By Jackson Lanzer
Every day was the same. Wake up. Sit in bed. Open my laptop. Stare at a Zoom screen until my focus blurs and my mind wanders. And repeat. Over and over for a year and a half.
But just because I was trapped in my room, didn’t mean that I didn’t dream. I started watching a film every day. It was my escape from the dull, monotonous reality that had become my junior and senior year of high school. One movie in particular transported me from my room to a world that felt forever out of reach: Midnight in Paris.
Midnight in Paris is a film about Gil, a screenwriter turned novelist (played by Owen Wilson), who wanders the streets of Paris at midnight and discovers a portal to the world of the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris, an age when Fitzgerald and Hemingway could be found penning stories at Cafes in St.-Germain, Gertrude Stein could be found scribbling edits on manuscripts at her apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus, and an age when the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses sat atop the newly crafted shelves of Shakespeare and Company.
The shots of beautiful Parisian streets and the soundtrack’s symphony of French melodies enchanted me. I longed for adventure and for even just a sliver of jazz age excitement, so I watched the film repeatedly, dreaming of what my life could be once the Covid-19 pandemic became mere memory.
I finally got the opportunity to live my dream during the summer after my sophomore year of college. For my parent’s thirtieth anniversary, they planned a trip to Paris. I was raised by high school sweethearts, and they felt there was no better place to celebrate their life together than the city of love. Thankfully, my sister and I were invited to tag along on their Parisian trip.
I immediately bought a copy of A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s autobiography about his years in 1920s Paris, upon hearing that my parents booked the plane tickets. I wanted the Lost Generation as my Paris tour guide.
A Portal to the Lost Generation’s World
June 23rd, 2023 journal entry:
“Today, I am seeking Hemingway, following his shadow around the city.”
Several days into my family’s trip to Paris, I finally had a day to myself. It was my opportunity to wander the streets of Paris and stumble upon the world of the Lost Generation.
I left my hotel and immediately began my trek towards St.-Germain. It had been the haunt of the Lost Generation and held many of the locations mentioned in A Moveable Feast.
After crossing the Seine and strolling past row after row of booksellers who sold vintage books in English and French, leather journals, and an assortment of literary-inspired knick-knacks, I arrived at Luxembourg Gardens.
“If I walked down by different streets to the Jardin du Luxembourg in the afternoon I could walk through the garden and then go to the Musee du Luxembourg where the great paintings were that have now mostly been transferred to the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume.” (page 23) – Hemingway in A Moveable Feast re Luxembourg Garden
At the center of the garden is a massive mansion that now serves as a museum. Hemingway frequented the museum and gardens during his years in Paris, and I decided to write beneath the shade of one of the garden’s many lush, green trees.
Parisians sat around me, many dressed in attire one would expect from a Parisian movie set: a man wore a beret, and others donned vintage leather jackets. I took in the scene, imagining that the world before me couldn’t have been much different from the view Hemingway saw on his strolls around the garden a century before.
After finishing a short story, I stood up from the patina-colored park bench and Google-mapped the route to Shakespeare and Company. It was about twenty minutes away; a pleasant walk across bustling French avenues. While I didn’t know where Gertrude Stein’s studio apartment was located at the time, I liked to imagine that I passed it as I wandered the streets of St.- Germain.
“It was easy to get into the habit of stopping in at 27 rue de Fleurs late in the afternoon for the warmth and the great pictures and conversation. Often Miss Stein would have no guests and she was always very friendly and for a long time she was affectionate. She loved to talk about people and places and things and food.” (page 57) – A Moveable Feast Quote about Gertrude Stein (the legendary literary mentor of the Lost Generation and an American expat)
I reached the green-painted walls of Shakespeare and Company, and I was welcomed by rows of books laid across tables outside the door and a line of literature enthusiasts waiting for a chance to step inside history. Only about a dozen customers were allowed inside at once, so the line had grown quite long.
I was feeling hungry so I grabbed a quick latte, and I sat at the Shakespeare and Company café located next door to the historic bookshop, enjoying a slice of pecan pie, surrounded by writers who all shared the romantic dream of writing stories in a place where the shadows of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce could still be glimpsed.
“In those days there was no money to buy books. Books you borrowed from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l’Odéon. On a cold windswept street, this was a lovely, warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive” (page 31) – A Moveable Feast
I sat at a small table, reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, images of Paris in the 1920s fluttering before my eyes. Servers dished out countless coffees to all those who had made their pilgrimage to this legendary bookshop; a literary Mecca worshiped by all who shed a tear as Gatsby stretched his arm towards the green light and as life spilled across the snows of Kilimanjaro.
