Ernest (left) & Hadley (center)
It’s been a week since I finished The Paris Wife, and I’ve still got it on my mind.
The lives of these American artists living abroad in the 1920s, the so-called Lost Generation, have been newly imagined in my mind’s eye and I can’t stop daydreaming about what it would’ve been like to live such a bohemian lifestyle in a much slower-paced time, where holidays in the mountains (or to Spain for bullfighting or to the South of France for sunbathing) lasted months and one could live modestly on little more than a few thousand dollars a year.
The struggling Hemingways (Hadley lamented that she couldn’t afford new, fashionable clothes) nonetheless had a babysitter and cook. If that’s struggling, well …. good grief, sign me up.
I put together a little mood board so you can daydream, too.
- C’est Magnifique wallpaper
- Write Drunk, Edit Sober poster
- Hemingway book collection
- 1920s Paris couple
- Bullfighting print
- Absinthe poster
- Bathing beauty postcard
What a life to be Ernest Hemingway, to stroll down to a cafe and know that within a few hours you would be surrounded by friends — writers and artists such as Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
And Fitzgerald, who admittedly could plow through tens of thousands of dollars in no time on who knows what, would scoop you up into his brand of crazy and help you to lop off the first 30 pages of “The Sun Also Rises,” arguably the most successful edit ever.
Do you ever get sucked in by a mood like this? Have you ever seen a movie or read a book that flips a switch in your brain that keeps you searching for more and more just like it? Well, that’s where I am now. I want to fully submerge myself into the modern 1920s expatriates writers movement.
I’ve been pulling Hemingway and Fitzgerald books off my shelves, re-reading and bookmarking to read later. I re-watched Redford’s “Gatsby” and can’t wait for Leo’s version next year. I’ve been told I should watch Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” and the HBO movie “Hemingway and Gellhorn.” Any other recommendations?
