Fitzgerald- The Ultimate Expatriate

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” is a story of a man, Charlie, attempting to bring his daughter, Horonia, back into his life. However, the story breaks down into many complications leaving the reader with several questions and indecisive feelings of the characters, especially Charlie.

As soon as the story begins, there is a sense of nostalgia within the air of Paris. It is obvious that Charlie has just returned to the city after many years, but to him it seems like it was a different lifetime. It is apparent that he does not mind this though hence the “emptiness”; this brings up the thought that maybe he does not want to be seen or found, but if that is true than why not? This becomes certain during his conversation with the bartender, Alix. Alix reminds him of his past, “You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago,” when Charlie admits to have a change in a lifestyle, “I’m going slow these days…I’ll stick to it all right, I’ve stuck to it for over a year and a half now”. As the conversation with Alix continues, Charlie explains his reasoning for coming back, to see his daughter, and begins to show a bit of resentment; resentment in himself, Paris and the past, he states, “I spoiled this city for myself. I didn’t realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone”.

Charlie is afraid. There is a sense of fear that lies within him due to trying to get his daughter back. As the story continues, we are presented with slight information that year’s ago, Charlie was in a bad place; he lost all of his money, became an alcoholic and was somehow partially blamed for his wife’s death. Because of this, Horonia would stay with Charlie’s wife’s sister and husband, and he would go off to try and change his life. Now that he is back, his mission is to convince Marion, his wife’s sister, and Lincoln, her husband, that he has changed and can provide a good lifestyle for Horonia. Having this in mind, within the character of Charlie, we a major sense of awareness and “holding back”. Every step he takes and word he says in front of Marion and Lincoln, Charlie is aware. He hold’s back some of the things he wants to say or do in order to receive is daughter. He acts with confidence as he admits that he now only has one a drink a day, a glass of whiskey, and will never allow what had happened in the past to reoccur. But one of the main questions is, has he really changed?

For me, it is hard to decide how I feel about Charlie. Half of me feels it is difficult to not have a small admiration for him and the other questions his doings. Although the past has made him out to be this someone destructive force that has aided in his wife’s death, abandoned his child, been a drunk, etc. I would like to believe that he has come back with genuine intentions. Along his journey, there seems to be obstacles that try to get in the way of his goal and he strongly turns them down, although Marion does not see this. Also there is the fact that he came back before it was too late. But is this an act of selfishness? He admits to wanting to be able to raise Horonia now that she is young before it is too late so he doesn’t “miss out”, but most importantly so the truth about him does not turn up to have her view him negatively the rest of her life. Even though it is shown that he loves his daughter immensely, Charlie makes sure to keep a sort of “distance” or “detachment” between him and Horonia. The reasoning for this is so she does not get her hopes up of finding a man to love like him someday because it will be impossible. Is this an act of honesty or one of self-doubt in that he doesn’t want her to end up with a man like him? 

The Feast Stands Still

As a whole, A Moveable Feast discusses Hemingway’s current life as a writer in the 1920s of Paris. Out of everything he is, in this book Hemingway presents himself as someone sort of on the outside of things. He goes along his days wandering the streets of Paris coming upon many different interactions with many different types of people, sitting in cafes very clearly in detail describing the food he eats and the aromas of the restaurants he walks by; so much that one can identify with the tastes and the smells while reading of it. With every interaction he has, Hemingway always seems to kind of be a sort of therapist figure. It seems as if he positions himself as a listener while the people he meets discuss with him their life stories, experiences and most of all, problems. But maybe this is the point of the whole book? Maybe Hemingway acts as that therapist figure in order to derive stories out of it, maybe this is the answer of his writing.

Out of everyone that Hemingway met throughout this novel, there was one character that seemed to stick out within his favorites, Ezra Pound. Pound seemed to have a certain inspiration for Hemingway. Something about him, Hemingway seemed to admire and always speak extremely highly of. Pound is the only character whom you hear Hemingway state that he “misses” and that he seeks advice from, other than Gertrude Stein, although he seems to fancy Pound’s opinion more. Multiple times Hemingway states how Ezra was one of the kindest and most generous people that he ever knew, how he always wanted to help others “whether he believed in them or not”. I think that Hemingway somewhat aspired to be like Pound and that might be one of the things that this book is wrapped around.

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway rarely talks about his life. When he does, it’s usually simple joys out of simple activities between him and his wife like, “and we would swim and be healthy and brown and have one aperitif before lunch and one before dinner”. This is one trait that I admire of Hemingway; he seems to find the simple things of life as the most joyous. I find this extremely relevant in my experience of living in Paris. When I was living in New York, it was as if I took everything I had for granted. But then again it seems as if every New Yorker takes everything for granted. An example could be the dread of partaking in simple act of the five to seven minute walk (depending how fast or slow I was feeling that day) down 5^th Avenue because there was a class switch from Twelfth Street to Sixteenth Street. I would dread this walk whenever I was forced to take it—this was remotely out of pure laziness. Oddly enough, the past week here in sunny and warm Paris I have been thinking of that walk everyday. I have been thinking of the people I would pass by exchanging nods and smiles, sometimes fist touches, that 1:35 pm every Tuesday and Thursday to my 1:50 pm class, just so I had enough time to receive my large iced coffee with skim milk from the one and only hole in the wall, Mapi. And then when class was over, I would light up a Turkish royal cigarette with my friend Ellis and we’d take our time puffing our smokes, enjoying the sun, making our way back to the courtyard on Twelfth Street to be greeted with the gleaming souls of positivity from our people. This small act of walking down a street for five to seven minutes is something that I would give anything to partake in right now. Just from this, I am positive that once I get back to New York, I am going to be saying the exact same things about Paris. Maybe I will think about how I have a yearn to go to Monoprix, pick up a Pain au Chocolat and stroll down Rue Saint-Roch and then onto Rue de Rivoli to make my way to the Jardin des Tuileries, find a nice spot in the sun, light up a camel blue along with a bottle of Rose all while having Radiohead playing in my ears. You certainly cannot find in New York. It is uncontrollable to think about the past, but being so far away from my past, I have learned to notice and love every single detail of the present; because soon it will be gone and I will wish I had taken advantage of the things I could have when I had it.