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Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald
In this evocative and meticulously detailed novel about the last romance of one of America's greatest literary couples, R. Clifton Spargo crafts an exhilarating portrait of the passionate yet tragically dysfunctional relationship between F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
In 1939 Scott is living in Hollywood, a virulent alcoholic and deeply in debt. Despite his relationship with gossip columnist Sheila Graham, he remains fiercely loyal to Zelda, his soul mate and muse. In an attempt to fuse together their fractured marriage, Scott arranges a trip to Cuba, where, after a disastrous first night in Havana, the couple runs off to a beach resort outside the city. But even in paradise, Scott and Zelda cannot escape the dangerous intensity of their relationship.
In Beautiful Fools, R. Clifton Spargo gives us a vivid, resplendent, and truly human portrait of the Fitzgeralds, and reveals the heartbreaking patterns and unexpected moments of tenderness that characterize a great romance in decline.
In 1939 Scott is living in Hollywood, a virulent alcoholic and deeply in debt. Despite his relationship with gossip columnist Sheila Graham, he remains fiercely loyal to Zelda, his soul mate and muse. In an attempt to fuse together their fractured marriage, Scott arranges a trip to Cuba, where, after a disastrous first night in Havana, the couple runs off to a beach resort outside the city. But even in paradise, Scott and Zelda cannot escape the dangerous intensity of their relationship.
In Beautiful Fools, R. Clifton Spargo gives us a vivid, resplendent, and truly human portrait of the Fitzgeralds, and reveals the heartbreaking patterns and unexpected moments of tenderness that characterize a great romance in decline.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
29 people are currently reading
2160 people want to read
About the author
R. Clifton Spargo
9 books13 followersR. Clifton Spargo is a Chicago-based novelist and cultural critic who writes "The HI/LO" for Huffington Post. An Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and a graduate of the doctoral program in literature at Yale University, he has published stories and essays in The Kenyon Review, The Antioch Review, Glimmer Train, FICTION, Raritan, Commonweal, the Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. He created and regularly teaches a testimonial writing workshop on gender-based violence for The Voices and Faces Project.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
January 22, 2014
At the risk of sounding like my seventh graders: I did not like this book because it was boring. I had a professor once who always said that "boring" was not a legitimate critique of literature because it's too vague and un-intellectual. I disagree. We read for a lot of reasons, but some of the chief ones for fiction are entertainment, escape, and adventure. This book was sorely lacking in these categories. I love the 1920s and find the Fitzgeralds to be very interesting literary and historical figures, but this book was just too slow. I couldn't figure out if I knew too much or not enough about them to enjoy the book the way I felt the author intended. I read this book on the beach on my Jamaican honeymoon and I was trudging though it. I probably would've given up on it had I had other reading options with me.
The chief problem with this book that made it so boring was the plot. It was meandering and hard to define. It follows Zelda and Scott on the last vacation they took together before his death while they were living on opposite sides of the country (she in a sanitarium in South Carolina, he with his girlfriend in Hollywood). They go to Cuba and... almost nothing happens. They meet some suspicious and curious people, but ultimately, they have no real impact on the story or their lives. The climax of the story was almost non-existent, and made even harder to identify by the how meaningless it ultimately became after the fact. The reason the climax was so vague and unimportant was because there was almost no real conflict in the book to drive the plot. The conflict, of course, revolved around Zelda and Scott's disintegrating marriage and almost toxic relationship. But most of that happened in episodes long before the novel starts. By the time we meet them, they are almost old and run-down versions of their former selves, too sad and tired to keep up the effort of fighting. Talk about a downer. And yet, I have read other books about their doomed marriage (For one, Call Me Zelda) that paints it as tragic and poignant, not pathetic and depressing. So most of the conflict is actually internally felt by the protagonists, to no real effect. They are together but the barely interact. They have a near crisis, then go home and back to normal. And then he dies shortly after the novel ends. Bummer, I guess, but this novel made it hard to care about these people. There were not enough things happening in this book to make it interesting, and the things that were happening were not tied together in any meaningful way.
That same professor had another mantra, though, which was that every book, no matter how bad, has something done well in it. I do agree with this. Despite the fact that the narrative plot was boring and slow, the attention to historical detail was amazing. Spargo brought 1930s Cuba and the culture of the time to life vividly. I found myself nostalgic for a time I never experienced. Unfortunately, it was almost TOO detailed, and the characters and plot did not live up to the robust world he created for them to exist in.
