TEN HEMINGWAY

The Other American Expatriates 

Baldwin and Hughes provide us with a new dimension of the expatriate life in Paris through the lens of African-Americans. They too, believe in a myth of Paris “as a crucially non-racist city”. Baldwin presents a rather unfortunate encounter in Paris and expresses his negative feelings over his fate. Yet he chooses to remain in the city of lights. On the other hand, Hughes delivers his story with a frankness with exclamations of humor despite it having his fair share of misfortunes.It is through Kramer that we learn about the reason behind Baldwin’s fondness of Paris — its cultural hybridity. Both the writers reflect this hybridity through their tales while replicating the insular nature of the expatriate community in the French capital. In this process, their expectations of Paris are also confronted with her realities.

As African-Americans, Baldwin and Hughes arrive in Paris about two decades later than the first Lost Generation to escape the racial discrimination in America. Parallel to the idle, romantic notion of Paris that the Lost Generation had in the 1920s, a racially-tolerant, liberating idea of Paris was held by the African-American hopefuls. However, both writers soon learn that Paris was difficult in her own ways to survive in. 

TEN WALKING

Le Sentiment

I.

In 1965, the 16th arrondissement reaffirmed itself in cinema as the district of affluence and power when a traffic warden retracts his order to Emilio Largo’s illegal parking when the Bond villain steps out of the car in Thunderball. The notion that the atmosphere of a neighborhood varies with its average household income is compelling. However, I made an conscious effort to not hold any expectations of the neighborhood before my walk in it. It was out of my past experience of reality falling short, or being simply different, from my imagination. 

NINE WALKING

The Grains of Wood

In 1965, the 16th arrondissement reaffirmed itself in cinema as the district of affluence and power when a traffic warden retracts his order to Emilio Largo’s illegal parking when the Bond villain steps out of the car in Thunderball. The notion that the atmosphere of a neighborhood varies with its average household income is compelling. However, I made an conscious effort to not hold any expectations of the neighborhood before my walk in it. It was out of my past experience of reality falling short, or being simply different, from my imagination. 

NINE HEMINGWAY

An American Returns

F. Scott Fitzgerald is introduced as one who “understood loss better perhaps than any American writer”. Babylon Revisited acutely relates to this theme as it speaks of a man trying to reclaim what he had lost. Paris becomes the setting for this quest and its fiction resonates with many of the realities that Fitzgerald faced during the 1920s. We continue to learn about Paris through an expatriate lens and are reacquainted with that lifestyle in retrospect. Furthermore, this story might offer some insight into Fitzgerald’s psyche as a successful writer, husband and father. At the same time, the series of events, observations and characters continuously serve to convey the inescapability of the past.

EIGHT HEMINGWAY

Pound, Paris

Hemingway indulges in nostalgia in a simply manner through penning A Moveable Feast. As a work of a non-fiction literature, he wins our favor through a humble voice of a young, budding writing. We encounter literary legends in this fractional memoir such as Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. The first and the last act as mentors while the middle a peer and close friend. The unfortunate dissolution of his relationship with Stein accentuates the goodness of Ezra Pound whose character Hemingway leaves intact. In addition, he portrays Pound as a much more trustworthy and substantial literary judge.Furthermore, the placement of the chapters on Stein, Pound and Fitzgerald compels the reader to juxtapose the natures of the relationship of the three. 

EIGHT WALKING

Conversations in Passages

Trying to not sound like a pretentious prick, walking had always been a part of my creative process. Paris made it a mandatory activity as a mode of transport (which made it a little annoying, I like to do things on my own terms). She became my place of work two years ago. The saturated market for photographers accommodated my lenses. 

I recently read an article about the term expatriate and how it only applies to ‘whites’. Those of other ethnicities who work in a foreign country have a label that is somehow more negative in connotation— ‘immigrants’, even if they have no intention on becoming citizens. I wonder which will my hybrid status as a half Swedish half Vietnamese bestow me. Back in Sweden, I was always mistaken for a tourist. My own people spoke in English to me. Everyone speaks very good English because no one out of the Nordic lands is versed in a Scandinavian language.

SEVEN WALKING

Conversations in Passages

Trying to not sound like a pretentious prick, walking had always been a part of my creative process. Paris made it a mandatory activity as a mode of transport (which made it a little annoying, I like to do things on my own terms). She became my place of work two years ago. The saturated market for photographers accommodated my lenses. 

I recently read an article about the term expatriate and how it only applies to ‘whites’. Those of other ethnicities who work in a foreign country have a label that is somewhat more negative in connotation— ‘immigrants’, even if they have plans on returning home someday. I wonder which will my hybrid status as a half Swedish half Vietnamese bestow me. Back in Sweden, I was always mistaken for a tourist. My own people spoke in English to me. Everyone spoke very good English because no one else in the world speaks a Scandinavian language.

Due to my profession, I travel with a good weight of equipment, which also makes walking even more so a chore when I am forced to do so. It wasn’t like this in Stockholm. I cherished walking more, because the opportunity presented itself only on rare, warm occasions. 

In Paris, walks are mainly in the open, unlike Tokyo where I brisk walked  through underground passes, interlinked malls and enclosed bridges. Come to think of it, my walks in Paris constituted more like strolls in comparison.