplona where the running of the bulls herald death in the afternoon. Some, like the Hemingways survive it, other like the Pounds require it, and yet others like the Fitzgeralds are consumed by it.

Hemingway dominates the book, as usual. Convinced that he is destined for greatness in the literary field, he applies himself single-mindedly to his booze and his craft at the expense of family and friends. He befriends literary greats such as Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson only to dump on them in his books. He makes new friends by inviting them to box with him. He craves the support and company of Hadley only to betray her with other women, finally sleeping with both his present wife and future wife, Pauline, in the same bed and asking the former what is wrong, and why can they not continue this arrangement, if but for the stimulation of his writing (and his libido).

There is also the love story of Ernest and Hadley, two souls sharing solitary childhoods, domineering mothers, and warm-hearted fathers who each committed suicide with a gun. She is older than him, 28 to his 21, but then even with Pauline, Hemingway seemed to prefer older women (his third and fourth wives were younger; perhaps he was stuck in a 鈥渨ife time warp鈥�).

The cracks in the relationship start to appear as Ernest鈥檚 career takes off and Hadley鈥檚 is stuck around keeping the home fires burning in their pokey Paris apartment and minding the inconvenient baby who seems to be in the way of his father鈥檚 burgeoning greatness. There is also the temptress Pauline, Hadley鈥檚 best friend in Paris, who inveigles herself into the Hemingway household and slowly usurps the throne.

Paula McLain has done a great job in evoking the period and these two ill-fated lovers, and rendering to us what could have been a very accurate picture of the young Hemingway and his Paris Wife that is not well represented in the biographies and autobiographies that proliferate around this couple.

I was left with several truisms: the pure artist is a self-centred person, almost psychotic; nothing gets between him, his art, and the fuel that he needs to deliver that art whether that be wine women or song. Hemingway embodies all of this. In addition, given his war wounds that left him in periods of extreme physical pain, he lived in constant fear of death and sought it out, confronting his mortality in the bull-fights, the big-game hunting, the deep-sea fishing and in trouble spots around the world that he visited, finally facing it down the barrel of his shotgun before tripping the trigger with his toe and leaving us only with his genius. The artist consumed by his art.

As for Hadley, and let us not forget that this is her book, narrated from her POV, she outlives her younger husband, marrying again, a more sedentary marriage this time, and lives out the rest of her life in obscurity. I鈥檓 not sure, given her innate weakness and better sense of balance, that she was capable of anything more. And yet Hemingway reminisces towards the end of his days that Hadley was the great love of his life, not just the Paris Wife, but the best one. ...more

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Oct 11, 2011 Katie Gurney rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 26, 2011 Princessfaz rated it it was amazing

I loved this book. I'd been waiting for it from the library and as soon as I got it I had to start reading it, putting my other books on hold. I find the "lost" generation fascinating. Who doesnt want to go hang out in Paris with artists? It was interesting to hear about the crowd the Hemingways partied with, the things they did. I'm not a huge fan of Hemingways writing, but I love The Sun Also Rises, and this book takes place while he is writing that, and they spend a lot of time in Pamplona. T ...more

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Aug 16, 2011 John Parker rated it liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book, but was frequently confused about whether I was reading a work of fiction or non-fiction, and since I knew it was fiction, had some difficulty understanding to what extend I could trust the narrator.

For starters, the literary characters seemed amazingly self-aware of their ultimate importance. Everyone knew Hemingway would be one of the most important writers of his time, Hemingway knew James Joyce was doing something really noteworthy, etc. And maybe that was all true, but ...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Dottie Suggs rated it really liked it

Shelves: art, paris

Fast paced and interesting look into Paris in the 1920's. It was great fun to read about the young writers and painters relationships and hardships. This book is heartbreaking, but now I am on to Green Mansions and A Moveable Feast. ...more

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Jun 23, 2011 Dan rated it it was amazing

A brilliant look into the most fascinating gathering of artists of the 20th century. Loved it.

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Mar 07, 2011 Meghan L rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, favorites

I have to start off by saying that after reading this, I'll never really forgive Ernest Hemingway.
Paula McLain amazed me with this piece of historical fiction. I don't know if I've ever fallen in love with a character the way I did for Hadley. She's so genuinely real in this story that I doubt I'll be able to separate her voice from reality. I haven't been able to stop thinking about this book since I started reading it. I also appreciate the way the story really followed through to the very en ...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book gives us a new look at the life of Ernest in the paris years with his first wife. It gives a look at the years he writes about in his novel about the paris years from an outsiders perspective and is a real pleasure to read.

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