Saturday, March 24, 2012

Is Paris still a haven for ex pat American writers/artists?

Was reading a bio on Henry Miller and was wondering if there is still that artistic American ex pat community somewhere in Paris, and if so, where?



I assume such groups were priced out of Paris long ago. So, if not in Paris - where would the next Hemingway go for inspiration, community and cheap living?



Thanks for any thoughts.




|||



Most go where it is cheap to live while working and getting inspirations. Spain and Mexico are good choices.




|||



By the way, Hemingway wasn%26#39;t poor, from what I%26#39;ve read. He just liked to play the part of starving artist. His wife had a nice trust fund.




|||



That wealth didn%26#39;t come during his Paris years however - it came after he published The Sun Also Rises AND married the wealthy Pauline Pfeiffer. They left Paris and moved to Key West, Florida





My writer friends who are expats live in Eastern Europe, particularly Bratislava, Ljubljana, and Budapest and do or have lived in Mexico, Central and South America. They all make decent livings but are far from wealthy. And, they all take whatever writing assignments come their way - from travel to business to politics.




|||



livetotravel, not to totally get off track, but that%26#39;s interesting about Hemingway. I%26#39;m reading a fictionalized account of his life in Paris (though it%26#39;s presumably based on fact). And the book mentions that Hadley had a trust fund, but Hemingway insisted on supporting his family with his own money. Maybe the account is wrong...Obviously, you know more about Hemingway than I do!




|||



Mediachick,



Curious to know; are you reading Hemmingway%26#39;s %26#39;A Moveable Feast%26#39;? I haven%26#39;t read it yet but have just bought it and I%26#39;m waiting to read it once I move into my new neighborhood in Paris...which supposedly is where he lived and wrote that novel - rue Mouffetard. I%26#39;m moving there in a few weeks. (First I have to finish reading the DaVinci Code before I get there)




|||



I don%26#39;t remember anything about Hadley having any money in %26quot;A Movable Feast%26quot;. They were often without food and sometimes made some money at the racetrack but after Hem quit his job with UPI, times were tough.



BTW, the building where he worked is just off Place de la Contrescarpe on rue Cardinal Lemoine at the top of rue Mouffetard, just above a bookstore that doesn%26#39;t happen to have any of his books for sale.




|||



When money was really tight, Hemingway used to go catch a couple of pigeons in the Jardin du Luxembourg for dinner. (At any rate, when things got a bit easier, and he and his cronies would hang out at La Closerie des Lilas, that was the story he told. And Papa Hemingway would never have made up a story like that, right? Never...)



Before the C. des L. days his hang-out, when he could afford it, was Polidor on rue Monsieur le Prince, which looks identical today to the way it looked then. I think he lived close by, if memory serves...



I have a sentimental thing for the Polidor as it was one of the first restaurants I ever ate in in Paris, and I%26#39;ve eaten there every time I%26#39;ve been in the city since - even if I was just there for a few hours between trains or whatever. I know, I know. But I like the place.



My other sentimental favorite - and for the same reason - sadly disappeared a few years back, a little bistro called Au Pont Marie. It%26#39;s now some very stark modern place all tricked out in black ad white...



Mole, you must know the place I mean - on the island, on the Quai de Bourbon, just a few yards from the bridge. Do you remember the old bistro with its lovely dark red paint and gold lettering on the façade?




|||



So that%26#39;s what happened to %26quot;Au Pont Marie%26quot;! I went looking for it on a Hemingway walk (geeky I know) but it was nowhere to be found. He mentions it in one of his books and it sounded like my kinda place. BTW, I share your affection for Le Polidor and have been eating there for many years. I%26#39;m addicted to their lentil and fois gras soup and the %26quot;wine of the week%26quot; is always excellent.




|||



Someone scream at me if I am being stupid but doesn%26#39;t the words ex-pat only refer to English people?



I always though it meant ex-patriotic, as in used to live in England under the Queens rule




|||



Per the Oxford Dictionary:



ORIGIN mid 18th cent.(as a verb): from medieval Latin expatriat- ‘gone out from one%26#39;s country,’ from the verb expatriare, from ex- ‘out’ + patria ‘native country.’

No comments:

Post a Comment