Once I finished my drink, I waited in line for a chance to walk amongst history. When I finally entered Sylvia Beach’s bookstore, I was welcomed by the familiar faces of the Beat and Lost generations upon the shelves. I then walked up the weathered stairs to the library where books had been read by thousands if not millions. Faces of the literary greats had been painted on the walls and notes had been left upon the mirror, taped up by hundreds of visitors every day, each sharing a piece of their dreams captured within the ink spilled across torn pieces of paper.
June 23rd, 2023 journal entry:
“The splintered beams and chipped paint tell a story: the life that this bookstore has lived. Chiseled into the walls are names, initials, statements, and memories of all who have walked through these rooms. I can’t help but feel like the 1920s lost generation is living one more day in eternity within these walls. I catch a glimpse of Hemingway around the corner; he’s checking out books from the library (maybe even books I’ve held in my hands). I see Joyce sharing his masterpieces, Shakespeare and Company being the first to support him. And I see a generation of future writers strolling these shelves, their souls melding with the past, even if it is just one afternoon in an entire life.”
My note left on the wall:
“These splintered walls emanate a melody sung by writers who came before and writers who still dream to write. But in this library, our tales collide, and the only constant is the written word.”
Finally, a young American woman who worked for the shop ushered us all out as the sun began to set and the store was being closed. I walked home along the Seine that night, feeling as though I was sharing an evening with F. Scott and Ernest.
I finished the night with a martini at the Ritz, a bar frequented by Hemingway. Now the bar was decorated with countless photos of Ernest, and I ordered a dirty martini because it seemed fitting for the atmosphere.
June 23rd, 2023 journal entry:
“The lights are a gentle orange hum that floats in the air and gently envelopes the bar. Hundreds of faces hang from the wall and they all share the same name: Hemingway. The bar is a bubble of Americana in Paris. It feels homey, yet classy: a testament to the duality of the man who was both referred to lovingly as ‘Papa’ and reverently as one of the most influential novelists of his generation. I can feel history while sitting at these tables. I feel the passion of the Lost Generation who probably sat around these tables, debating the future of literature and penning the novels that would define a century. But I can’t help but feel that it’s not just history, it’s the future as well. How many aspiring writers have come to this place and, for a brief moment, felt the presence of Hemingway and Fitzgerald at their shoulders and surged with passion from the souls of literary legends?”
***
A Final Encounter with Hemingway
After a week in Paris, my family packed our bags and hopped onto a plane to the French Riviera city of Nice. While we abandoned the bustling city for a warm, tropical breeze, my encounters with the Lost Generation were not over.
I sat at a cafe, watching tourists walk through the pastel-colored walls of the city square (it felt as if I was sitting inside a Wes Anderson movie set). There was a waiter at the cafe who, whenever he overheard an American accent, strolled over and said “Monsieur, I lived in America for twelve years.” So the waiter, glasses sitting upon his face and gray specks dotting his beard, walked over to me and told me of his time in America; a story he probably told dozens of times per day.
He told me that he “married a French girl in San Francisco” and worked for the US Army before finding work on a Native American reservation and later venturing to Houston to manage what he proclaimed the “best French restaurant in Houston.”
Eventually, he longed to return to France and moved to the French Riviera, beginning his life as a waiter at the cafe in Nice. But he emphasized that he was actually born and raised in Paris. “To me it is a magical city,” he said. He then noticed that I was reading A Moveable Feast and proclaimed his love for Hemingway. He said he hadn’t read much of Hemingway’s works but
admired Hemingway’s adventurous spirit (hopefully not Hemingway’s notorious penchant for misogyny).
“I’m in love with Hemingway’s second wife,” he added. I laughed, thinking he was joking, but his face grew serious. “No, I’m serious,” he said. “I’m in love with that woman.”
After the waiter strolled away and I had downed several espresso shots, I read the last pages of A Moveable Feast. Upon those pages, I too met Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, exactly where the waiter had met her whenever he had read the book. While I can’t say I fell in love with her like the waiter had, I realized that history isn’t static. It transcends time, hidden in pages from the past, in words scribbled on walls, in century-old cafes, and down millennia old alleys. So like Gil in Midnight in Paris, I embraced the past and let the jazz age become my reality, even if it was just for a couple days.
Jackson Lanzer is a senior at George Washington University studying international affairs and journalism. He is a staff writer for The GW Hatchet and a senior producer for GW-TV. Outside of journalism, Jackson served as a research assistant for the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication and interned in both the House of Representatives and Senate. Additionally, he was awarded the Manheim-Sterling Undergraduate Research Prize by GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs to create a longform journalistic project and travel to Louisiana and Florida to track down where his grandfather — a Vietnam vet who died at 29 after going missing for a year — spent the final days of his life. His writing has appeared in Capitol Letters, The King’s Journal, DCTRENDING Magazine, Roar News, and 365tomorrows. Follow him on Instagram @lanzerwrites and Twitter (X) @JacksonLanzer.
