Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,
One of my favorite writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was born on this day in 1896.
I think he looks very sensitive and handsome in the above photo, although he does not seem to have been a very sensitive person in practice. He didn't have a lot of compassion for the people who loved him. If I recall correctly, his daughter, Frances Scott Fitzgerald [Scottie], didn't talk about him much but once told a friend that her father was a son-of-a bitch.
Would he have been as famous if it hadn't been for his personal life? I've enjoyed reading some biographies and a book with letters Scott and wife Zelda wrote to each other. He and Zelda were the embodiment of the Jazz Age––riding on the roof of a taxi, jumping in the fountain at The Plaza, getting kicked out of a hotel because of their wild behavior. Scott performed gymnastics in the lobby and Zelda slid down the bannister. The other guests tired of them and complained.
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| Lovely young Zelda |
Scott mined Zelda's life, her words, and her writing for his own work. When Daisy recalls the birth of her daughter in The Great Gatsby, her words are almost an exact copy of what Scott quoted Zelda as saying after Scottie was born Oct. 26, 1921. Zelda resented the way Scott used her and wanted her own success.
The alcoholic son of an alcoholic, Fitzgerald struggled to find success after the 1920s. During the Great Depression, readers began to lose interest in his work, which so often incorporated wealthy characters. Flappers were no longer in fashion. He failed in an attempted career as a Hollywood screenwriter.
Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1930. She spent years in and out of mental hospitals. When she was out, she usually lived with her mother and only saw Scott occasionally. Scott wrote short stories and desperately tried to sell them to pay for Zelda and Scottie's care; he seldom had time to work on novels. His drinking ruined his health. A number of people recalled his cruelty when he was drunk. By 1936, the royalties from his books amounted to $80. Scott sent Scottie to a fashionable boarding school. During her breaks, she lived with Scott's literary agent, Harold Ober, and his wife, Anne.
On December 21, 1940, Scott died from a heart attack at age 44. He believed he was a failure. His books were no longer carried in bookstores. On March 10, 1948, Zelda died in a fire at a mental hospital. She and some other women were in a locked ward and couldn't get out. Scottie became a journalist, a writer, a prominent Democrat, and married twice. Her first marriage produced four children. The children played with remnants of their grandparents' lives, dressing up in their old clothes kept in a trunk. Cancer killed her June 18, 1986, when she was 64.
My all-time favorite novel is The Great Gatsby, which is very highly regarded now but was not a success when it was published in 1925. It's beautifully written––lyrical and doesn't have a wasted word with a perfectly planned plot.
Scott Fitzgerald didn't like his own short stories for the most part and thought they were a necessary waste of his time. Many of them are classic stories that are much appreciated now. My favorite is considered "minor Fitzgerald," The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I love it for its whimsy. (I didn't like the movie of the same title that is only loosely based on Fitzgerald's story. The movie doesn't capture the nature of his writing.)
When we moved to Maryland, on our first full day there, I insisted on a trip to Saint Mary's Cemetery in Rockville. In that beautiful churchyard, I visited Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's graves. They are side-by-side. Scottie is buried close to them.
Scott's gravestone bears the last sentence of The Great Gatsby, and oh, what a sentence it is.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Infinities of love,
Janie Junebug
Sources:
I've read this book half a dozen times over the years and get more from it every time.
ReplyDeleteSame here. It's not a very long book, but it's intense and intricate.
DeleteAmazing talents, but such sad lives.
ReplyDeleteScott felt guilty about Zelda's illness and hospitalizations, so he drank even more than he had in his madcap youth, but the last year of his life, he was sober and in a relationship with the gossip columnist Sheilah Graham.
DeleteI'm a fan of his novel The Great Gatsby as well and have read it 2 or 3 times. No movie has done it justice at all, in my opinion, because of the inexplicable but persistent refusal to recognize what is so obvious to me in the text -- that Nick Carraway has a doomed love for the unattainable Jay Gatsby which is a mirror of Gatsby's doomed love for the unattainable Daisy Buchanan. I also have my suspicions about Nick's beard, Jordan Baker, and Daisy herself.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! Nick certainly admires Gatsby, but I never thought of him as being in love with Gatsby. And I didn't see the parallels in the relationships. I liked the movie version with Leonardo DiCaprio. I watched it when it came out on DVD. It's on one of my streaming services. I want to watch it again to see if it holds up.
DeleteFitzgerald establishes Nick as gay in a coded passage about meeting a man in an elevator. Once you read that and understand what's really being described, you'll never see Nick the same way again. And Jordan Baker is quite heavily coded as lesbian -- her androgynous name, her golf "sportiness", her assertive independence, etc.
DeleteI need to read it again. You're showing me these characters in a new light.
DeleteFunny, I never cared for either of them and had no interest in reading The Great Gatsby. Had to force myself to slog through it for high school, as I recall. Saw the movie and was not impressed by it, either. They were just rich, selfish, and obnoxious to me. I could feel sorry for them, but was not surprised they came to a bad end, you know? Sorry. Apparently you really like him as a writer. He may have had a way with words, but for me it was just a peek into nothingness. Sorry again, my friend.
