Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s - Softcover

Carpenter, Humphrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571249132 ISBN 13: 9780571249138

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2009

Synopsis

In Humphrey Carpenter's own words, 'This is the story of the longest-ever literary party, which went on in Montparnasse, on the Left Bank, throughout the 1920s.' 'This book', to continue to quote Carpenter himself, 'is chiefly a collage of Left-Bank expatriate life as it was experienced by the Hemingway generation - "The Lost Generation", as Gertrude Stein named it in a famous remark to Hemingway.' There are brief portraits of Gertrude Stein, Natalie Clifford Barney and Sylvia Beach, who moved to Paris before the First World War and provided vital introductions for the exiles of the 1920s. The main narrative, however, concerns the years 1921 to 1928 because these saw the arrival and departure of Hemingway and most of his Paris associates. 'He is a compelling guide, catching the kind of idiosyncratic detail or incident that holds the readers' attention and maintains a cracking pace. Anyone wanting an introduction to the constellation of talent that made the Left Bank in Paris during the Twenties a second Greenwich Village would find this a useful and inspiring book.' Times Educational Supplement

About this title

About the Author:

Humphrey Carpenter was born and educated in Oxford, and attended the Dragon School and Keble College. He was a well-known biographer and children's writer, and worked previously as a producer at the BBC. He wrote biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Ezra Pound, C. S. Lewis and Dennis Potter. Among his many books for children were the best-selling Mr Majeika series. He also wrote several plays for the theatre and radio. A keen musician, he was a member of a 1930s-style jazz band, Vile Bodies, which was resident at the Ritz Hotel in London for a number of years. He died in 2005.

From Publishers Weekly:

Dubbed the "Lost Generation" by Gertrude Stein, they were Americans who flocked to Paris in the post-WW I years, convinced that in the bohemian quarter of Montparnasse their creativity would flourish. Principal among them was Hemingway, who has the major share of this collective portrait by Carpenter, who also has written biographies of Auden and Tolkien. He follows the evolution of the Hemingway style"no fat, no adjectives, no adverbs"in anecdotes that reveal the personality of a not entirely likable man. Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kay Boyle, Djuna Barnes, Pound, Joyce and others who frequented the Shakespeare and Company bookstore or the art-filled rooms of Stein also contributed to the "long, wild party" whose glamour has not faded. In this social history, Carpenter illuminates as well the dark side of the heady period. Photos.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0571249132
• ISBN 13: 9780571249138
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272