Happy Birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Well, everyone, today is it: Fitzgerald Day, the annual holiday in which I celebrate my favorite author and what reading at large means to me.  Go out and celebrate, my wonderful readers!

Happy Birthday, Fitzgerald!

Six Days, Six Stories

To celebrate Fitzgerald Week this year, I decided to read one of his short stories every day. From Sunday to Friday, I picked a story each day that was either a)new to me or b)a favorite that I hadn't read in a long time. Here are quick reviews of each story, most of which came from the awesome collection The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, who before his death a few years ago was the leading Fitzgerald scholar and biographer.

Sunday - "Babes in the Woods": This was Fitzgerald's first published story and it shows up again in This Side of Paradise. It was an okay story; I wasn't a particularly big fan of it. But you can definitely see his emerging style and thematic obsessions in it.

Monday - "Absolution": This is one of my favorite Fitzgerald stories, but I hadn't read it in years. I enjoyed it more than ever this time around. You can see why this story was considered a kind of prologue for The Great Gatsby, and the final pages reminded me a lot of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead (this being a story about small towns and religion, after all). Most of all, I was impressed by the writing, which is really something.

Tuesday - "Crazy Sunday": This is another Fitzgerald story that I hadn't picked up since high school, but which I remember liking at the time. It's about Hollywood and marriage and betrayal. I understood the darkness in this story much better this time around, and I found it a richer experience now. It's pretty prickly for a Fitzgerald story (which are often considered "slick" pieces), and it features some of his most unlikeable characters, which is really saying something.

Wednesday - "The Lost Decade": This super-short piece is actually considered more of a sketch than a story, but it packs quite an emotional punch in its brevity. It was one of the last things he published, and it's definitley autobiographical in its portrayal of a former drunk's realization that he's completely let life pass him by. I really liked this one. A lot.

Thursday - "More Than Just a House": This is the first time I've ever read this story, and I found it really enjoyable. In it, a man becomes tied to three sisters after he saves the lives of two of them, and he's witness to their downfalls, all of which are tied into their rambling old house. I'm still not sure what to make of the ending of this one, but I would definitley read it again.

Friday - "Babylon Revisted": I've probably read this story half a dozen times, at least. It's one of the most painful things I've ever read, but it's so well done that I can't help but love it. Fitzgerald largely stays out of parent-child relationships in his work, but his own issues as a father are on full display in this one. It's sad and beautiful and really quite perfect. Definitely some of Fitzgerald's finest and most poignant writing.

Happy Birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald!

114 years ago today, F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Happy Birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Fitzgerald has been my favorite writer since I was fifteen, but I've always had a complicated relationship with him and his work. He led an extremely imperfect life and had some real weaknesses as a writer. But when he was at his best, he was better than anyone else. His best novels and short stories remain classics of American literature simply because he wrote about Americans so deftly.

Recently, I read Patricia Hampl's great introduction to The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it really hits the nail on the head when it comes to Fitzgerald's complex view towards his roots. He claimed to hate St. Paul, and yet that particular Midwestern, American viewpoint holds in nearly all his work. I've always thought that the line separating great writers from merely good writers lies somewhere in the place of formative experience. Most of my favorite writers are people who write from a particular viewpoint informed by the homes and towns and places from which they came. Fitzgerald is one of these writers. And so, I leave you with another one of my favorite passages from The Great Gatsby that plays into this idea. Here, the narrator Nick Carraway talks about his youth in Minnesota and his the disillusionment he found in the East.

That's my middle-west - not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns but the thrilling, returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am a part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all - Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.

Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old - even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. West Egg especially figures in my more fantastic dreams. I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and lustreless moon. In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a house - the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no one cares.

After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.

If You Like Fitzgerald...

I've always been a fan of book sites that do the "If you like this, you might enjoy this" stuff. So what's a better time to introduce this kind of post than right now, during Fitzgerald Week! Without further ado, here are five books you might like if you like Fitzgerald (or if you're just looking for a good read).



If You Like Fitzgerald...You Might Enjoy:

1. The Season of Lillian Dawes, by Katherine Mosby: Right on the book's back cover, there's a blurb comparing Mosby to Fitzgerald, so I'm not the first person to find a link between the two. This book is one of my "comfort reads" that I return to again and again. The story of two brothers and the mysterious woman they both take an interest in, it's got a lot of Fitzgeraldian themes: destructive wealth, a character who's basically a more sympathetic, female version of Jay Gatsby, and a lush writing style. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a soft, easy read that makes everything feel like summer.

2. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson: In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I found Fitzgerald's Midwestern viewpoint to be one of his most important characteristics. Robinson is the same, and with a writing style that's equally poetic and graceful. This story, a journal written to the young son of a dying preacher, reminds me of Fitzgerald's story "Absolution" in its depiction of small-town Midwestern values and images.

3. Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto: One of the things that makes The Great Gatsby so good is its strong sense of place. Both the book's setting and the places its characters come from are important to the story and writing. Pizzolatto's first novel is the same. The descriptions of the Gulf Coast, as well as the sense of the evocative places the characters once inhabited really add to the book's beauty and danger.

4. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway: In real life, Fitzgerald and Hemingway had a very contentious relationship (see Scott Donaldson's wonderful Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship). But this important novel offers a rare glimpse into the world that Fitzgerald knew well in Paris, a place of expatriates known as the Lost Generation. Not to mention that's it just an awesome book that everyone should read at some point in their lives (and which, admittedly, I really need to reread since it's been a few years).

5. Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell: Those of you who are familiar with this nonfiction book's subject (a travelogue of sorts centered around the first three U.S. presidential assassinations) are probably wondering why this made the list. But hear me out: Sarah Vowell has a wonderful love-hate relationship with America that I think closely mirrors Fitzgerald's own thoughts. She manages to celebrate and pick apart her country in equal measure, much like Fitzgerald did so carefully in his own work. Really, I think any of Vowell's books would be Fitzgerald-approved, but I think this is her most entertaining read. Even my younger brother, a non-reader, enjoyed this one.



Well everyone, that's the first installment of "If You Like...." If you have any suggestions for later installments, let me know. I plan to do another one next month.

New to Fitzgerald?

I tend to get over-excited about Fitzgerald. I talk about him and his work all the time, but occasionally, I realize I'm talking about Fitzgerald with someone who's never read any of his work. Don't worry; I won't judge you if you've never read any Fitzgerald. After all, the list of important writers I've never read is downright shameful. But for those of you who might be new to Fitzgerald or might want to introduce him to someone, I thought I'd put together a guide for reading him. Hopefully, at least one person will find this guide useful.

Important Background Information: F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on Sept. 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father had no luck at business or money and the family lived in apartments, but Fitzgerald's mother's family was rich. Due to this wealthy family connection, Fitzgerald attended the best private schools and eventually ended up at Princeton. Although his literary talent began to flourish there, he was a terrible student and never did graduate. Eventually, he met Zelda Sayre, who came from a rich Southern family. She refused to marry him until he had money, so he finished his first (very successful) novel, This Side of Paradise, and won her hand. They lived a crazy life full of parties and hijinks, mainly on the East Coast. During this time, they had their only child, their daughter Scottie. Eventually, Fitzgerald and his family moved to France, where they were part of the infamous Lost Generation of writers and artists in Paris. They also spent a great deal of time living on the Riviera. Their marriage was tumultuous and riddled with personal problems. Zelda was mentally unstable (she eventually ended up in a mental institution, where she would die during in a building fire), and Fitzgerald was an alcoholic. Once the money and fun ran out, the couple returned to the United States. While Zelda lived part-time with her mother and part-time in an asylum, Fitzgerald became a screenwriter who made little money. In December 1940, he suffered a heart attack and died in Hollywood.

Important Themes to Understand: Fitzgerald is often called a chronicler of the Jazz Age. While it's true that his work does settle on a very specific generation of Americans, he goes beyond simply cataloguing their lives. Growing up without money inside a world of wealth had a lot of influence on his work. So often, his books and short stories suggest this central problem. It's as if Fitzgerald both hates the rich and yet wants so badly to be among their rank. Much of his work deals with this conflict, as well as the theme of West vs. East (particularly, the difficulty of Midwesterners adjusting to life on the East Coast). Many of the romantic relationships in his work reflect real life, particularly his marriage to Zelda. Often, his fictional couples simultaneously love each other and tear each other apart. There's not much in the way of happiness in Fitzgerald's work, although he's so good at displaying life in all its complexity that there is often joyful moments amidst the eventual ruin. His later works show a kind of sad resignation punctuated with a desire for change that never happens, much like the story of his own final years.

