The Paris Wife

I read this book with my book club (some of the most fantastic women I know!) and really had no idea what I was getting into.  Book selection for last month and the coming months all happened while I was having my second little guy, so I was not a part of the process.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the selections the group has made and I have loved being surprised by what the books are about.  So great to have someone guiding the choices sometimes as I end up reading books I otherwise might have missed out on.

The Paris Wife is the story of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife. At first glance, the title suggests she is central but the very title is actually indicative how how the whole book really revolves around Ernest and his work and not Hadley (even though she tells the story).  After all, the book isn't entitled Hadley Richardson: The Paris Wife but just The Paris Wife.  Her location (Paris) and role (wife) define her in relationship to Ernest rather than explain anything about her own person.  

Ernest Hemingway would have been hard to live with--I'm sure I couldn't have done it and as their marriage disintegrates (not a spoiler alert, it's there from page 1) I really, really wanted Hadley to get out too.  It can be hard to read through such disappointment (my head was ever screaming LEAVE HIM!) but I was curious to see how it all turned out.  Unfortunately, I think this book is only fascinating because it is Ernest Hemingway.  Otherwise, the most interesting character is Europe in the 1920's. 

I am actually a bit more fascinated by how this book was written.  It lives in the land somewhere between fact and fiction.  Historical events and people populating the pages and narratives; meanwhile, the words, behaviours and choices they make are the creation of the author (and, technically, fiction).  I actually love this quality of the book.  Western, modern culture loves black-and-white, true-or-false, fact-or-fiction--when lines blur, when it is hard to discern truth in this hard and fast way, we have trouble knowing what to do.  So this book is fiction but lives in the space of factual relationships.  Can it be true without being fact?  Our desire to determine fact/ficiton, true/false is a pretty new concept.  Before the enlightenment and the 1800-ish's, no one worried so much about fact or fiction...they weren't even really categories.   Therefore, pre-modern interpretations of stories and the world were much more fluid, flexible and open.  Proof didn't come from scientific fact -- proof was in whether or not truth was being told.  Don't get me wrong, I think science has done great things for the world.  But in terms of narrative and story-telling, well, I think we have lost something in our on-going quest for fact and our relegation of fiction.  I like questing for truth--a much more interesting, but blurry, experience!

Some questions to consider:

1.  Ernest is clearly an angst-ridden artist with some deep personal issues.  The hedenistic society of 1920's Paris that he and Hadley inhabit seems to suggest many artists had similar struggles.  Does great art require a certain personal struggle?  Can contendness create great art?

2.  How do you feel about fact/fiction?  Do you value one over the other?  Would you be comfortable reading a book without those labels?  Why or why not?