ReplyDeleteNothing to be sorry about. You're entitled to your opinion. Whatever floats your boat! Social class is an important part of the novel. Fitzgerald portrays Tom and Daisy Buchanan as shallow, selfish, and self-absorbed. When Daisy finds out Gatsby's money came from bootlegging, she decides to stay with Tom.
DeleteYou wouldn’t suspect anything unhappy or hurtful in that first photo.
ReplyDeleteNo, you wouldn't. He was young and full of talent and hope.
DeleteSuch a shame that the power of this brilliant book wasn't recognised while he lived.
ReplyDeleteIt was quite a blow to Fitzgerald when he learned his books weren't in bookstores anymore.
DeleteSurely one of the great classics in the English language.
ReplyDeleteAt the turn of the century, the Modern Library had a panel of judges choose the 100 greatest novels of the past 100 years. The Great Gatsby was in the #2 spot. I think Tender Is The Night is also on the list.
DeleteWhen I taught US history, I did a unit on the Roaring 20s. Students had to learn about famous literary works of that time. That quote was something they learned. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past", is such an impactful way to end a book.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a wonderful unit. The '20s were fun and exciting. What literary works did you talk about other than Gatsby?
DeleteIt was a fun unit. We also studied Ernest Hemingway and Langston Hughes as well as the Harlem Renaissance. Students had to come up with a project to present to the class about something that interested them. It was always fun to see their minds think of things that I would have never thought about!
DeleteI'm not a Hemingway fan, but he had a very interesting life, too. The Black diaspora and the Harlem Renaissance represent great learning opportunites.
DeleteI'm fascinated by writers of the 1920s, including F. Scott and Zelda. I read The Great Gatsby a long time ago and also enjoyed both movies, starring Robert Redford and Di Caprio, respectively. F. Scott and Zelda were two of the characters in one my favourite films as well: "Midnight in Paris", also featuring Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Midnight In Paris! The Hemingway character is hilarious.
DeleteI didn't know that about them. Fascinating and tragic.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Liz.
DeleteThat's such a poignant sentence on is gravestone. So many talented writers/actors etc lived with a lot of sadness.
ReplyDeleteThe writer Pat Conroy said it only takes one crazy person in your family for you to be able to become a writer.
DeleteIn the cultural lore, F. Scott and Zelda are both glamourous and doomed,- something that Hollywood gobbles with gusto.
ReplyDeleteAs to Fitzerald's novels, I admire his technique and the brevity of his books. As a writer, he was no failure.
He definitely was not a failed writer. The Modern Library panel that chose the greatest novels of the 20th century put The Great Gatsby in second place.
DeleteJANIE ~
ReplyDeleteI fell in love with Mary Poppins... the 1964 Disney movie. Before writing lengthy 2-part blog posts about it, I decided to read the original book, to see how much the movie borrowed from Pamela Travers' story. I was amazed to find how lackluster the book was compared to the movie. (It's usually the book that's better than the movie!)
Shortly afterwards - in June of last year - I decided to also read 'The Great Gatsby' for the first time. I'm sorry to say that when I got done I felt as if my mind had been watching 'The Young And The Restless'.
Like you, I'm not a Hemingway fan, but I also really enjoyed the movie 'Midnight In Paris'.
I have always read a whole lot more nonfiction than fiction. Although I have read many of the classics by writers such as Hemingway, Dickens, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Wolfe, Twain, Dostoevsky, etc., etc. For my money, the best novel I've read is 'A Tree Grows In Brooklyn' by Betty Smith. I loved it so much that my Ma gave me a first edition copy of it for my birthday in 1982.
"There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. ... It would be considered beautiful except that there are too many of it."
(Brilliant!)
Before I die, I feel like I should read 'Moby Dick'. And despite being a really, REALLY tough guy, my Brother insists that I should also read 'Little Women'.
~ D-FensDogG
I LOVE A Tree Grows In Brooklyn--definitely one of the best novels I've ever read. My kids also read it and loved it. I read Moby Dick twice for college classes. I like it, but it's not a favorite of mine. My daughter and I read Little Women together. We didn't like it, although we enjoyed the various movie versions of it. I read a lot of non-fiction, too, probably more than I read fiction. Harry Truman said the best way to learn history was to read biographies, and he was right. I learned dates and facts in history classes, but the stories and details of history come from my reading.
DeleteJANIE ~
DeleteI could, maybe, and might be wrong (well, helck, it DID happen once before, on April 24, 1983), but I think my Ma's all-time favorite movie may have also been 'A Tree Grows In Brooklyn'. And as far as 'novels made into movies' goes, it definitely IS one of the better films.
My parents were both terrific, and I genuinely / very sincerely feel bad for those who grew up with 'less than good / ideal' parents. I know - *KNOW!* - that I've been exceedingly blessed by God!
Have you ever seen the movie 'DEAD POETS SOCIETY' (1989)? If so, what did you think of it?
~ D-FensDogG
I like the movie version of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, too. I've seen Dead Poets Society multiple times. We had it on VHS. My kids and I used to watch it on the old VCR. We all loved it.
DeleteThe Great Gatsby is one of my favourite novels, too. I preferred the 1974 Robert Redford movie version to the later one. And I loved Midnight in Paris. Thanks for this very interesting blog post. I'll check out those two reference books!
ReplyDelete-- Barb
I'm so pleased that you enjoyed the post. Thank you!
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