The Parallel Lives

Penguin Press will publish Ron Chernow’s biography on Mark Twain, next week, on May 13.

A recent article by Lauren Michele Jackson in this week’s edition of the magazine, the “New Yorker,” reviewed Chernow’s extensive biography on Twain. One sentence jumped out.

“In 1891, amid mounting debts, Twain and family went into self-imposed exile in Europe, where they remained until the century turned and he found himself able to repay his creditors.”

Twain loved Hannibal, Missouri and the Mississippi River, but he loved Europe too. He loved to travel. He concluded “Innocents Abroad” with a memorable quote:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

The fact is, when famous, Mark Twain chose to expatriate himself from America to Europe.

Years later, following Europe’s Great War (WWI), in the 1920’s, several American writers chose to make homes in Paris, France. Among others, they included: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Thomas Wolfe, and John Dos Passos.

Called the “Lost Generation,” these American authors delighted in the “vibrant cultural atmosphere,” when seated at tables at cafes on Paris’s sidewalks, plus “the sense of freedom,” they felt when released from “the perceived materialism and social constraints of the U.S.”

These Lost Generation American authors considered themselves expatriates.

During the five years that F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived in France, he wrote parts of “The Great Gatsby,” his better novel, that turned 100 years old days ago, on April 10.

Some like best Fitzgerald’s final words in the novel, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter.”

I prefer the novel’s first words, spoken by Nick Carraway, “My father gave me some advice. “Just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

At least once, on July 7, 1924, Ernest Hemingway crossed France’s border into Spain, into the district of Navarre, and in the city of Pamplona, he ran in the city’s annual running of the bulls.

In 1960, Hemingway and his wife bought a home in Cuba, and lived there for twenty years.

Ernest Hemingway was an expatriate.

Today’s American expatriates might migrate to a country in Europe—Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, yet others might choose a different location.

Lydia Polgreen, a writer for the “New York Times,” ran a column for the April 27, edition. She begins “We know one type of migration well. It’s millions of people traveling to wealthy countries in search of safety and opportunity.

“But another type of migration involves people from wealthy countries seeking new lives elsewhere, sometimes in wealthy countries, but also in poorer countries.”

Lydia gives an example of an American who lives now in Mexico City. She writes

“Chuck Muldoon graduated from a top U.S. university with a degree in linguistics, taught himself to write code, and then visited Mexico City for a few weeks. He was enchanted. In late 2021, he rented a room near the Colonia Juarez plaza, and has remained since, working remote.

“He has a residency permit and pays taxes on the money he earns in Mexico.”

Chuck Muldoon is today’s American expatriate.

Lydia Polgreen ends her column, “So it is perhaps not surprising that migrants from rich and poor nations alike are looking at Mexico anew, despite its challenges.”

As usual, Mark Twain said it best, “Travel is fatal to prejudice.”