One last critique that is rather personal: As a trained historian I do not like it when historical fiction authors do not include a note on the accuracy of their story and the places they have taken liberties. I don't mind it at all when authors bend the historical record to fit a fictional narrative, but I want them to tell me when they do it. I don't know if other people care about this as much as I do.
The chief problem with this book that made it so boring was the plot. It was meandering and hard to define. It follows Zelda and Scott on the last vacation they took together before his death while they were living on opposite sides of the country (she in a sanitarium in South Carolina, he with his girlfriend in Hollywood). They go to Cuba and... almost nothing happens. They meet some suspicious and curious people, but ultimately, they have no real impact on the story or their lives. The climax of the story was almost non-existent, and made even harder to identify by the how meaningless it ultimately became after the fact. The reason the climax was so vague and unimportant was because there was almost no real conflict in the book to drive the plot. The conflict, of course, revolved around Zelda and Scott's disintegrating marriage and almost toxic relationship. But most of that happened in episodes long before the novel starts. By the time we meet them, they are almost old and run-down versions of their former selves, too sad and tired to keep up the effort of fighting. Talk about a downer. And yet, I have read other books about their doomed marriage (For one, Call Me Zelda) that paints it as tragic and poignant, not pathetic and depressing. So most of the conflict is actually internally felt by the protagonists, to no real effect. They are together but the barely interact. They have a near crisis, then go home and back to normal. And then he dies shortly after the novel ends. Bummer, I guess, but this novel made it hard to care about these people. There were not enough things happening in this book to make it interesting, and the things that were happening were not tied together in any meaningful way.
That same professor had another mantra, though, which was that every book, no matter how bad, has something done well in it. I do agree with this. Despite the fact that the narrative plot was boring and slow, the attention to historical detail was amazing. Spargo brought 1930s Cuba and the culture of the time to life vividly. I found myself nostalgic for a time I never experienced. Unfortunately, it was almost TOO detailed, and the characters and plot did not live up to the robust world he created for them to exist in.
One last critique that is rather personal: As a trained historian I do not like it when historical fiction authors do not include a note on the accuracy of their story and the places they have taken liberties. I don't mind it at all when authors bend the historical record to fit a fictional narrative, but I want them to tell me when they do it. I don't know if other people care about this as much as I do.
July 29, 2013
I waited awhile to read this novel, having an irrational fear of other books featuring the Fitzgeralds as fictional characters when my own released just two months ago, and having very strong, specific, and loyal thoughts about my recent muses. I couldn’t have been more captivated and moved by BEAUTIFUL FOOLS.
Based on meticulous research, Spargo’s characterization of Zelda and Scott is precise and human. He captures the Fitzgeralds’ admirable devotion to each other, while demonstrating how very broken and ill-equipped the two of them were at handling life. Even in the midst of chaos, the presentation of the Fitzgeralds is tender, complete, and a rendering by which the subjects themselves would, no doubt, be humbled.
At one point in the novel, Zelda expresses the following wish:
“In her sleep she had suffered a vision of how she might be seen–how literary men and biographers would talk about her. She knew what Ernest said about her already, even to common friends such as Gerald and Sara…She wanted to be remembered for the things she had done for him, for the joy he obtained simply from being in love with her. She was special, she wasn’t like other people, he was lucky to have known her.”
BEAUTIFUL FOOLS fulfills this wish in scope, honesty, and reverence, and Spargo is a master craftsman. I give this novel my highest recommendation.
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Based on meticulous research, Spargo’s characterization of Zelda and Scott is precise and human. He captures the Fitzgeralds’ admirable devotion to each other, while demonstrating how very broken and ill-equipped the two of them were at handling life. Even in the midst of chaos, the presentation of the Fitzgeralds is tender, complete, and a rendering by which the subjects themselves would, no doubt, be humbled.
At one point in the novel, Zelda expresses the following wish:
“In her sleep she had suffered a vision of how she might be seen–how literary men and biographers would talk about her. She knew what Ernest said about her already, even to common friends such as Gerald and Sara…She wanted to be remembered for the things she had done for him, for the joy he obtained simply from being in love with her. She was special, she wasn’t like other people, he was lucky to have known her.”
