Correspondence ofF. Scott Fitzgerald
Nolte, William H.
B00KS IN REVIEW - "Correspondence ofF. Scott Fitzgerald" takes comfort in dente and SALT, oblivious to the Soviet view that d&ente is merely a reflection of the West's weakness ("a result of the great shift of balance of world power in favor...
...going to ruin and calling it anything that came to hand . . . . Toward the end n o i h i n g much m a t t e r e d . The n e a r e s t l ever came to leaving you was when you told me t h a t I was a f a i r y in the Rue P a l a t i n e b u t now whatever you s a i d aroused a sort of detached pity for you...
...Like his friend Hemingway, whose ego was such that he could never forgive Fitzgerald for having helped him get started, Fitzgerald was narcissistic and naive...
...Even were the competition not so dismal, J.B...
...CORRESPONDENCE OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Edited by MatthewJ...
...once he appeared, cap in hand, all was forgiven...
...But no one, apparently, could dislike him for long...
...As unpopular as it may be, Professor Rood's solution to the W e s t ' s plight is the obvious one: The United States must augment and expand its military forces as if in preparation for a real war, so that its capabilities in each key theater--the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and E u r o p e - - w i l l match and deter the Soviets' strength in these regions...
...Although this new collection should have a wider appeal than the collections restricted to author and editor and author and agent, I wonder if the letters won't detract more from Fitzgerald's reputation than they add to it...
...In fact, what we have here are the leavings from those previous siftings--to wit, the Andrew Turnbull selection, The Letters ofF...
...Not only does this book keep an accurate record of your taxable income, but you know instantly at all times your profit and loss from security sales and the exact status of your investments...
...Eventually, Scott lost interest in Zelda except as a ward for whom he felt responsible, and Zelda spent her remaining years in mental institutions...
...The authors of this book recognize that many investors pay income taxes because they fail to keep accurate lifetime records...
...personal records book invaluable...
...As the letters of this collection clearly show, Fitzgerald always believed that by writing for money today he could buy time for the competent work he would do tomorrow, never realizing, as someone once said, that beyond a certain point writing for profit becomes unprofitable...
...the selection from Fitzgerald's correspondence with Max Perkins, Dear Scott/Dear Max (1971...
...We ruined o u r s e l v e s - - I have nevcr honestly thought that we ruined eat h o~her...
...While they do not bring into question the fact that Fitzgerald at his best was very good indeed, they certainly do play havoc with the romantic notion that Fitzgerald was somehow not to blame for the mess he made of his life, that he was simply a victim of the economic depression of the thirties and the concomitant change in literary values...
...More than 85,000 investors have found the Wayne Hummer & Co...
...But then Fitzgerald was a member of that company_9 [] ARABIA, THE GULF AND THE WEST J.B.Kelly / Basic Books I $25 Daniel Pipes As oil, revolution, and war attract increasing attention to the Persian Gulf, articles and books about the area spew forth in the West...
...Sara Murphy, for example, wrote him a scalding letter in 1934, chiding him for his inability to consider other people's feelings and opinions and for not even knowing what Zelda or his daughter, Scottie, were like...
...I wish the Beautiful and Damned had hcen a malurelv written book because it w:,s ;ill true...
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...and the correspondence between Fitzgerald and his agent, Harold Ober, As Ever, Scott Fitz-(1972...
...One may argue, of course, that Fitzgerald was unfortunate in having achieved an easy success (with This ,Fide of Paradise) at so early an age, a success which enabled him to contract a disastrous marriage to Zelda Savre...
...In fact, their literary value is slight...
...Like most modern romantics, Fitzgerald was never able to distance himself from his subject matter...
...Kelly has wide knowledge, a sharp _9 writing style, and a clear political vision, and he has written a large, wise, and angry study_9 Occasional excesses can be found in the work, but they do not detract from its main themes that succeed in debunking (Continued on page 47...
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...In a long letter from 1930 (which may William H. Nolle is C. Wallace Martin Professor of English at the University of South Carokna...
...THE AMERICAN "SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1980 39...
...Instead, he should have been thankful_9 Considering Fitzgerald's great talent, or genius, if you will, I pay him tribute in calling him a failure_9 Two excellent novels and a handful of first-rate stories might seem God's plenty to all but a select company of writers...