Where to Start: Obviously, The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's most famous work, and with good reason. It's a masterpiece, so if you're going to read only one Fitzgerald book in your life, make it this one. However, I do think there are easier places to start. The first Fitzgerald book I read was his first novel, This Side of Paradise. Admittedly, what seemed so great about the book when I was young has worn off a bit as I've gotten older and wiser. It seems pretty self-involved at times. But I still believe it is a great place to start because there are a lot more characters and vignettes here than in other Fitzgerald novels, so you're more likely to find something you like. I also think it's good to start with his best short stories. They play with his pet themes and make good introductions to his novels. I think the best ones to start with are "Absolution" (which is actually quite different from Fitzgerald's other short stories but closely related to The Great Gatsby), "Winter Dreams" (nearly all of Fitz's favorite themes are there), and "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz."

Where to Eventually Go: Admittedly, F. Scott Fitzgerald's best short story, "Babylon Revisited," would work as a gateway into his work because it's so good. However, it isn't like his other stories, and I would argue that it's a richer read once you've become more familiar with his earlier work. I also wouldn't start with "May Day," a novella-length story that is more class-conscious than any of Fitzgerald's other work. That being said, I've always had a big place in my heart for "May Day," so it's an eventual must for any Fitzgerald reader. Along those lines, I wouldn't start with Tender is the Night or his unfinished final book, The Last Tycoon, either. I've met a lot of people - mostly lit professors - who think that Tender Is the Night is Fitzgerald's best work. I personally don't agree, as I find it well-written and constructed but lacking in the poetry and movement of Gatsby. However, it's one of the most important books of the 20th century, and shows a maturation of subject for Fitzgerald. Because The Last Tycoon is unfinished, it would be impossible to start with. It's an incredible piece, and I honestly believe that if Fitzgerald had lived to finish it, it might have been as good as, if not greate than, Gatsby. But it's not a good place to start at all. Once you've read a few of his books though, you absolutely have to pick this one up. It's really something.

The Must-Reads: So, whether you are new to Fitzgerald or an old hand, there are some of his works that are fantastic and will add something to your reading life. They include my all-time favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, the ambitious and depressing Tender Is the Night, and his best short story, "Babylon Revisted." I also think "Absolution," "May Day," and The Last Tycoon should never be overlooked.


Well, everyone, I hope you found this an informative introduction to the work of one of America's most important writers. Also, let me know if you agree or disagree with any of my choices. I also like to hear what other people think about Fitzgerald.

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Fitzgerald Week!

Hello everyone! It's that time of year again, and once again, this blog will be dedicated to a week long celebration of F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday (the actual day of honor is Friday the 24th). By now, you all know how obsessed I am with all things Fitzgerald, but this week isn't just about celebrating an alcoholic writer from 20s and 30s. Rather, it's a week for me to ruminate on how much books and language mean to me. It's a week to celebrate how important literature is to who I am as a person and a writer. I just happen to frame that celebration in the context of the man who's been my favorite novelist since I was fifteen. I'll be celebrating the week by reading a different Fitzgerald story every night and including lists and random thoughts related to his work on this blog. In the meantime, to kick off Fitzgerald Week, I thought I'd skip my Poem of the Week and post a Fitzgerald passage instead. And what would be more appropriate than some of the greatest paragraphs Fitzgerald wrote: the ending of The Great Gatsby. This is my favorite passage in all of American literature, and I am happy to share it whenever possible. Enjoy!

from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity to wonder.

And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dreams must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, in the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning --

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Reading Week in Review: Fitzgerald Week Comes To an End

Well everyone, Fitzgerald Week is finally coming to a close. I really enjoyed chatting about my favorite writer with you all this week, but I look forward to taking on other subjects in the weeks ahead. Fitzgerald's Birthday was a smashing personal success for me this year. During the day, I got two calls for job interviews, and I had the chance to talk to some of my closest friends on the phone. The night ended with a cake my parents got for the occasion that proudly proclaimed "Happy Birthday, Fitz!" That's right. Even my parents play into my delusions now.

I read two Fitzgerald-related things this week: his short story "Winter Dreams," and the graphic novel The Left Bank Gang. The Left Bank Gang, written by my favorite graphic novelist, Jason (one-name only), pictures the Lost Generation bumming around Paris as animals/cartoonists who struggle with their art, their families, and their poverty. Tired of being poor, Hemingway cracks a plan with Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Fitzgerald to rob the purse of a prizefight. The whole thing falls apart as humanity's darker, jealous side takes over. It's a sad story that takes drastic liberties with these famous writers' lives, but it's a fun and breezy read nonetheless. The Hemingway character is very well-written, and Fitzgerald is in full-on tragedy mode here. I recommend it to anyone who's interested in the Lost Generation or just a really good, action-packed story.

