To many of it’s artist habitues, the Parisian neighborhood of Montparnasse was known simply as ‘The Quarter’. Here the cancan and the polka were introduced to the city, new philosophies were born at shaky sidewalk tables, and crazy poets walked pet lobsters on leashes. In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, written in part at the café La Closerie des Lilas (see restaurant list below), the character Jake explains that one doesn’t have to live in the neighborhood to belong to it : “Perfectly good Quarterites live outside the actual boundaries of Montparnasse. They can live anywhere, as long as they come to the Quarter to think.” Continue reading →