...I can think of no other writer of his ability who wrote so many third-rate stories, or spent so much time doing hack-work that he knew was hack-work_9 Near the end, in fact, he seemed unable to distinguish clearly between competent work and the embarrassing stuff he was churning out in Hollywood_9 Before going there for the last time, he had written (in one of the "Crack-Up" articles in 1936) that films were "capable of reflecting only the tritist thought, the most obvious emotion," but while working on the script of Three Comrades he somehow convinced himself that what he was writing had merit_9 The fact is that Fitzgerald's screenplay has no more merit than an afternoon soap on the tube...
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...The accusation that Scott had homosexual tendencies obviously stung, although it is easy to see how Zelda might have arrived at such an improbable conclusion...
...He forever played the part of the little boy who insisted on being the life of the party, no matter'whose party it was or whether he had even been invited...
...Incidentally, Zelda's letters written after the initial rupture have a touching poignancy, as when she wrote: "My mind stumbles about the shadows of your room and thinks of nothing at all except that you were there a week ago...
...But then neither could anyone take him very seriously, certainly not as seriously as he took himself...
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...On the other hand, they tell us a great deal about a writer whose life was inextricably mingled with his art...
...His Slave Soldiers and Islam will be published in January by Yale University Press...
...For the most part, they are written by overnight experts or sycophants, authors hobbled by deep ignorance of alien customs and blinded by the prospect of sharing in the vast wealth of the region if they say the right things...
...The most interesting--and painful - - o f t h e s e l e t t e r s are those to and from Zelda, particularly those written after Zclda's first breakdown in 1930...
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...Fitzgerald was greatly upset when only part of his script was used by the producer, Joseph Mankiewicz...
...not have been sent), for example, Scott lists his grievances, bitterly recalling the injuries inflicted and sustained: You were gone now--I scarcely remember you that summer...
...I ! , NAME I I , ADDRESS | I I ' CITY STATE ZIP I , AmSper , | T h i s new volume of Scott Fitzgerald's correspondence is intended to supplement the three volumes of letters that have appeared so far...
...It is only fitting that Kingdoms of the Blind inaugurates the Winston S. Churchill Association's series, "Studies in Statesmanship," for it was Churchill who, in 1946, warned that: "From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that t h e r e is nothing they admire so much as s t r e n g t h and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness...
...At times she reminds meofEmily Dickinson: "The weather does its eccentricities, and now its cold, and *,8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1980 fair and a brittle and 'unchosen' world confronts us again_9 I'll be so glad when the winter desists from its barbarianisms and one can breathe again_9 As I say, the letters in Correspondence will not lift Fitzgerald any nearer to Shakespeare...
...Or this: "I want to go to fabulous places where there is absolutely no c(mception of the ultimate convergence of everything...
...Kelly's book would stand out as a tour de force_9 Mr...
...Something had to break, of course, and it did...
...If not satisfied I may return for refund...
...In Kelly's words, "a shuffling, endless procession of sages, oracles, sophists Daniel Pipes is a historian at The University of Chicago...
...None of the letters in those three volumes has been r e p r i n t e d here...
...stun that the Soviets have won the arms race...
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...You were shnply one of all the people who disliked me or were i n d i f f e r c n t t o m e . I d i d n ' t like to Ihh)k of you--You didn't need me and it was easter to talk to or rather at Madame Bellois and keep full of wine . . . . You were going crazy and calling it gen'ius--I wa...
...Scott Fitzgerald (1963), far and away the most important...
...and sciolists" hold forth about the Gulf"with all the perspicacity of an Arabian Bedouin discussing the finer points of the United States Constitution...
...t a k e s comfort in d&ente and SALT, oblivious to the Soviet view that d&ente is merely a reflection of the West's weakness ("a result of the great shift of balance of world power in favor of socialism"), or that SALT symbolizes the West's formal admis...
...But then one must also remember that his marriage, horrible though it must have been, provided him with his main source of subject matter...
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...In that same year Zelda wrote Scott a long (about 3000 words) l e t t e r from Prangins Clinic in Switzerland in which she enumerates the ugly details of their first ten years together, years in which their jealousy of one another drove them apart even as it bound them together in mutual loathing...
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...Indeed, part of his charm depended upon his naivete, a fact of which his friends were well aware...
...They also knew that his selfishness was unconscious and unthinking...
Vol. 13 • December 1980 • No. 12