BEAUTIFUL FOOLS fulfills this wish in scope, honesty, and reverence, and Spargo is a master craftsman. I give this novel my highest recommendation.
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December 15, 2014
In 1939, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a washed-up Hollywood hack suffering from alcoholism and tuberculosis; his wife Zelda was stagnating at a North Carolina asylum. Spargo’s accomplished debut tenderly chronicles the golden couple’s final vacation to Cuba.
Not a lot happens in the novel, but with the Fitzgeralds’ notoriously bad luck and bad choices, it should come as no surprise that everything seems to go wrong in some way. The book’s languid pace, reflecting the heat and the holiday atmosphere, can sometimes feel like a hindrance. Instead of action, Spargo excels at picking apart the psychological intricacies of this floundering relationship. He imagines himself into both characters’ minds flawlessly, and their dialogue sparks with honesty.
(See my full review at The Bookbag.)
Related reads:
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell
Not a lot happens in the novel, but with the Fitzgeralds’ notoriously bad luck and bad choices, it should come as no surprise that everything seems to go wrong in some way. The book’s languid pace, reflecting the heat and the holiday atmosphere, can sometimes feel like a hindrance. Instead of action, Spargo excels at picking apart the psychological intricacies of this floundering relationship. He imagines himself into both characters’ minds flawlessly, and their dialogue sparks with honesty.
(See my full review at The Bookbag.)
Related reads:
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell
June 2, 2013
It was a valiant effort to make a plot out of a one week vacation, but there wasn't much plot to be had. I made it all the way through though. Argh.
July 19, 2013
Beautiful Fools is a compelling fictional novel about real people - in this case, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda - and chronicles their trip to Cuba in what proves to be the last time they see each other before his death. For me, the book stirred a range of emotions - from being totally angry at the ridiculous behavior of the fools, to sorrow that they just can't seem to overcome their own demons. In the end, I'm still unsure of whether a "good" marriage can be one where the pair seem more obligated to "love" than freely giving - but certainly this novel has given me a subject that I'll ponder for some time to come. I LOVE a book that makes me question something that I think I already have an answer to. In the midst of so many tales on our bookshelves that overly romanticize tumultuous relationships, Spargo offers a refreshing alternative. Superbly written, thoroughly enjoyed.Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald
July 8, 2013
Mr. Spargo writes beautifully. He captures broadly the rawness, the color, the opposition to Fitgeralds' daily lives that Cuba is at this time. He also makes us see the sweetness, sadness, and the destructive decline in the relationship between Scott and Zelda. The characters are so real, their pain so deep, and their effort to try and reconnect so poignant.
You do not need to be a lover of Fitzgerald or his prose to fall in love with this book.
You do not need to be a lover of Fitzgerald or his prose to fall in love with this book.
January 7, 2014
“That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” wrote Fitzgerald in his famous book, The Great Gatsby. Spargo has used those words to title his brilliant novel, based on the little-known last vacation of Zelda and Scott, the ill-fated “Beautiful Fools.”
In April 1939, following a long separation due to Zelda’s stay in mental hospitals on the East Coast and Scott’s working and drinking hard and being unfaithful in Hollywood, the Fitzgeralds take a trip to Cuba. Scott is hopeful that this would be the elixir to revive their foundering marriage. In Havana and on the beaches, they encounter many local Cubans and Europeans who help them live their accustomed high life. While Scott continues to enjoy his alcohol and chocolate, Zelda begins to feel better. Despite enduring the usual tourist traps, witnessing a gruesome knife fight in a seedy nightclub, a near-romantic liaison with a Spanish-French couple, and Scott getting badly beaten up in a fight, they once again experience the sparks of their former intimacy. However, Zelda’s euphoria begins to evaporate following their visit to a fortuneteller.
Using information from Scott’s and Zelda’s writings and biographies, Spargo has admirably reconstructed their vacation story. Through believable dialogue, flashbacks, and thoughts, the narrative encompasses not only the Cuban holiday but also fleshes out the Fitzgeralds’ former life and their troubled mental state. While the lovers’ tragic ending is well known, the heartbreaking story and evocative descriptions of pre-revolutionary Cuba will keep readers engrossed to the last page. Recommended.
