Tag Archives: Paula McLain

Evolving Love

Posted by Ayesha in Biographical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Education, Family, Inspiration, On Love and tagged with , , , , , ,

Last time, I was just tapping into what The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, taught me.

What keeps marriage going? How do we assure ourselves that our marriages will work when so much around us suggests that it doesn’t?

So, love evolves and changes. I hope that when E and I have been married for one week, one year, ten years, that we will be more in love with each other than we were the day before. I’m more in love with him now than I was yesterday, and certainly more in love with him than the first time I realized I loved him (a loooooong time ago). But there are days when I’ve questioned myself and my ambition and my needs and E’s needs. Can we sustain that love? And the answer is yes, but we also have to be ready for the game to change, and know that we’ll get through it. I mean, the love I have for him now is very different from that high school love we had five years ago.

We’ve gone through a lot and we have a lot more to go through. We have to work through transitions and allow for our love to grow and change as we do over the years. Isn’t that what marriage is about? Being ready to make those changes, knowing that the person beside you will always be beside you and having faith that they know the same? So much life will come along: children, loss, careers, moves, etc. What’s going to get me through it? What’s going to get E through it? I will say E. I hope he says me, he might say Halo. Just kidding.

I have to believe that we won’t suffer a fate like the Hemingways. And I’m going to work my hardest to always be open to the change and movement and evolution of the love we have. I hope you will, too. I’m sure you already are, faithful reader. That’s why I love you. Thanks for hanging with me through this one. It is a big deal.

Behind the Shadow of Bohemia

Posted by Ayesha in Biographical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction and tagged with , , ,

I just finished The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, and it’s left me with quite a few thoughts.

Firstly, I love that this book is about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. I know very little about Hemingway and haven’t read much of his work, but I find him fascinating nonetheless. And this book makes me want to read more of his writing. Plus, I love the autobiographical feel of the book, even though it is fiction. McLain made a good move in getting to the essence of the characters, a devoted writer’s life, and the world of bohemian Paris in the 1920s.

Secondly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I seem to have a thing for Paris lately. The book doesn’t talk much about Paris itself, but it certainly left me with a feeling of what it was like for the elite artists of that time. Most of them were just starting out, like Hemingway, hoping to become famous writers. And others were famous, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Some of them were rich and living decadently, and others lived simply, just for their writing. As a person that’s spent a lot of time with musicians, I get that. Sacrifices are all worth it for the art. But they did meet, travel, and work together. And McLain really gives the reader a sense of that collaboration from the start. Also, she paints Hemingway as a person who would do anything and go anywhere for his writing. And Hadley was always there to support him, for the first five years, anyway. ***Spoiler alert: Hemingway had four wives. Hadley, the Paris wife, was the first, so we know how that ends.

Thirdly, with said spoiler, this book got me thinking about how marriages stay together. Hadley was always so supportive of Ernest, and the way McLain tells it, Ernest loved her and needed her very much in the early days. But eventually, he moved on. Most of the artists and the group they kept company practiced open relationships, so it was hard to ever see Hadley and Ernest ending, even when they got very frustrated with each other. It made me wonder, as a bride-to-be, what keeps marriages from falling apart? What can I take away from McLain’s Hemingways?

I’ll tell you in the next post. It’s kinda heavy. So, be prepared for some heavy thinking.