The Paris Wife

Hadley Richardson is a 28 year old living a quiet slow existence tills she meets the Ernest Hemingway, a 21 year old, charismatic, tortured, up and coming writer. What starts of as a vacation romance, ends up with the two getting married and whisking to Paris to spend their early years.

Paula McLain is an adept writer who gives voice to Hadley as a charming yet quiet girl who is in awe of the fact that Ernest loves her back. The Paris Wife is the journey of Hadley – and Ernest- from their early years of Jazz age Paris to the crisis of faith that their marriage faces.

I picked up this book at an airport because when I was running out of the door on my absolute last minute flight to my cousin’s wedding and I forgot to pack a book. And I never board a flight without one- so I come across the Paris Wife at the airport book shop and amidst the ‘ How to be successful in 15 minutes’ and ‘ Twilight-ish’ streak of books,  I’m instantly attracted to the Paris wife because it promises the Jazz Age, Paris , and fictional history. What more could one ask for?

 I take to Hadley and Ernest like I’m their nosy roommate. At the beginning they are flirty and charismatic each attracted to the other by their opposing personalities- Hadley – a girl who thinks she leads a nonexistent life expecting the rest of her life to be the same until she takes a trip to Chicago and meets Ernest Hemingway, an up and coming writer, suave and seven years younger than her. And in the haze of whiskey and music, they begin a relationship that quickly leads to marriage. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard drinking, fast living life of Jazz Age Paris.  The terms of their relationship shift as Hadley juggles being a muse, a friend and a wife to Ernest as he tries to build a career and reputation as a journalist in a foreign country trying to juggle being husband who tries to provide for his family and a writer trying to find a voice that will help him go down in history.

One of the most interesting part that attracted me to this book is the promise of the lost Generation ( I got hooked when I saw Woody Allen’s ‘A  Midnight in Paris’)- of Gertrude Stein, of F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, of Ezra Pound  and Picasso and a friendship built on competition and support and a foreign country and Jazz. ….

What’s also surprising is the multi-faceted portrayal of Ernest- he starts off as a self-assured, cocky, hungry young writer but as you peel the layers you are introduced to a former army man tortured by his experiences during the war- when they revisit the site of his injury at Fossalta- he remembers the bloody slopes with trenches of dead men, what he comes across now is a fresh new green houses, and the realization that the war in his head could not be counted on anymore. Memory couldn’t be counted in, time was unreliable and everything dissolved and died- even or especially when it looked like life. Like spring. From that day onward Ernest would always hate the spring.

Or the way he saw the world- as a stage and people as characters. Making Hadley’s role as a wife incredibly complicated – Duff, a threat or a character? She wouldn’t know till she sees his manuscript.

“What’s wrong with us?’

“We want too much”. “What is it we want exactly?” “Everything.  Everything and then some”. “ if this a festival, aren’t we supposed to be happy?” ..

His relationship with Pauline- starts that as Hadley’s friend who is smart and an intellectual equal. While Hadley was a cheerleader for him when he is doubtful for himself, Pauline is a critic (a role played originally by Gertrude Stein) who identifies the good writing and why his piece is good for the literature- it’s a conversation among writers and lovers of books. She is someone he can talk with rather than talk to. She is the fresh eyes and fresh smile after five years. Whatever Hadley was to Ernest- she couldn’t be new.

For a moment you feel for Pauline- she is a woman of the newer generation who is looking for love and can’t help it that she finds it in her best friends husband. This is also Paris in the 1920’s wives and girlfriends are not out of the ordinary. But usually these lives are separate – they are not wrapped in a tight threesome like the Heminways and Pauline.

Back to Hadley- once the realization sinks in, that Ernest now comes with Pauline , and accepting their relationship- she still tries to make it work ( something women in our generation never really do).  But Ernest has now left behind all the people who gave him a head start when he was struggling- Anderson, Gertrude, Ezra Pound and she realizes- the world was changing on her, and Ernest ( still trying to making his claim to world literature) was being drawn in to this new volatile group. She wanted Ernest back but couldn’t give him the ultimatum to leave Pauline- or just wait around for him to fall out of love with her. And it left her in a state of paralysis, the heart breaking game.

After they separated, she saw him twice more and watched from a distance as he quickly became one of the most important writers of his generation. She also watched as she went from being Ernest Hemingway’s wife to being his early wife- one of his four- as their history together was rendered to a chronology of a few years.

Lovers and Friends

I don’t know why I piece these two together but while I was reading this book I came across this video ( below).  And somewhere along the way I joined these two in my head.  There is an moral in both of them- that no matter how much you love each other- how perfect you are together and what you go through together – it’s never necessary that you will live the end of your days together and its truly the journey that matters. Because if we were keeping score then at the end of it Ulay and Marina didn’t see each other for 20 years and Hadley was just an early wife of Ernest’s four.

Ernest’s commitment to the relationship comes through in the following paragraph-

E once told her that paradise meant ‘walled garden’. He understood how necessary the promises they made to each other were. You couldn’t have real freedom unless you knew where the walls were and tended them. You could lean on the walls because they existed; and they existed because you could you leaned on them .when Pauline entered everything began to tumble. Nothing seemed permanent now except what was already behind them, what they had already done and lived together.