Hemingway's Lost Generation and The Olive skinned Young Man

To admit one was ‘lost’ was to wish to be ‘found’

The war had haunted the lives of many young men, it had changed their lives completely, it is what the war did to them, it what they saw that changed the way they perceived life, and what one should get out of it. Once something is seen is very hard to change the way it is perceived, the ghosts of their friends and family haunting in their memory. A new life, a new passion arose from the ashes of the bombed, blooded soil. Soldier returning home lost, no one to understand their experience of bloodshed, cries, gunshots, screams, they had been part of a community of soldiers, a troop. Now let go into the reality, like newborns, free to roam the world without their armor, just scared from the sour sights of war forever lurking in the back of their subconscious. They had a hunger that filled their lungs, their guts when they were at war, now to be replaced by a different hunger, a hunger of life, for life. This idea of feeding oneself on the fruitful juices that of art, literature, music can only satisfy, that could only feed their deepest desires. This yearning of life itself encompassed their imaginations, Europe; a new exotic world where Stein had said was the center of the 20^th century. Paris, a temptation of great fiction, of where a greater fantasy roamed, these new men wanted to explore the values and virtues shared in Europe. That they only heard about from the pages of the books that existed, of the films they had seen, from the music they had heard. They left lost, in hope to find themselves, to emerge themselves into a community where art was their breath of life. The war had brought them experiences, had brought them a different perspective on life, and they were disillusioned, for they had been questioned for everything they had thought to be true or right, this training had directed them towards the destroying of the roots of their soil, they left the war betrayed by their own and could be seen as ‘homeless citizens of the world’.

Thus they dreamed, lost within themselves, what else did they have to loose? Paris a new bright future, where one could dance till the early hours of the morning, girls seen as provocateurs, wearing no longer tight restricting materials but loose silk sequined dresses, slightly touching their bare skin, men awake and letting their passion come through, drinking, laughing, taking what life could offer them, educating themselves about poetry, and literature, see and smell the paint of the painters, embrace the new Jazz movement. La joie de vivre was born, the roaring twenties had arrived, the war was over, and a time for celebration embraced them like a long lost lover.  They could open their eyes again, relax and rediscover life, with wild feelings unlocked from the depths of their armed bodies, a feast they were ready to devour, for Paris is a moveable feast, with each one of them bringing something to the table and taking in return.

They had been so lost, beneath the dust of the bombed earth, rising from the piles of vanished lives of the deceased, the were ready to get out and discover and see the rest of what the world had to give “An activity like alcoholic consumption, as it is used in these stories, can convey the sift in mood from honest enjoyment in the former part of the decade to pure self-indulgence in the latter phase, merely by its impenetrable symbolism; the versatility of drunkenness as a seme for the era is that it may be employed as either a seme of Joy or a seme of Dissipation depending on the context in which it is placed”(Dolan 12). Not looking back they embarked on this new future, loosing one military family to join another where a gun was replaced by a paintbrush, where a bomb, switched for a record, where blood turned to wine, and where loneliness became a trend within a community; “A craze- young men tried to get as importable drink as the hero, young women of good families took a succession of lovers in the same heartbroken fashion- (ERpg3).  The virtues switched, the way life changed, views blurred by a more exotic, more sensual perception of life, where sex, music, dance and alcohol along with performance and stylization became the core of the la vie Parisienne, instead of the ‘progress toward respectability” which is what the previous generation was aiming for it is said that “this narrative logic dictates this blurring of aesthetic and commercial cultures implicitly transformed Ernest the sincere young man into Ernest the two timing weasel”(Dolan 20).  This illustrated that the times were very different, and the 'retrict-ness' of the war caused the youth to rebel, like Andrew in Dos Passos story of Three Soldier. "Oh, I'd like to make the buttons fly all over the cafe, smashing the liqueur glasses, snapping in the faces of all those dandified French officers who look so proud of themselves that they survived long enough to be victorious."(Dos Passos). This idea of ripping through the invisible shield that suffocated the soldiers, rip through the past. To which unleashed within them a hunger for a new life, what would not be appealing about that? Who wouldn’t want to explore a whole new culture, a new being of life, a taste of freedom, and within this freedom find a niche where you belong somewhere? Who would give up an opportunity to find oneself?

