Having read Reynolds' Hemingway in the 30s, I found The Paris Years to be less dull and more like a Hemingway novel. This may well be a result of more information being available about this time period (from A Moveable Feast and so forth) but otherwise, by the second half of the book, this volume had me hooked. ( )

This is the perfect companion volume to A Moveable Feast. It takes Hemingway's memoir and puts it in chronological order, explains Hemingway's many jabs and offhand comments and corrects where Hemingway either embellished the story or made things up. What emerges is the story of a developing writer, a man desperate to both escape his upbringing and to impress the folks back home, a man quick to toss out an insult, but even quicker to take offense. Arriving in Paris, Hemingway was a mediocre writer of sentimental stories, but in just a few, intense years, he had made himself into one of the best writers of a very fertile time in American writing. Of course, he had help along the way, in the form of friendship and support from the likes of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and even Ford Madox Ford, who supported Hemingway despite of Hemingway's scorn and his own preference for traditional 19th century writing. Hemingway needed help, even as he wanted to be a self-made man, leading him to form intense friendships that never lasted long -- Hemingway was not given to gratitude and preferred to burn his bridges once he had walked over them.

Reynolds discusses Hemingway's writing during that time in detail. I was interested to find that my favorites of Hemingway's many short stories were written during his years in Paris. He worked tirelessly at his craft, and when he was doing well, he wrote quickly. He was also able to edit his stories down; removing everything that didn't need to be said, leaving no unnecessary scenes or even words. A disastrous trip to Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls was the inspiration for The Sun Also Rises.

Reynolds' also puts Hemingway within his time and place, explaining the events of the time as well as providing a vivid picture of Paris in the 1920s.

It was a thrill to read that when Hemingway went to New York to negotiate the publishing contract for The Sun Also Rises he hung out at the Algonquin, spending time with Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker, both of whom would accompany him on the ship back to Paris. I would have liked to have been on that boat. ( )

This is the second of a five-volume biography and it focuses on the years Hemingway spent in Paris (1921-1926) as a “struggling artist” perfecting his craft of writing. A lot of the book is devoted to Hemingway’s writing--when he wrote, where he wrote, the other writers and artists he sought out and their influences on him, what he was trying to accomplish (“I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of actual life -- not to just depict life -- or criticize it -- but to actually make it alive.”). Not being a huge fan of Hemingway’s writing I was surprised at how interesting this part of the book was. Hemingway clearly had a passion for writing and was obsessed with mastering it.

When not writing during these years, Hemingway was busy being a “man of action” (skiing in the Alps, attending the bullfights in Pamplona, going to horse races and boxing matches). “Always he reached out for the active, physical life, refusing to let the sedentary and contemplative role of writer control who he was.” Even in his twenties, he was dealing with periods of depression and mania and his mood shifts often were accompanied by a mean streak. His celebrated friendships didn’t always last long.

I thought Reynolds presented a very balanced picture of Hemingway’s life and I generally loved his writing (I sometimes felt like I was reading a novel). The only reason I’m not giving the book 5 stars was it did drag at times (generally when nothing much was happening in Hemingway’s life) and it took me almost 3 months to finish. In looking back over the number of things I underlined or marked with a post-it note, however, it clearly was a memorable read and one I would highly recommend. I already have Reynold’s previous volume in the biography (The Young Hemingway) waiting to be read. Somewhat to my own dismay, I'm becoming a Hemingway fanatic.

A favorite quote: “Early in his career, Hemingway began revising and editing what would become his longest and most well-known work: the legend of his own life, where there was never a clear line between fiction and reality.” ( )