The Paris Bookseller

“The Lost Generation” broadly refers to the generation that came of age during and immediately following World War I. More narrowly, it is often used to refer to the artistic movement and circle of expatriates who gathered in Paris during the 1910s and 1920s; this growing fraternity included Sylvia Beach as well as Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and the other real-life figures who are either featured or referenced as characters in The Paris Bookseller. The phrase “The Lost Generation” itself is popularly attributed to Gertrude Stein, who passed it on to Hemingway, though it has also been suggested that Stein initially heard it from someone else.

In this context, the word “Lost” encompasses a collective disconnection, disillusionment, and lack of purpose that many of these people were struggling to overcome at the time. Young people were becoming disenchanted with the “American Dream” that their parents and grandparents had always believed in, and this theme is explored at length in the novels of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby stands as a prime example.) This generation was characterized by a tendency to indulge in excess, as well as a willingness to break from traditional values, for the previous generation’s outlook  had been upended by the wholesale carnage of World War I. Today, exactly one century following the heyday of the Lost Generation, many of these elements and philosophies are evident once again in the collective attitudes of Millennials, whose most notable characteristics include their disillusionment with the formulaic dream championed by their parents and their prioritization of experiences over materialism (Chatila, Amanda. “The Lost Generation and Millennials.” Looking Glass). This recurring pattern may explain the widespread contemporary resurgence of interest in this motley crew of artists and intellectuals, for many of today’s writers and readers can find reflections of themselves in these famous, century-old works of literature.