![Hemingway Writing](http://papasplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/hemingway-Safari-writing-square.jpg" "Hemingway Writing")
Can you judge a book by it’s cover?
I finished reading the beautiful “restored edition” of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, edited by his grandson Sean and a touching forward by Hemingway’s son Patrick.
But before I even get to the book, what struck me first about it was the cover. It is Hemingway’s 1923 passport photo. This is not the husky, gray-haired man who came to be known as Papa.
This is a young man with a steady, sharp, focused, self-assured gaze. (Take a look for yourself and tell me what you think.)
It doesn’t look like my passport photo. This is like a portrait. Light falling against his left side. Right side in shadow. His face addresses the camera. He seems ready to step out of the frame in his dark suit and tie and walk into Paris right at that moment.
He probably was.
On the back is Hemingway as he’s mostly remembered now. Overweight. Wrinkled. It’s 1959. Two years later he’ll be dead at his own hand. My French is lacking, but I believe that’s a French racing sheet in his hands. He looks amused in the photo, but am I reading in too much to say he doesn’t look content? Wistful is what I see.
He seems to want to go back to being that lad on the front cover.
The pages between tell the story of remorse … but that’s a post for another day.
