Cafe Select

The Cafe Select.

The Cafe Select is throughout the book one of Callaghan's favoured locations for spending time in Paris, particularly with his wife Loretto.

It seems to feature prominently as a central location where Callaghan and Hemingway often meet up with Loretto after boxing together at The American Club.

As we can see, The American Club is a good distance from the Select. When I checked in Google Maps the exact distance of the walk came out as 5km (or just over 3 miles).

"Miro was having dinner with the Hemingways, but after the boxing I told them I was meeting Loretto at the Select. And here again was the charm of Hemingway. I didn’t have to say to him, “Loretto, I know, would like to meet Miro.” He simply said, “We’ll walk up with you.”" (Callaghan, 1963)

This section highlights the difference in culture between the 1920s when the book is set and nowadays, as Hemingway clearly thinks nothing of walking those three miles whilst many people today would see that as a very long walk and get the bus or a taxi instead. It also highlights differences in technology in relation to travel - vehicles were far less common on the roads so people were presumably more accustomed to walking greater distances.

To back up this point I plugged the words "taxi" and "bus" into Google Ngram Viewer and discovered that in 1929 (when the book is set) the use of both words was far less common than today, as they were only just beginning to come into popular use:

Of all the cafes mentioned in the book, the Select appears to, at least for the Callaghans, function as something of a hub where they begin their evenings, and afterwards tend to move on to other places.

Works Cited:

Image:

http://www.metropoleparis.com/1997/70714228/summer1.jpg

References:

Callaghan, Morley. 1963. That Summer in Paris: Memories of Tangled Friendships with Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/bio/callaghan-thatsum.html.