"Winter Dreams," meanwhile, was also a good read. I hadn't read this story, one of Fitzgerald's most famous, in years. It meant a lot more to me now that I'm older. The famous Fitzgerald scholar, Matthew J. Bruccoli, introduces the story by claiming that it provided some of the inspiration/work for The Great Gatsby. Like most of Fitzgerald's short stories, it's about lost love, but the ending is quite poignant, and the fate of former-heartbreaker Judy Jones is sad indeed. Fitzgerald's stories are beautifully written, particuarly the stuff from this mid-1920s time period.

In non-Fitzgerald reading, I finished Ivan Turgenev's novel, Fathers and Sons, earlier this week. I was inspired to read the book after seeing Gary Shteyngart's awesome NPR piece about it. I can't compete with Shteyngart's views on the book, and I agree with him that it's awesome, so I suggest you look at his piece to see why. Turgenev was writing at the same time as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but he did it in a much smaller space. Fathers and Sons is about 1/6 the size of War and Peace. It was a fantasic read - entertaining and intelligent at once. The characters are put together very well, and I was pleased by Constance Garnett's translation. (For those of you who don't know, Constance Garnett is a fascinating figure, translating nineteenth century Russian novelists in the early twentieth century at amazing speed). This book would make a great jumping off point for anyone looking to get into nineteenth-century Russian literature, arguably the greatest literary period/place in history. It's an absolutely wonderful, and wonderfully quick, read.

Speaking of Turgenev, I learned an interesting fact about that man that links into my Tolstoy problem which you've all heard about here several times (the problem being his pomposity, of course). Apparently, Turgenev was always getting into political and literary fights with Dostoevksy and Tolstoy, despite being sometime friends with both. Once, Tolstoy became so angry with Turgenev that he challenged him to a duel, only to back off on it later. A duel! This is why I love Russian literature, people...

Happy Fitzgerald Day!

Happy Birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald!!!

As I am sure you are all aware by now, today is officially Fitzgerald Day, Beth's official holiday for celebrating reading and writing. The festivities today started off nicely with a shoutout to Fitzgerald on NPR's Writers Almanac, and I could have sworn my beloved framed Fitzgerald poster over my desk looked happier today also. I hope you all enjoy this glorious day where we celebrate 113 years of awesomeness from America's best (okay, one of America's best) novelists.

Favorite Passages: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

When people ask me what my favorite book is, I often cringe when giving my answer. "The Great Gatsby," I say sheepishly. It seems like such a cliche answer, the kind of answer someone gives when they're trying to sound impressive. Dumb people everywhere have given this answer, including people who have never read it. I think some people say it's their favorite book simply because it's the only book they remember reading and somewhat enjoying in high school. But I really do love The Great Gatsby. I think it's the most perfect novel ever written, and every time I read it I feel like it was created just for me. It has everything you could ever want from a good book: a sound structure and form, interesting characters, fascinating and twisty plot, and absolutely gorgeous writing.

Occasionally, Fitzgerald's writing bothers me. It feels too flashy sometimes, like he's trying to use big words just to prove he's smart despite being thrown out of Princeton. But this never happens in Gatsby. Every word is perfectly placed and correct. The dialogue is true to sound and very modern, and Fitzgerald's descriptions are like poetry - succinct, beautifully worded, and packed with thematic meaning. The novel is an absolute literary feat, an accomplishment that deserves all the respect it gets.

Unfortunately, it's also an extremely over-exposed book. Somehow, I got all the way through my entire education without having to read it, which didn't matter because I read it on my own when I was fifteen and was a Fitzgerald fanatic by the time I graduated high school. Because it is used in English classes so often, Gatsby becomes associated with the misery of school and structured reading lists. I challenge everyone, first-time Fitzgerald readers and authorities alike, to reread the book at least once every couple years. You won't believe how it transforms for you between each interval. I've read the book five or six times, about once every year or two, and every time I read it, I see it in a completely new and exciting light. I love this book so much that it's almost painful for me to read it. It's become a part of me, and the older I get, the more i understand it and its characters. It also helps to be a Midwesterner, too, being that this book is more about the Midwest than it is about the Long Island shore where it takes place.

I chose this favorite passage because it's a lesser known part of the book: the official "break-up" between Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway (see my List below to learn more about them). For me, this scene really captures the personal tragedy of the story. I am not necessarily sad about the break-up; it's actually quite inevitable. But Fitzgerald does such a great job of pinning all sorts of emotions below the surface of this scene that it really sparkles for me. I hope you enjoy it.

