Being Geniuses Together, 1920-1930 (Paperback)

by Professor Robert McAlmon (Author), Professor Kay Boyle (Author) "In 1920 the atmosphere of New York had been postwar despairing, but various poets were then raising passionate voices in rebellion against puritanism, shouting America's..." (more)
Key Phrases: Kay Boyle, New York, Sir John (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This collaboration -- posthumous in McAlmon's case -- has proved amazingly successful. It gives us pictures of two lives -- and many surrounding lives -- from different angles, as if they had been taken with a stereoscopic camera. Thereby it gives us an impression of depth and substantiality that have been lacking in other memoirs of Paris in the 1920's." -- Malcolm Cowley, New York Times Book Review

Book Description

A beautiful evocation of 1920s Paris in a sad, funny, informative, and nostalgic memoir.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 374 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Rev Sub edition (March 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801855845
• ISBN-13: 978-0801855849
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #628,377 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eagles Without a Cliff, April 26, 2003

By	Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a strangely, piercingly affecting book ostensibly by and about two largely forgotten writers among the "Lost Generation" of writers and artists in Paris in the 1920's. It is an emotionally engrossing tale, especially on Boyle's part, of what physical and emotional/spiritual sacrifices the life of the committed artist demands.-----Yes, there is plenty of name-dropping and stories concerning Pound, Joyce and Hemingway-But that hardly seems the point and neither does their art (except for Boyle, at times). This book is about what sort of People they were, how they lived their lives, both internally and externally.

The stereotype of the artist as a self-destructive martyr to his or her art is certainly on display here, but the characters aren't represented as hollow stereotypes (which themselves exist, after all, for very good reasons). They leap from the page as living, breathing people, and one gains an insight into the modus vivendi of each of them. And it must be said that, of the writers from that milieu that are still remembered today (mentioned above), only Joyce comes through as a lovable figure, and a good man, despite his drinking bouts.

The major achievement of this book is that it brings home the humanity of both Boyle and McAlmon as they lived their externally festive (especially McAlmon's), inwardly tormented (especially Boyle's) lives. There are several other aspects on which one could dwell, Mcalmon's generosity and relative selflessness (as written of by Boyle, not he), Boyle's supposedly more "Romantic" way of life and art (as written of by McAlmon, not she), but the main effect is that of laying out a physical and psychological tableau of their lives in the 1920's.-As McAlmon confesses, "It is a horrible admission, but some of us are driven to work at times to forget about living life. That creative urge, if you will, or is it that something remembered or contemplated is more entertaining than the actual scene and event being experienced? Somebody else spoke of Marsden as an 'eagle without a cliff', but aren't we all?"-Later he writes, "...we had moments of enjoying the sodden destruction of time in a weary world."---

As we look back on this supposedly "dated" attitude of those expatriate writers, can we really say that their actions and outlook were so dated? What artist or what person has not had thoughts or periods of life such as expressed above?---At one point in the book, McAlmon reports a fellow reveller at a Parisian cafe chiding him for his well-known generosity and telling him that he has "too much humanity." This is the only criticism that can be levelled at this book, if you choose to categorize it as such.

8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A book for specialists, October 31, 2000

By A Customer

If you have read extensively about the Lost Generation and their Paris, then the McAlmon chapters will further illuminate what others have said. If you are fairly new to the subject, this book will bore you to tears with its laundry lists of who/what/where/exactly when and at what time so-and-so got drunk. I do not think Kay Boyle's chapters do anything but prove how odious she was.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memoirs of Paris, July 11, 2000

By A Customer

This is an evocative memoir -- much more substantive than many books exploring the lives of expats in Paris in the 20s & 30s.