Paris France – Gertrude Stein

I just finished reading Paris France by Gertrude Stein. In this classic Gertrude Stein describes her time in and her love for Paris. One of the most striking things is that she calls America her country, but Paris her home town. 

She describes everything she observes in Paris: the art, the boys (who are always men), cooking, and even the dogs. She gives her reader a glimpse of life in Paris in that time and shares what she believes will define the 20th century. “Civilised” and “civilisation” are the key words of the book. Even though the things she discusses might seem trivial at times, they give us such an interesting and unique insight in her world.

In one of the last few paragraphs she dedicates this book “to France and England who are to do what is the necessary thing to do, they are going to civilise the twentieth century and make it be a time when anybody can be free, free to be civilised and to be.”

In my humble opinion, it is a must read for everyone who loves Modernism, who loves Paris. Gertrude Stein was the “mater familia” of Modernism; she counted Hemingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald, and many more modernists among her friends. If you understand her way of writing and her way of life, you understand why Modernism was, and is, such an important and defining movement.

Enjoy xoxo Valérie

 

Gertrude Stein

Propaganda is not French, it is not civilised to want other people to believe what you believe because the essence of being civilised is to possess yourself as you are you of course cannot possess any one else, it is not your business

a brilliant quote by Gertrude Stein in Paris France which I’m currently reading

My Literary Hero

I have started this blog because I wanted to share my love for literature.

I have no choice but to start with my literary hero: Ernest Hemingway. The first thing I have ever read by Hemingway was actually not even a novel, it was A Moveable Feast.

I’m very fond of Paris, and this book covered his time in Paris in the 1920s. So it was a logical and natural first encounter between me and this literary mastermind.

I started reading it on the train and I was hooked, immediately.
I wanted to be in Paris in the 1920s, with Hemingway of course. And still now, naive as it may sound, I long to be in 1920s Paris with Hemingway.
After A Moveable Feast I read The Sun Also Rises, again set in Paris.

Those of you who read the novel will know what a brilliant novel it is. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the main character Jake is just magical. His relationship with Brett is so destructive, yet so utterly romantic that it touches every reader. And then there’s Paris, the city of lights surely functions as one of the main characters as well. The elaborate descriptions of places, cafés, and statues truly add to the mood of the novel.

But Paris is not the only place that functions as a character, Spain and Pamplona have their share as well. Paris is contrasted with America and with the War, yet both America and the Great War are inevitably present in Paris. Paris is contrasted with the rustic Spanish countryside, but Paris is incessantly present in Pamplona when the characters are there.

One of the last paragraphs of the novel says it  all:

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

What is your favourite Hemingway novel?

Enjoy xoxo Valérie