McLain, P. (2010) The Paris Wife. Virago
Summary
It's 1920s Chicago, Hadley Richardson is 28 and she's almost given up on finding love and happiness. Then she meets Ernest Hemingway. Captivated by his energy, intensity and ambition, she soon marries him and they sail for Paris - the centre of the literary world. Hemingway works ferociously to become 'a writer', encouraged by the likes of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Hadley, meanwhile, is happy to be his supportive wife and, before long, a loving mother to a son - Bumby. As Hemingway's efforts begin to pay off, Hadley falls prey to jealousy and self-doubt which reach their height in Hemingway's affair with Hadley's friend Pauline. The marriage ends, Hadley & Bumby return to the USA, only to return once again to Paris, where Hadley eventually marries Paul Mowrer, a former journalist colleague of Hemingway's. Years later, they hear that Hemingway has, after several more wives and lovers, shot himself.
My comments
This is the sort of book that makes me pleased that I'm part of the Book Group! Normally, I'd dismiss a book about 'the 1920s European literary set', especially if it focused on Ernest Hemingway, whose work I've always thought over-rated. However, it was the Book Group's book of the month, so I dutifully read it - and was delighted!
The Paris Wife is a fictional account of Hadley's relationship with Hemingway. Fictionalising real life is always a risk. Readers familiar with the characters and events in the book may be unable to accept the fictional elements; while readers lacking such familiarity may resent those fictional elements if they later learn more about the characters and events.
I've read little about Hemingway's life apart from Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999, Weidenfeld & Nicolson), which I didn't enjoy precisely because I don't rate Hemingway. Nonetheless, I enjoyed The Paris Wife a lot and McLain's fictional depiction of Hemingway matched well with Michael Palin's depiction, which was rooted in facts.
But this raises the question: to be credible, doesn't Mclain's book have to be factual - at least in part? If so, then as we're reading, how can we decide whether a particular incident or conversation - or even a character's thoughts and emotions - is factual or fictional? Without the facts about the characters and events, isn't the book just another story? I suspect that the only answer to that question is to read more about the characters and their times and one of the book's merits is that it's prompted me to do just that.
Book Group. 5 December 2011
McLain, P. (2010) The Paris Wife. Virago
1. Exceptionally for an author, Paula McLain appears to lack a Wikipedia entry:
She has a page on Random House's web site (although it's unclear why):
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Author/Endicott,%20Marina
2. Paula McLain was interviewed on Random House's web site:
www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/features/paula_mclain/author/
She was also interviewed by John Purcell for Booktopia Bolg:
There are also many reviews on The Paris Wife online - take your pick! E.g.:
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/20/paris-wife-paula-mclain-review
3. Other books by Paula McLain:
· A Ticket to Ride (fiction) (200?)
· Like family: growing up in other people's houses (non-fiction)
· Stumble, Gorgeous (poetry)
· Less of Her (poetry)
4. Paula McLain's publishers
Virago. An imprint of Little, Brown which has, since 2006, been part of the Hachette Book Group (HBG). (HBG was formed in 2006, when Hachette Livre purchased the Time Warner Book Group from Time Warner.) HBG is owned by Hachette Livre, the largest publishing company in France, and the second largest publisher in the world. In its turn, Hachette Livre is owned by the Lagardère Group, a French-based multinational conglomerate and one of the world’s leading media companies.
No comments:
Post a Comment