It was on a sunny summer afternoon after a class on the history of art in Paris that I found myself walking the streets of Paris with an interesting young man. He had dark hair with olive skin, a well-cut beard masked his lower half of his face, his hazel green eyes looking into the depths of me while I talked, he must have been from an island off of Italy. We walked down the cobbled narrow streets down to the Jardin de Luxembourg, underneath the trees, we sat on a bench, shaded by the leaves of the warm Parisian summer sun we talked about why he had come to Paris, what I expected to discover here. He opened this little black book where the pages were scribbled with thoughts and sketches. I had the exact same one in my bag, I keep it with me everywhere I go, I write down things that came to me, places I’d see, a street I’d want to remember, a sketch. He took this little black book out and read me a poem he had been writing, as I listened I looked out at the Luxembourg gardens, couples kissing, children playing in the sun, mothers lighting their cigarettes relieving themselves for a moment, their red lips touching ever so slightly the outer edge. To the right, old men sitting on park benches with newspapers staining their wrinkled hands. In the background I could see a big gray cloud hovering over the dried out grass, looming towards the serenity of the jardin. The young man's cool, deep voice I noticed had repeated in his poem the word ‘lost’ several times. As I was about to ask him about this idea of being lost and how we are expected to find oneself, or if one every truly does? The first raindrop had fallen on my bare skin, followed by the next and the next and the next. He took my hand and we began to run through the jardin, taking off my sandals and running through the wet grass, I felt alive, I felt like a child, I felt an air of freedom. We ran until we stumbled into this little deserted café, laughing sheepishly at the fact that we got soaked, refreshed by the outburst of a summers rainfall, we ordered two cafes. I began to look around the café, a café that would fit so perfectly into one of Hemingway’s stories, and one that allowed for many to experience a Paris through words on a page. In this deserted Parisian café, with dim lights, and little tables, with photographs of old Hollywood stars bracing the walls. There were stars from the 40’s, 30’s and 20’s, including Charlie Chaplin, Greta Carbo, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, and the young man and myself sat under the images of Marylyn Monroe and James Dean ironically.  The two cafes arrived I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was and realized that the smell of the bursting coffee bean along with his freshly lit cigarette created this hunger within me. Yet I wasn’t hungry for food, the day had been eventful in itself but I wanted more, I yearned for more of this life that found itself in Paris, like a drug running seemingly within my veins.

This hunger, this passion is often talked about in the Novel of A Moveable Feast, “the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the place de l’observatoir to the rue de vaugirad- there you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly empty, hollow hungry” - “it was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry” (Hemingway). Ernest Hemingway believed that he had understood Cezanne’s paintings better when he was hungry, it lead him to wonder wether he had eaten or not when he had painted these paintings “later I thought Cezanne was probably hungry in a different way.” This idea of hunger feeding not only the hunger, but also a representation of hunger that runs through the veins into the depths of ones soul. I have that hunger for art, for the passion of life and what it has to offer. Sitting in a small café with the olive skinned man discussing artists, writers, film directors, along with this idea of finding oneself in a place that you’ve only heard about, and how you make it fit with yourself, is a day that will not be lost. This dark haired, hazel eyed man has now till this day become very close to me and we continue to discuss such things in our lives, we have become a part of community, where youths like us want to explore what the world means, not just touch the surface but dig deeper, where what lies is unknown but what is found will forever hold truth to us as a being.

Every generation is lost someway, however today the morality and values have decreased significantly, it makes me question what the future will hold, the views of todays society is one of a ‘robot’-ian, where technology runs us, we have become a zombified morphology of the humans race. Reading an article about photography by Jacques Ranciere explains “there is no lack of nature in inspiration but of human beings”. Meaning that today’s society it’s rare that the majority truly sees, and view only what they are meant to see rather than venture further into it. It’s become a commercial society, without perhaps appreciating what is in fact in front of them. It’s a dense subject, however for what its worth id rather live within the mentality of the 20’s where things were uncertain, one was lost but at least there was a community where art flourished, where the pure love of it empowered the youths, I know I will forever remain lost in that world. Even if these authors had written in” a “narrative truth” rather than to the parallel domain that he decleanates as “historical fact””(Doland). This mood is the chief historical meaning conveyed by all these stories in the sense that Spence speaks of meaning intertwined with ‘interpretation’ whether they emphasize youth (like Hemingway), cooptation (Like Cowley), or middle aged generatibity (like Fitzgerald). In all the stories the mood is the message and the message is true, whether or not ‘the fact’ are verifiable”(Dolan 18).