The Paris Wife

I couldn't decide whether I wanted to write about this book or burn it. Which made it quite clear that I should absolutely write about it.

As you may guess from my opening lines, I loved The Paris Wife, but I also hated it passionately.

I loved it because it simply begs to be loved. It is written in the cadence of the 1920's and introduces us to our two main characters, the author Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson while they are young and carefree and falling in love.

You can't help but be whisked away to another era as you read the story of their romance. Their short courtship and marriage eventually leads you to Paris-- and seeing Paris during it's golden age makes the story even more beautiful and rich. You are introduced to a Paris filled with artists and writers. Paris before it was the destination for wealthy tourists. Back when Montmartre was more than just a scenic stop for a bus load of vacationers. Back when the cafes were filled with sleek, short-haired women, all dressed up in beaded dresses, smoking cigarettes while they sip champagne and dance with dashing men in fedoras. You watch our hero and heroine fall in with great names like Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his Zelda, and you are transported to a time when Paris was filled with beginnings-- back when Paris was in the business of creating something new.

You are introduced to Ernest, Hadley, and Paris, and you simply can't help but to fall more in love with each page.

But the story is a tragedy, and you know it from the beginning.

The entire book is a marvelously written account of a marriage that falls apart. The characters are deeply and realistically flawed. There is no villain who sweeps in and destroys things. You can't even hate the "other woman." She is so flawed and has deceived herself so fully that although you want to hate her, you instead almost pity her. The downfall of the marriage has no mastermind behind it-- it crumbles from the inside out, and for the everyday reasons that marriages fall. Small and stupid everyday sort of flaws, like weakness and selfishness and pride and lust.

The story is told from Hadley's perspective, and you fall in love with Ernest while she does, despite his arrogance and drinking and high opinion of himself. You see the best of him, as she does, and you feel proud of her as she stands by him firmly, especially after they move to Paris and you see all morality stripped away for the sake of modernity. You worry for him with her as he allows Paris to change him, and you cheer them on as they rally time and time again.

And your heart breaks with Hadley's heart when Ernest gives up. And it feels so real. There is no dramatic war whoop signaling the end, there is just the silence of broken hearts and tears and betrayal.

It's so real, and that's why I hated it.

Ernest and Hadley's story takes all your fears of love and marriage and commitment and whispers to you that your fears are valid. If I wanted an example to hold up as a prop to answer the question (the one that people in relationships so love to ask each other). The classic: "what are you so afraid of?" that all I would have to do is display this book.

The reason that this book resounded with me, the reason that it has resounded with so many people and has become so incredibly popular is because in that conversation of why we are afraid of love, we know that once we are in, and I mean in, all in, there is no going back to that time when you weren't vulnerable. And after you are all in, there is nothing to protect you if that other person changes their mind.

This is the story of a mind that changes, when it was once firmly settled. It's the story of a weak woman becoming strong, in a worldly sort of way, and after all of the happiness and heartbreak and endings, finding a new beginning.

After reading this book I think most readers would answer the question of "what are you afraid of?" with, "I'm afraid that I could be your Hadley. That we could love each other enormously and with everything we've got, but after I am completely invested and in love with you, you will simply change your mind to suit your desires."

But oh, how magnificent to take that chance. And how good to have a long hard chat with yourself about what you're risking when you fall in love, making sure you really know what that risk entails, and then throwing it all on the line anyways.

You watch Hadley and Ernest fall apart, and then you see how happy a life she gets to have anyways. Despite him. And she feels, in a way, because of him.

This book makes you struggle against the reality that love can often be painful. It makes you think and it makes you imagine and it makes you happy and sad and so, so angry.

It is a book that I would recommend to a friend, but with cautionary words to accompany the recommendation. I would tell her not to read it unless she wants to deal with heartbreak. But if you're looking to make peace with what heartbreak is and means and represents, it's just the thing.

I will say that reading this book made me very grateful for my faith. If it wasn't for my faith, I don't think I would be very hopeful about any of my commitments lasting. I'm far to quick-tempered and passionate to have much hope for myself if I didn't know that when I marry, it will be to a man who will work with me to have a marriage centered not around either of us, with our selfishness and childish wants and pride, but around our faith in Jesus Christ. The only thing perfect and good and worthy in either of us will be our marriage's foundation, and that gives me hope. Without that, I'm afraid I would be just another Hadley. Sad and lonely even in my happiness, grasping at straws in love.

Ernest, Hadley and their son Jack (Bumby)