From The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.

There was one thing to be done before I left, an awkward, unpleasant thing that perhaps had better have been let alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still listening in a big chair.

She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little, jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye.

"Nevertheless, you did throw me over," said Jordan suddenly. "You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while."

We shook hands.

"Oh, and do you remember --" she added, "-- a conversation we had once about driving a car?"

"Why, -- not exactly."

"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride."

"I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.


Thanks, for reading! Tomorrow is the offical deal: Fitzgerald's actual birthday!

" 'Good Old Kerry' and All That Rot": Top Seven Favorite Fitzgerald Characters

To fit with the Fitzgerald theme, this week's list is all about my favorite Fitzgerald characters. Fitzgerald is responsible for creating some iconic American characters (Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Monroe Stahr, etc.), but he also gives life to charming secondary characters and over-earnest narrators as well. In this list, I will present my favorite Fitzgerald characters, the people with whom I'd love to party on someone's sloping green lawn. They're not necessarily his most complex or necessary creations, but they are all awesome in their own ways.

1. Kerry Holiday, from This Side of Paradise: Here's where this entry's title comes from. Kerry plays a very small role in this book as protagonist Amory Blaine's best friend at Princeton. The gray-eyed, humorous Kerry easily makes friends (all though its his "goodness" that keeps him from getting girls), but he is doomed from the very beginning. He only gets a handful of scenes and he's dead less than halfway through the book, but Kerry makes an impact on a lovelorn reader like myself. And he just so happens to be one of my biggest literary crushes.

2. Tom D'Invilliers, from This Side of Pardise: Tom is Amory's other best friend, and unlike Kerry, he actually gets to live through the entirety of the book. Tom's a lovesick, melodramatic poet when Amory first meets him, but by the end of the book, he's become a bit of a literary sell-out, more cynical and worldly than we ever could have imagined him at the novel's start. In my opinion, his character arc is as important as Amory's. And best of all, Tom is the author of the poem Fitzgerald quotes in the epigraph to The Great Gatsby. It's hilarious how often people mistake that poem and poet for reality.

3. Jordan Baker, from The Great Gatsby: Fitzgerald's most famous novel has an impressively small cast of characters, and Jordan originally appears to be one of the least important. This female professional golfer isn't necessarily likeable - she's rumored to be a cheater, she's surprisingly cynical, and the fact that she's friends with Daisy doesn't do her any favors. But damn if I don't like her spunk! And even more importantly, her doomed relationship with narrator Nick Carraway reveals the levels of disillusionment both characters experience in the face of Gatsby and the Buchanans' wealth. I think Jordan and Nick's break-up scenes is one of Fitzgerald's most poignant, and you can expect to see it quoted here later this week.

4. Cecelia Brady, from The Last Tycoon: It's a little hard to include a character whose book isn't even finished (Fitzgerald died less than halfway through), but I really like Cecelia. She sees everything as the narrator of Tycoon, carefully watching the rise of movie producer Monroe Stahr, and witnessing the obvious trap her father, another rich and successful producer, is clearly planning for him. In some of his notes for the novel, Fitzgerald maps out a tragic path for Cecelia that is even sadder in the wake of the book being left undone. Plus, Cecelia is a huge departure for Fitzgerald: a female narrator.

5. Burne Holiday, from This Side of Paradise: That's right. Another Holiday. Burne is Kerry's brother, and one of the few extremely rebellious Fitzgerald characters. A hard-core socialist, Burne starts some big trouble at Princeton and makes a very interesting foil to the laidback politics of students like Amory, who are more interested in the social aspects of education. Later in the novel, we find out that Burne has been missing for years after school, having possibly gone underground as a communist. You can't help but feel bad for the poor Holiday parents: one son killed in war and another missing on purpose. That is a 20th century tragedy.

6. Nick Carraway, from The Great Gatsby: Nick always makes me ridiculously sad. His disillusionment at the end of the book always strikes me as 20 times more tragic than Gatsby's extravagant life and death. He's just an over-eager Midwestern boy who thinks he finds friends and social stature and even a girlfriend on the East Coast, only to end up going back home damaged and alone. Nick is also a perfect narrator, seeing everything and affected by everything. A great creation that never gets enough credit.

7. Charlie Wales, from "Babylon Revisited": Charlie is hands-down Gatsby's most depressing (yet deserving of redemption) character. A recovering alcoholic and widow, Charlie goes to Paris to talk his in-laws into giving him custody of his daughter again. Charlie wanders lost around a city where he used to be king, now wanting nothing but his family back. This is considered Fitzgerald's best and most famous story, and it's a wholly deserved mantle. Charlie and his tale are absolutely devastating.


