Amongst other books, I have been intermittently rereading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, induced perhaps by a recent viewing of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Doing so has once again fueled my vision of my imaginary Paris, where one sits across from Joyce at the cafe or debates Gertrude Stein at her apartment or borrows books on credit from Shakespeare & Company. Of course, it is the Paris not merely of the Lost Generation, but of their great antecedents as well: Zola, Proust, Hugo, Balzac, Dumas, Voltaire, and so on.
By the time one reaches my age, one is pretty well reconciled to falling short of Eliot and Hemingway. There is, however, still the nagging question of whether, even if one cannot play the lead, one could not still be a bit player, a Pound or a Stein. What a privilege to find oneself immersed in such a milieu, to observe and perhaps even to assist the great literary endeavors of one's time. Perhaps the ultimate lesson, however, is to make the most of the minds around us while we have the time. After all, Paris is a moveable feast . . . .