According to Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein was the only one who really thought the artists of the 20s were "lost." She had heard the owner of a mechanic shop scolding one of his young workers by saying "You are all a lost generation." She reiterated this thought to Hemingway one night, agreeing heartily with the sentiment. Hemingway later used the phrase, but he never agreed with it: " . . . I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be . . ."
Yesterday, I decided to walk in the steps of Hemingway based on passages from A Moveable Feast. This memoir covers 1921-1926 of his years in Paris -- years he struggled to write his first novel and yet was happily content in his marriage to his first wife, Hadley, and their humble life together with their son, "Bumby." He was around my age during these years, which were extremely formative for him. It's no wonder that this was the time he chose to memorialize, the time when "we were very poor and very happy." Yet my steps yesterday were not just the steps of Hemingway. They were the steps of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and all who found shelter in the arms of the Left Bank in the years following WWI. I'll let Hemingway's words help narrate my path.
I began by finding the old location of Shakespeare and Company (quite by accident I stumbled upon the street of its original location - by the time Hemingway arrived in Paris, it had moved.) "In those days there was no money to buy books. I borrowed books from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l'Odéon." What he doesn't have room to explain is that Sylvia Beach is responsible for the unification, nuture, publicity, and literal survival of most of the notable writers in Paris at the time -- established and fledging, American, British, and French alike. She single-handedly published Ulysses (first - before Joyce became greedy and let another company publish the 2nd edition). I am currently reading a fascinating biography on her and this bookshop (which I purchased in the new version of this shop)...I was awe-struck when when I found it. I stood where this picture was taken. That is Sylvia Beach in the doorway.
Then ". . . I walked down by different streets to the Jardin du Luxembourg . . . through the gardens and stop[ped] in at the studio apartment where Gertrude Stein lived at 27 rue de Fleurus." Stein's salon was quite famous and was frequented by writers, artists (Picasso, to name one), and philosophers. Her salon held Cèzannes, Matisses, Picassos....everyone who wanted a start in Paris tried to get an invitation to meet with her. People easily fell out of her favor, though, and Hemingway eventually did. It was quite an experience to stand across the street and imagine all these great artists walk in and out . . .
Next, I walked "up the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to the Closerie des Lilas. I sat . . .with the afternoon light coming in over my shoulder and wrote." And had a pricey, but wonderful lunch. It wasn't so famous when Hemingway, Pound, and Fitzgerald frequented it. Both Hemingway and Ezra Pound lived on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs for a few years - Pound for several. I wasn't sure of the numbers and didn't see any commemorative plaques...still it was nice to walk the street they walked many times a day..."Ezra Pound was always a good friend and was always doing things for people. The studio where he lived with his wife Dorothy on the rue Notre-Dames-des-Champs was as poor as Gertrude Stein's studio was rich. It had very good light and was heated by a stove and it had paintings by Japanese artists that Ezra knew." I then made my way over to 74 Cardinal Lemoine - one of Hemingway's and Hadley's first Paris apartments. "Home in the rue Cardinal Lemoine was a two-room flat that had no hot water and no inside toilet facilities except an antisceptic container, not uncomfortable to anyone who was used to a Michigan outhouse. With a fine view and a good mattress and springs for a comfortable bed on the floor, and pictures we liked on the walls, it was a cheerful, gay flat." It's a cute address now, with a little boutique under it called, aptly, "Under Hemingway."
My last stop before just wandering the St. Germain area and the Blvd. St. Michel in general was the point of the Ile de la Cité (the oldest part of Paris on which sits Notre Dame). "At the head of the Ile de la Cité below Pont Neuf where there was the statue of Henri Quatre, the island ended in a point like the sharp bow of a ship and there was a small park at the water's edge with fine chesnut trees, huge and spreading, and in the currents and back waters that the Seine made flowing past, there were excellent places to fish."
Today, there is still a lovely park with large, spreading trees. A weeping willow crowns the point, and in place of the fishermen are many cuddly couples.
I think this day will remain one of my favorite days. For it is not often one gets the chance to consciously walk in the steps of those who have created a movement, especially a movement such as that which rose from the ashes of the first world war and the inklings of the destruction mankind has the power to create. Yet, they were not lost. . . and whenever they thought they were, they found themselves in Paris.
"Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it."
All quotes taken from: Hemingway, E. A Moveable Feast. Scribner's and Sons: New York, 1964.
No comments:
Post a Comment