Arlen J. Hansen
Expatriate Paris
Arcade Publishing, New York, 1990
RUE VAVIN: Hôtel de Blois
Another occasional resident of the Hôtel de Blois was the self-proclaimed
diabolist, Aleister Crowley, who sometimes referred to himself as"The Beast 666".
Crowley, whose real name was Edward Alexander Crowley, spent considerable
time at his temple in Cefalu in Sicily, where he reputedly practiced black magic.
Crowley once suggested to Man Ray that Ray require his customers
to have their astrological charts done by Crowley so Ray could photograph them
"properly". In return, Crowley would tell those who came to him for chart readings
that they had to be photographed by Ray first. Ray, no fool, chose not to align
himself with Crowley.
Some expatriates found Crowley difficult. One night, Crowley was teased into
taking a celebrated Montparnasse model to dinner to "find out what she's really like."
The next morning Crowley grumbled that it was "rather like waving a flag in space."—
which may say more about Crowley's anatomy than the model's.
Most likely Crowley exaggerated his diabolical nature for effect. Stories about
him made hot newscopy. In February 1922, for instance, the London Sunday Express
reported an incident that presumably took place at Cefalu. The story carried this
disclaimer: "The facts are too unutterably filthy to be detailed in a newspaper, for
they have to do with sexual orgies that touch the lowest depths of depravity." Now,
if that don't fetch 'em, as the King told Huck, I don't know Arkansaw.
Crowley, it must be admitted, deliberately contributed to his image in his
1922 book, The Diary of a Drug Fiend. Most people who didn't know Crowley
assumed this highly imaginative work of fiction to be literal fact.
Crowley's eccentrities amused many of the expatriates, however,
and several of them, notably Mary Butts, visited him at Cefalu. Among those
his diabolism did not amuse the French police. On 17 April 1929, they gave
the 54-year-old Crowley 48 hours to leave the country for holding a black mass.
"It did not help his case", the Tribune reported, "that he is alleged to have been
a spy for Germany in the United States during the war." In any case,
his biography makes a sad, eerie tale. (pp. 120-121)
74 RUE DU CARDINAL-LEMONE: First apartment of Ernest & Hadley Hemingway
Shortly after their arrival in Paris, Ernest and Hadley— who had been married
four months— moved from Hôtel Jacob into a tiny, fourth-floor apartment here
on 9 January 1922. Directly across from their building stood a handy Bois-Chabon-Vin
shop. Around the corner on the place de la Contrescape was the Café des Amateurs,
which Ernest called "the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard." In other words, this was
your basic Tough Working-Class Neighborhood. "Aache" territory. Nevertheless,
in a letter to a friend from his ambulance-driving days, Hemingway boasted that
the apartment was in "the best part of the Latin Quarter."
The stairway of number 74 was damp and dark, with a rancid-smelling toilet closet
(pissoir) for men on each landing. The Heminways had no running water, and their bed was
a mattress on the floor. After living here a year and a half, Ernest & Hadley left in August 1923
to return to Toronto so their baby would have a North American birth & citizenship.
Robert Wheeler
Hemingway's Paris
Yucca Publishing, New York, 2013
In his novel, A Moveable Feast, Hemingway mentions Les Deux Magots on
Boulevard Saint Germain. Throughout his time in Paris, Hemingway used different
cafés for different reasons. Some were used for romance, some for working, and some
for business or commerce. When he stopped to work at Deux Magots, he would
look across the Rue Bonaparte and see the historic Abby of Saint-Germain-des-Près,
the oldest church in the city. He would order the apérritif, open his journal, and
begin to write. Hemingway believed that Paris was a city tempted by greatness. (p. 26)
Craft: A young Ernest Hemingway, in the early 1920s, honed his skill as a master
of prose through his intention to create suggestive, highly personal, and intensely
emotional writing through his disciplined work ethic. He found inspirations in cafés,
along the banks of the Seine, on long walks, and living among the greatest modernists
of the Twentieth Century. Hemingway filled his creative spirit by being a part of a city
that afforded him a life and a community in which he was able to begin to perfect his
craft & wrote what most scholars believe to be his finest & most considered work. There
is no disputing the fact that Ernest Hemingway was an innovator of 20th Century prose,
and that it all began to take shape in the early years of his Parisian experience. (p. 45)
Book Talk. Monday, March 8th, 1923: The intimate crowd that gathered for the evening
readings asked, "What about craft?" "What was the process like?" "What did you discover
about writing?" "What about language?" "Is it about the city, or is it about the narrator?"
You want all those that end up in a place like Shakespeare and Compny to ask these
questions. Hemingway knew the answers— he knew them because he immersed himself
in the intricacies of his work. He believed in his art, trying to make the English language
new by changing the rhythms of writing and by creating a minimalist approach to prose
that would affect and impact generations to come. (p. 76)
Craft. Repetition. Brevity. Voice. Clarity. All aspects of his art for which Ernest Hemingway
is known and revered. As Hemingway looked north in the evening from his rented room
at the Hotel Midi toward the illuminated Sacré-Coeur, he could watch the sun set upon this
city from the place he worked. Life evaporates & people make choices. Like Hemingway,
some choose to create. It is what they do. To make things that will stand another day. Since
the days his eyes fell over the Parisian landscape, many writers have said it is impossible
not to work in Hemingway's shadow. (p. 80)
The doorway in Paris in which all Ernest Hemingway enthusiasts come, hoping
to gain entrance. When opened, this door to ernest and Hadley's first apartment,
a two room flat, offers a resting plae ana a glimpse int the simple life they
shared on the fourth floor. Though at the time, theirs was an undesirable
neighborhood, far too close to the Place de la Contrescarpe and noisy
bal musette. In spite of location, this young couple, one a skilled writer
and the other his adoring wife, conceived their only child and
lived happily for nearly two years behind this door. (p. 126)
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