This review first appeared in the print magazine, Historical Novel Review Issue 65 (Aug 2013)
In April 1939, following a long separation due to Zelda’s stay in mental hospitals on the East Coast and Scott’s working and drinking hard and being unfaithful in Hollywood, the Fitzgeralds take a trip to Cuba. Scott is hopeful that this would be the elixir to revive their foundering marriage. In Havana and on the beaches, they encounter many local Cubans and Europeans who help them live their accustomed high life. While Scott continues to enjoy his alcohol and chocolate, Zelda begins to feel better. Despite enduring the usual tourist traps, witnessing a gruesome knife fight in a seedy nightclub, a near-romantic liaison with a Spanish-French couple, and Scott getting badly beaten up in a fight, they once again experience the sparks of their former intimacy. However, Zelda’s euphoria begins to evaporate following their visit to a fortuneteller.
Using information from Scott’s and Zelda’s writings and biographies, Spargo has admirably reconstructed their vacation story. Through believable dialogue, flashbacks, and thoughts, the narrative encompasses not only the Cuban holiday but also fleshes out the Fitzgeralds’ former life and their troubled mental state. While the lovers’ tragic ending is well known, the heartbreaking story and evocative descriptions of pre-revolutionary Cuba will keep readers engrossed to the last page. Recommended.
This review first appeared in the print magazine, Historical Novel Review Issue 65 (Aug 2013)
October 3, 2013
I may have enjoyed it more if the characters were fictional vs. a fictional creation of the Fitzgeralds.
August 8, 2013
Tedious account of self destruction.
February 9, 2017
Review to follow.
August 21, 2013
I had high expectations for this book, but unfortunately found it a struggle to get through. For a novel centered upon a raging alcoholic and a woman caught in the throes of mental illness (who just happen to be F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald), this book was remarkably long-winded and boring. The plot was overwrought with frivolous detail that dragged the story down. I wish the author would have focused more on the dynamically flawed characters and their subsequent motivations and less on endless water-logged descriptions of scenes I can't even clearly recall.
September 8, 2016
Okay. I liked it because Havana in the '30s and the Fitzgeralds are both very interesting topics. I didn't like it because it's hard to make up the voices of Scott & Zelda in a better/more exciting/interesting way than their actual voices in their letters to each other during this time. When you write a fiction about them it just somehow doesn't feel as cool as their actual history. I'm curious to see how "Z" handles this dilemma which bothered me occasionally in Beautiful Fools.
August 23, 2013
I was saddened when I began reading the book, since I've been reading so much about Jazz Age writers and their ilk, because I wanted to like it, I just couldn't. The writing was too convoluted, dry, and uninteresting that I just couldn't push myself past it to learn anything from it about the time period and/or Fitzgeralds.
December 6, 2018
Incredibly slow with flowery language that doesn't do Scott and Zelda justice. The book plot seems great in theory, but just wasn't executed right, with too much time being spent on unnecessary descriptions and characters. I did enjoy seeing Scott's struggle with his loyalty to Zelda and passion for Sheilah though and thought that was one of the stronger aspects.
December 19, 2014
Soooooooooo boring. Scott and Zelda were such interesting people and this author's writing style does NOT do them justice. There's too much dialogue and thinking and not enough of people doing anything. It tries too hard to be deep.
June 12, 2013
Nice book cover & title. Wish I could say the same for the contents.
July 28, 2013
I had a really hard time finishing this, events in the story seemed to drag on and on and were hard to follow.
May 29, 2014
I really wanted to like this more after reading z, the Paris wife and call me zelda. Good but not as awesome as I wanted it to be.
September 19, 2017
i'm a sucker for all things Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, so this was another insight into their tumultuous relationship.
July 26, 2022
It's amazing how a complete novel can captivate you for days, even though it spans the space of time of one vacation spent in one location. I had heard hints of what F. Scott Fitzgerald was going through after his success with The Great Gatsby, but now I've experienced it second hand. Struggling to keep his wife safe from her mental demons without retreating into his comforting alcoholic haze is enough to sink any normal person. Add to that his tuberculosis, and yet he continued to write, publishing Tender is the Night. Here is a man to whom, if I was able, I'd have sent angel helpers to take on some of his burdens, so that he may have had more time to bring more of his talent to the world.
