I must first offer my most sincerest apologies for not updating this blog in a long time and wish everyone, if there is still anyone frequenting this blog due to my shabby neglect, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Life has well and truly caught up with me. I have had this post in the works for quite a while, but I have been distracted by writing, Wightwick, winter etc. A lame excuse I know, but it's the only truth I can offer! So, I decided that in this monumentally overdue post I would write briefly about a couple that has fascinated me for years: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. (I will have a Christmas post uploaded in the next week, with taster pictures of adventures I have recently been on and will write about.)
One of my English Literature A-Level set texts was The Great Gatsby, which, according to my teacher, was chosen for us to study not only for its literary merit and its place in the zeitgeist, but also because as teenagers we would be interested in the: parties, money, corruption, debauchery, scandal and love affair. This coupled with my love of the twenties, its: music, films, fashion, sense of abandon etc, ensured that it was inevitable that I became fascinated with the story, its characters, and by extension its writer. The depiction of an ephemeral but all encompassing joy and love is something especially poignant for the teenager. In fact, interest in the book and to some extent its writer rarely appears to falter, and most recently was manifested in Baz Luhrmann's remake of The Great Gatsby, an arresting montage of images with an amazing soundtrack, who knew Jay Z would fit with the twenties asthetic? I thought Carey Mulligan as Daisy, and by extension Zelda, was captivating, but I still prefer Toby Stephen's Gatsby, however that is due my bias of being enamoured with Toby Stephens, I mean he was Mr Rochester! But I digress ...
After reading The Great Gatsby, enjoying Fitzgerald's writing style, especially his dreamlike descriptions,'In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.' I decided to read other works in his Oeuvre and luckily Penguin have released these incredibly stylish art deco range of Fitzgerald's books. Below is my collection of Fitzgerald books nestled among a range of mainly twenties and thirties texts, which I am still working my way through.
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I knew vaguely about the comparisons between Daisy and Zelda and so I wanted to research more about the writers relationships, the passionate, abiding, devotion of love that seemed to envelop The Great Gatsby, lead me to want to learn more about Fitzgerald's relationships. Helpfully, I recently caught Sincerely, F Scott Fitzgerald on the BBC. An informative documentary about the writer, preoccupied with the figure of Zelda, as a muse and wife. It's a great initial insight and I would recommend it to you if you have any interest in the author.
The couple themselves were also recently portrayed by the dashing Tom Hiddleston and talented Alison Pill, whose depictions of Zelda and Scott in Midnight in Paris were exuberant and fun, although for the sake of comic effect Zelda's was a rather caricatured depiction as a selfish, flighty, depressed, funny, confident lush and Fitzgerald seems to be lost in the face of the strength of characters of Zelda and Ernest Hemingway. Furthermore, although Zelda's literary aspirations are depicted, her talents as a writer are dismissed by Hemingway, with whom there was apparently mutual dislike. I haven't yet had the chance to read her novel Save Me the Waltz, which she wrote while hospitalised, evidently she spent quite a bit of time in institutions, but I have read about her contribution to her husbands writing,not merely as a muse. Some writers argue that he plagiarised her letters, others use the phrase 'borrowed' and 'was influenced by', her talents have I believe been underestimated and overshadowed, and she is often only described as a distraction and burden to his writing ability, as Hemingway in the film suggests. The fact is that I have always seen Zelda as a troubled but spirited, vivacious, talented and intoxicating figure, but unlike in this depiction with greater charm, compassion and less inbalance (despite her time spent in mental institutions), a woman whom Fitzgerald adored and for whom this strength of feeling was returned (regardless of the suggested short lived affair with a French aviator, alluded to in the film and which has been suggested affected the plot of Gatbsy). When Gil Pender, the protagonist, remarks that she is exactly as one thought, he draws attention to the popular, narrow, stereotypical view of Zelda people seem to hold.
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| Found at fuckyeahtomhiddleston.tumblr.com |
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' ... and the only sadness is the living without you ... You and I have been happy; we haven't been happy just once, we've been happy a thousand times ... Forget the past- what you can of it, and turn about and swim back home to me, to your haven for ever and ever- even though it may seem a dark cave at times and lit with torches of fury; it is the best refuge for you- turn gently in the waters through which you move and sail back.'- Scott to Zelda, April 26, 1934.
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| The beautiful Zelda Sayre, July 1918. Photograph taken from Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. |
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| Zelda, Scott, and their daughter Scottie. |
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| One for the holidays! Christmas, 1925. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda, and Scottie in Paris, taken from Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. |
Evalily Harlow x
p.s. This picture was taken on a scorchingly hot summer day in Berlin last summer whilst on holiday, and though I wasn't adventurous enough to dance in the fountain, I hoped Zelda might approve. I of course got some very funny looks and had to walk back to the hostel with a wet, dripping behind. It was totally worth it!
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