If I weren't already subscribed to A.A. Kostas, this brilliant essay would have sealed the deal. Anyone who mistakenly believes in Zelda's talent has only to read some of her work, which is available online and pretty awful. I would take issue with the description of her as an alcoholic. She was apparently able to quit drinking with no difficulty during her doomed quest to become a ballerina at the age of 27. As for the general assessment that Fitzgerald was washed up as a writer when he died, that seems unfair due to the brilliance of The Last Tycoon. If he had lived long enough to complete the book, it might have been his best work.
Fantastic essay. This Side of Paradise, which I read when I was sixteen (a good age to read that book), was the novel that made me want to be a writer.
The third axiom is the one that matters most. Countering a myth doesn't get you closer to truth. It just gives you a different myth. The whole Fitzgerald-Zelda debate has always been less about who wrote what and more about what we need the story of authorship to look like at any given moment. The actual work sits there on the page regardless. Nobody reads the last line of Gatsby and thinks about who deserves credit. They just feel the weight of it. That's what the myth-makers on both sides keep missing.
Normally I don't leave comments on Substack posts, but this was fantastic. I've always wondered what Fitzgerald's writing would have looked like if he had suppressed his drinking. While I am inclined to believe he would've written more, I'm not sure if the writing would have been the same. He said being intoxicated helped him with his insights.
Yes he certainly drank a lot! I think it's less the alcohol and more the demands by Zelda that they party every night or have people over. So he had little time to write.
While The Beautiful and Damned isn't my favorite of his works, I think I learned more about Zelda from Gloria than from anything else I ever read. It is fairly obvious why high school curricula choose The Great Gatsby, but I feel like you learn so much about his life with his other books, while also getting that same level of writing.
Love the comparison of the scene descriptions in the first chapters of The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms. Yeah, give me F. Scott any day of the week. “The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.” Gorgeous. And of course the final section of The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece, up there with Joyce’s ending in The Dead.
Always loved Fitzgerald and after doing research on the Zelda accusations it was pretty sad that she gets so much of his writing credit now-- being an inspiration to someone doesn't equal writing the work. Anyways thanks for doing Fitzgerald justice !
That's right. He was definitely mythologising their lives, and she was such a huge character that she shows up in many of his stories, but that isn't the same as actually being the writer behind it all. It takes considerable talent to write about people in the way Scott did, even if he was basing it off real-life, crazy people.
I’m learning about the Fitzgeralds at the moment. I’m making my way through his works. Tender Is The Night is my favorite. Next I’m going to read Zelda. I feel so sorry for what they both suffered. The Crack-Up is his most candid work and it shows how much pain he was in. Zelda too, horrible depression.
Yes, their life is really one long alcohol-induced tragedy. That Scott could produce as much as he did and at the quality that he was sometimes able to achieve is really miraculous
I think he was extraordinary. I think he had a strong awareness, even in youth. There’s a wonderful French book that is hot off the press right now, which I’ve written about in more than article on my substack, that looks at “the crack-up” in relation to Fitzgerald and a number of other writers. I’ve been reading it (slowly, because it’s in french, lol) though I hope it will be translated to English eventually. I think it’s a very important book.
Not sure what to say to this other than this is a brilliant essay and I am compelled and rather wordless.
If I weren't already subscribed to A.A. Kostas, this brilliant essay would have sealed the deal. Anyone who mistakenly believes in Zelda's talent has only to read some of her work, which is available online and pretty awful. I would take issue with the description of her as an alcoholic. She was apparently able to quit drinking with no difficulty during her doomed quest to become a ballerina at the age of 27. As for the general assessment that Fitzgerald was washed up as a writer when he died, that seems unfair due to the brilliance of The Last Tycoon. If he had lived long enough to complete the book, it might have been his best work.
as remarkable as This Side of Paradise published at 24 is Gatsby published at 28
Fantastic essay. This Side of Paradise, which I read when I was sixteen (a good age to read that book), was the novel that made me want to be a writer.
The third axiom is the one that matters most. Countering a myth doesn't get you closer to truth. It just gives you a different myth. The whole Fitzgerald-Zelda debate has always been less about who wrote what and more about what we need the story of authorship to look like at any given moment. The actual work sits there on the page regardless. Nobody reads the last line of Gatsby and thinks about who deserves credit. They just feel the weight of it. That's what the myth-makers on both sides keep missing.
Funder's book about Orwell and Eileen is singularly and deliberately dishonest. https://matthewclayfield.substack.com/p/she-cant-tell-norah-that
Normally I don't leave comments on Substack posts, but this was fantastic. I've always wondered what Fitzgerald's writing would have looked like if he had suppressed his drinking. While I am inclined to believe he would've written more, I'm not sure if the writing would have been the same. He said being intoxicated helped him with his insights.
Yes he certainly drank a lot! I think it's less the alcohol and more the demands by Zelda that they party every night or have people over. So he had little time to write.
While The Beautiful and Damned isn't my favorite of his works, I think I learned more about Zelda from Gloria than from anything else I ever read. It is fairly obvious why high school curricula choose The Great Gatsby, but I feel like you learn so much about his life with his other books, while also getting that same level of writing.
Love the comparison of the scene descriptions in the first chapters of The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms. Yeah, give me F. Scott any day of the week. “The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life.” Gorgeous. And of course the final section of The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece, up there with Joyce’s ending in The Dead.
Always loved Fitzgerald and after doing research on the Zelda accusations it was pretty sad that she gets so much of his writing credit now-- being an inspiration to someone doesn't equal writing the work. Anyways thanks for doing Fitzgerald justice !
That's right. He was definitely mythologising their lives, and she was such a huge character that she shows up in many of his stories, but that isn't the same as actually being the writer behind it all. It takes considerable talent to write about people in the way Scott did, even if he was basing it off real-life, crazy people.
I’m learning about the Fitzgeralds at the moment. I’m making my way through his works. Tender Is The Night is my favorite. Next I’m going to read Zelda. I feel so sorry for what they both suffered. The Crack-Up is his most candid work and it shows how much pain he was in. Zelda too, horrible depression.
Yes, their life is really one long alcohol-induced tragedy. That Scott could produce as much as he did and at the quality that he was sometimes able to achieve is really miraculous
I think he was extraordinary. I think he had a strong awareness, even in youth. There’s a wonderful French book that is hot off the press right now, which I’ve written about in more than article on my substack, that looks at “the crack-up” in relation to Fitzgerald and a number of other writers. I’ve been reading it (slowly, because it’s in french, lol) though I hope it will be translated to English eventually. I think it’s a very important book.
Does this unnamed wonderful new book have a title? Can you name the author for readers who are curious?
Sorry, yes of course. La Fêlure, by Charlotte Casiraghi
https://substack.com/@heavycrownpress/note/c-236858828?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=g5hgt
Thanks for the info. Sounds like a fascinating book.
https://substack.com/@heavycrownpress/note/c-236858828?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=g5hgt