Important note!: this review is of the edition that Hemingway's grandson revised because he didn't like the original's contents. Hotchner argues for ignoring this edition in favor of the original.

"The grandson has removed several sections of the book’s final chapter and replaced them with other writing of Hemingway’s that the grandson feels paints his grandma in a more sympathetic light. Ten other chapters that roused the grandson’s displeasure have been relegated to an appendix."

"All publishers, Scribner included, are guardians of the books that authors entrust to them. Someone who inherits an author’s copyright is not entitled to amend his work. There is always the possibility that the inheritor could write his own book offering his own corrections. Ernest was very protective of the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. Surely he has the right to have these words protected against frivolous incursion, like this reworked volume that should be called “A Moveable Book.” I hope the Authors Guild is paying attention."

He is gentle, wistful, and almost nostalgic. One writer friend once described Hemingway to me as "that bully" and in many ways my friend was right. Hemingway had created his own public personae that included a brusque way of conducting himself; of a kind of machismo that would be called out for what it was these days; and an insensitivity to other people that bordered on the cruel. A lot of that 'Grace under pressure" is crap, and in his better moments, Heminway probably knew that. But the stories in A Moveable Feast belie all that. He remembers those days in Paris with a fondness and kindness that is remarkable, considering his usual public displays.

Ernest was very protective of the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. Surely he has the right to have these words protected against frivolous incursion, like this reworked volume that should be called “A Moveable Book.”

For that voice of a shattered Hemingway alone, the new edition of A Moveable Feast is worth taking note of. Otherwise, what I'm calling the "classic" edition is the more coherent narrative.

"Though this may seem at first blush a fragmentary book, it is not so. It should be read as a novel, belongs among the author's better works and is, as 'mere writing,' vintage Hemingway."