Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona, Then, and Now: A Personal Memoir [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Robert Burgess (Author)
Key Phrases: bal musette, afternoon bullfights, wine bag, The Sun Also Rises, New York, Ernest Hemingway (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Powerful descriptions of landscape, place and event(...) Boy, you do play with echoes and resonances and overtones..." -- Professor Emeritus Robert E. Gajdusek, international Hemingway authority, scholar, poet, photographer and author of Hemingway's Paris. LETTER TO THE AUTHOR

Product Description
Robert F. Burgess, who met Ernest Hemingway at his last Pamplona fiesta, describes that meeting and how close friends related to Hemingway there.

Through recently published letters and memoirs we learn new facts about Hemingway’s early years in Paris and Pamplona with an intimate look at the real life characters of The Sun Also Rises.

Then the author returns to Hemingway’s favorite haunts in Paris and Spain today in search of Papa’s literary legacy. Following descriptions in The Sun Also Rises, he buses and backpacks into the Spanish Pyrenees, where he uncovers evidence that the Nobel Prize winning Hemingway wrote more fact than fiction into his novels.

These facts and those individuals who are carrying on his legacy reveal why Hemingway will always be with us.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse; illustrated edition edition (July 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595089534
• ISBN-13: 978-0595089536
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,369,765 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Son of "The Sun Also Rises", November 20, 2000

By	Douglas E. LaPrade (Edinburg, TX USA) - See all my reviews

English professors spend their careers teaching students not to confuse the author with the characters in the book. Shakespeare is not Hamlet, and Cervantes is not Don Quixote, or so they say.

But Hemingway's readers have a better idea, and Robert F. Burgess is one of Hemingway's best readers. Burgess knows that when Hemingway's fans read "The Sun Also Rises," they like to imagine how Hemingway himself drank in Paris and how he ran with the bulls in Pamplona.

Robert F. Burgess has written a book for those who read Hemingway as preparation for their own European adventures. Burgess knows that, for full appreciation of Hemingway's novels, one would do well to skip that college English class and make the grand tour. If you are planning to trace Hemingway's steps through Paris and Pamplona, then Burgess has prepared your itinerary.

Burgess knows that Hemingway's readers are not content with postcard views of the Eiffel Tower--they want to know precisely where Hemingway slept, ate, and walked. Burgess' book is encyclopedic in its detail, but it reads like a novel as Burgess introduces people he has met during his travels.

Wisely, Burgess has recognized that Hemingway has spawned a cult following as well as a critical reception. Hemingway's fans visit the author's bars and other haunts with the fervor of Bible scholars on a tour of the Holy Land. When they make their literary pilgrimage, Hemingway's readers want gospel truth--nothing apocryphal.

Burgess is such a stickler for authenticity that his book reminds one of how Hemingway began his writing career in Paris. Before he was famous, Hemingway looked out over the rooftops of Paris and decided that he should learn how to write one true sentence. Hemingway then wrote a few true sentences based upon straightforward observation of Paris street scenes.

In response to Hemingway's one true sentence, Robert F. Burgess has written one true book. He has documented the sites in Paris and Pamplona that Hemingway observed and described. Hemingway took pride in describing places precisely, and Burgess has gone to similar pains to trace Hemingway's legacy accurately.

Burgess' book is a thorough testament to the verisimilitude of Hemingway's fiction.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story simply told, August 1, 2002

By	TK SANDERS (Sussex South Coast UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an enjoyable read.

I especially liked the fact that the author did not embellish or hype his conversations and contact with Hemingway in Pamplona. What Burgess writes is fascinating, and he tells his story simply in the best Hemingway tradition.

The book contains quite a lot of Hemingway lore and facts I had not heard or read before. Burgess presents this information in a writing style that is comfortable and interesting for the reader who might not be such a Hemingway addict as myself.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than A Memoir-A Terrific Read!, November 25, 2000

By A Customer

I've read a couple biographies about Ernest Hemingway but they seemed stiff, as though the authors were just compiling facts. If Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona, Then and Now is considered a biography then it is one of the most interesting ones I've ever read. Mainly because Burgess' writing style makes it read more like a novel. From a look at the book's credits I believe the author has drawn on almost everything that has ever been written about Mr. Hemingway. He not only brings it all together very smoothly but I found myself learning things I never knew about the man on several different levels. Often they were either details of experiences the author saw himself with Hemingway, or they were personal accounts from people who knew Hemingway intimately. The author weaves them in with details of Hemingway's early Paris years along with personal memoirs that were written after the authors' death. He even retraces intimate details of Hemingway's real-life character for Robert Cohen from a biography written by Harold Loeb and published in 1959, the very year that Hemingway was last in Pamplona. For Hemingway it was his Last Hurrah. A last happy time with his old friends. Later, there is even an interview with a matronly friend who was only 19-years-old when Hemingway hired her in Pamplona to work for him as a researcher/typist in Cuba after they met at his last fiesta in 1959. Equally interesting to me was Burgess' description of Hemingway's final fiesta where everything seemed to come together there for him and he finally realized what was important to him. A year later he died. In the last half of the book Burgess revisits Hemingway's favorite places today and shows the reader what still remains of the author's legacy in Paris and Pamplona. Good stuff! I found the book a fascinating read on several levels, then and now. He hit the bull's eye both times!