June 15, 2020
Just finished Beautiful Fools by R. Clifton Spargo. It’s a novel based on the last trip S & Z Fitzgerald took together, to Cuba. Good book! Made me think of this Gatsby quote, “They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
June 3, 2020
I originally thought this book was non-fiction when I picked it up, so it took me a while to set aside that this would read more like a novel. Nonetheless, I feel I learned a lot about the relationship of Scott and Zelda. I didn’t know about the Cuba trip, and it was nice to read about possible things that happened the last time they were together.
February 22, 2021
DNF
I thought this was nonfiction, it wasn't. I endeavored to press on. Truly one of the most incredibly dull books I've ever read. If you're going to novelize a true event, pick an interesting one. This book made me understand why people hate reading.
I thought this was nonfiction, it wasn't. I endeavored to press on. Truly one of the most incredibly dull books I've ever read. If you're going to novelize a true event, pick an interesting one. This book made me understand why people hate reading.
May 6, 2022
Ich glaube, von all den Episoden aus den Leben der Hauptpersonen hat sich der Autor genau die langweiligste ausgesucht... Weder die Handlung noch das Zusammenspiel der Charaktere ist irgendwie interessant...
July 10, 2021
The book never quite got to where I needed it to go. It was just blah throughout.
May 25, 2022
Sad story about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda both having severe mental health issues but a love that seemed to endure until it didn't.
September 30, 2023
A very boring novelization about a week or two with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. If this book is anything to go by, both were insufferable.
November 9, 2024
good ish not amazing
July 30, 2013
This is the second Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald book to come out this year. I get it, I get it. The famous Fitzgeralds are almost as popular as Scott's most famous novel. Which just received it's second movie this year. The time is hot for the Fitzgeralds right now. But along with publication comes the fact that I now must read them. Therese Anne Folwer's 'Z' was the first and I haven't read Ericka Robuck's 'Call Me Zelda' yet, but I will. This take, by R. Clifton Spargo (who's name I can not quite accept as real), is something new. Instead of spanning decades Spargo takes a week long vacation at the end of Scott and Zelda's relationship and draws it in to quite a story. Gone is the glamor of their Jazz Age days. Gone is their fame. Gone is Zelda's sanity and Scott's sobriety.
In 1939 Scott and Zelda are living apart, he is Hollywood as a failed screenwriter and carrying on with Sheila Graham (his beloved infidel), and she in Asheville, North Carolina in a sanitarium. Though living apart and despising each other half the time they are still heavily intertwined in each other's lives when Scott arrives to take Zelda on a trip to Havana, Cuba. There they promptly get involved with a sheisty promoter and soon head for a remote beach resort. All the while deciding if they can move forward together or let each other go.
This is basically a portrait of a tumultuous marriage. And that is where it's strength lies. The characters themselves and how they interact with each other and those around them are very interesting. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are interesting characters. Especially at this point. A lot can be said for romantic sensibilities, how they couldn't ever let each other go despite the dissolving of their marriage, his drinking, and her mental illnesses. Blame has been thrown back and forth as to who's fault it was. Was Zelda a headcase who's erratic behavior stunted Scott's growth as a writer or was Zelda a stifled wife with higher aspirations driven mad by her alcoholic husband? The answer, of course, is both. Those two tore each other apart like no one else could. But that's hardly the point because everyone has an opionion. Nancy Mitford had an opinion when she published Zelda's biography leading her to be a minor symbol of women's liberation. Hemingway had an opinion when he vilified Zelda in 'A Moveable Feast'. Where regular people fall usually on this scale is usually directed by their first encounter with the couple. I try to be more open minded. I believe that's what Spargo was trying to do too. However, I think it's clear his opinion on Zelda was mostly negative. Her characterization in the book is mostly good, and there's plenty to dislike Scott for but it felt to me that the author had leanings towards Scott's favor. Zelda, when acting out, is batshit crazy, when she's okay and perhaps wife material again... she's a saucy minx. Perhaps it's coming straight from reading Therese Fowler's 'Z' but I wasn't sure I bought this description.