Happy Reading, everyone, and enjoy the rest of Fitzgerald Week!

Poem of the Week: "Shelley," by Galway Kinnell

Welcome, everyone, to a very special Poem of the Week in honor of Fitzgerald Week here at Not Your Mama's Bookshelf. As I mentioned in my last post, I view Fitzgerald's birthday as a way to celebrate my relationship with books and words and everything writers mean to me. Fitzgerald Week here will be all about celebrating F. Scott Fitzgerald, but it will also be about exploring one's relationship with reading in hopes you will all find a way to enjoy and think about your own love of reading.

Loving Fitzgerald as a writer has long been a tricky struggle. I can't really explain why I love him so much. I just do. One day, when I was fifteen, I opened to the first page of This Side of Paradise, and something strange happened. Something clicked with me very deeply, and I just knew that Fitzgerald and I were going to be bound in some way. It's weird to think that way about a book, but that's how it was. Take it for what you will. So I love Fitzgerald. I think he is underrated (with the exception of The Great Gatsby, which has become so homogenized in American society that it's almost tragic), and I think he is a much more complicated and compassionate writer than his reputation has claimed. Fitzgerald, in my opinion, is every bit as important to American literature as Hemingway, Faulkner, or Steinbeck. Even if he doesn't possess the Nobel Prize they all have.

But my relationship with Fitzgerald is also quite complicated because I think the truth is this: Fitzgerald was a great writer despite himself. I may be his biggest champion, but all my research into Fitzgerald makes me think that he often had to work like hell to beat his more ridiculous, hacky urges. His notebooks are full of strange and bizarre story ideas that would surprise most people. He was a little too into English romanticism. He tried to pretend he wasn't writing about himself when he so obviously was. But despite all his problems, he turned out to be a great writer with some absolutely wonderful insight into human nature and society.

Unfortunately, I have long come to the conclusion that, as people, Fitzgerald and I never could have been friends. I hate to say it, but I think he would have annoyed the shit out of me had I known him personally. He was clingy, constantly drunk, whiny, and never quite able to reckon his desire to be rich with his disdain for the rich. (Granted, that last bit was what made him such a great writer/social observer, but it must have perturbed his acquaintances). He had a wife and daughter he loved, but he often failed to understand them. His alcoholism was so bad it helped lead to an early death at only 44 years old.

But, God, the writing! It's so beautiful and full of heartache and humanity. I guess you could say I love Fitzgerald despite him being Fitzgerald.

And so, here is my poem of the week. I chose Galway Kinnell's "Shelley" because it explores the relationship between a reader and a writer, with the reader slowly realizing that a writer is not only just another human being, but a kind of terrible and tragic one at that. I think this poem gets to the disillusion and miracle that is a reader realizing that what he loves is written by someone who had to wrench every word out from his awful, cheating, hypocritical gut. It's an important step in the life of a reader: realizing writers are as mortal and stupid as the rest of us. And it accurately describes my relationship with Fitzgerald.

Shelley, by Galway Kinnell

When I was twenty the one true
free spirit I had heard of was Shelley,
Shelley, who wrote tracts advocating
atheism, free love, the emancipation
of women, the abolition of wealth and class,
and poems on the bliss of romantic love,
Shelley, who I learned later, perhaps
almost too late, remarried Harriet,
then pregnant with their second child,
and a few months later ran off with Mary,
with them Mary's stepsister Claire,
who very likely also became his lover,

and in this malaise a' trois, which Shelley
had imagined would be "a paradise of exiles,"
they lived, along with the spectre of Harriet,
who drowned herself in the Serpentine,
and of Mary's half sister Fanny,
who killed herself, maybe for unrequited
love of Shelley, and with the spirits
of adored but often neglected
children conceived incidentally
in the pursuit of Eros - Harriet's
Ianthe and Charles, denied to Shelley
and consigned to foster parents; Mary's
Clara, dead at one; her Willmouse,
Shelley's favorite, dead at three; Elena,
the baby in Naples, almost surely
Shelley's own, whom he "adopted"
and then left behind, dead and one and a half;
Allegra, Claire's daughter by Byron,
whom Byron sent off to the convent
at Bagnacavallo at four, dead at five --

and in those days, before I knew
any of this, I thought I followed Shelley,
who thought he was following radiant desire.