I was, also, okay with the characters of the couple they meet at the ocean resort. I wasn't quite sure why the author felt the need to add in the character of the gentleman who takes them to the club in the beginning and then helps out in the end. Especially the parts that were written from his point of view. This felt like the author was trying to spice up the story when it really didn't need spicing. There are plenty of readers, of course, who would find the tale of a marriage couple's vacation to be boring, but I don't think this book should have been for them. Adding in this criminal element seemed very false and pretty ridiculous.
When Zelda gave birth to daughter Scottie she reportedly heard the baby's gender and murmured that she hoped she'd be a fool, a beautiful little fool, as that was the best thing a girl could be in the world. A quote Scott inserted directly into his famous novel 'The Great Gatsby'. She meant, of course, that she hoped her daughter would be foolish enough not to see or understand the experiences and knowledge around her that she would never access. Though by no means a modern sentiment one can almost understand what she meant. And with that quote applied to the title of this book it's easy to see it was these two who were the fools all along.
In 1939 Scott and Zelda are living apart, he is Hollywood as a failed screenwriter and carrying on with Sheila Graham (his beloved infidel), and she in Asheville, North Carolina in a sanitarium. Though living apart and despising each other half the time they are still heavily intertwined in each other's lives when Scott arrives to take Zelda on a trip to Havana, Cuba. There they promptly get involved with a sheisty promoter and soon head for a remote beach resort. All the while deciding if they can move forward together or let each other go.
This is basically a portrait of a tumultuous marriage. And that is where it's strength lies. The characters themselves and how they interact with each other and those around them are very interesting. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are interesting characters. Especially at this point. A lot can be said for romantic sensibilities, how they couldn't ever let each other go despite the dissolving of their marriage, his drinking, and her mental illnesses. Blame has been thrown back and forth as to who's fault it was. Was Zelda a headcase who's erratic behavior stunted Scott's growth as a writer or was Zelda a stifled wife with higher aspirations driven mad by her alcoholic husband? The answer, of course, is both. Those two tore each other apart like no one else could. But that's hardly the point because everyone has an opionion. Nancy Mitford had an opinion when she published Zelda's biography leading her to be a minor symbol of women's liberation. Hemingway had an opinion when he vilified Zelda in 'A Moveable Feast'. Where regular people fall usually on this scale is usually directed by their first encounter with the couple. I try to be more open minded. I believe that's what Spargo was trying to do too. However, I think it's clear his opinion on Zelda was mostly negative. Her characterization in the book is mostly good, and there's plenty to dislike Scott for but it felt to me that the author had leanings towards Scott's favor. Zelda, when acting out, is batshit crazy, when she's okay and perhaps wife material again... she's a saucy minx. Perhaps it's coming straight from reading Therese Fowler's 'Z' but I wasn't sure I bought this description.
I was, also, okay with the characters of the couple they meet at the ocean resort. I wasn't quite sure why the author felt the need to add in the character of the gentleman who takes them to the club in the beginning and then helps out in the end. Especially the parts that were written from his point of view. This felt like the author was trying to spice up the story when it really didn't need spicing. There are plenty of readers, of course, who would find the tale of a marriage couple's vacation to be boring, but I don't think this book should have been for them. Adding in this criminal element seemed very false and pretty ridiculous.
When Zelda gave birth to daughter Scottie she reportedly heard the baby's gender and murmured that she hoped she'd be a fool, a beautiful little fool, as that was the best thing a girl could be in the world. A quote Scott inserted directly into his famous novel 'The Great Gatsby'. She meant, of course, that she hoped her daughter would be foolish enough not to see or understand the experiences and knowledge around her that she would never access. Though by no means a modern sentiment one can almost understand what she meant. And with that quote applied to the title of this book it's easy to see it was these two who were the fools all along.
March 1, 2017
I'm fascinated by Scott Fitzgerald. By both his work and his live. And I think it was an underestimated author. Or maybe he was a fragile, insecure and attached-to-a-possessive-and-selfish-woman man.
This is the story of the last chance Scott and Zelda gave to their marriage and relationship, their last trip (to Cuba) and even though the story is fascinating I didn't get very engaged by the way it's written. I didn't like as I expected to like the author's prose... but I still enjoyed with the story.
This is the story of the last chance Scott and Zelda gave to their marriage and relationship, their last trip (to Cuba) and even though the story is fascinating I didn't get very engaged by the way it's written. I didn't like as I expected to like the author's prose... but I still enjoyed with the story.
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