Читать книгу Breaking Down Fitzgerald - Helen M. Turner - Страница 9

After their transatlantic crossing, the Fitzgeralds spent just over a week in Paris where they found a suitable nanny for Scottie before heading down to the Riviera. By June they were settled in the Villa Marie in St Raphaël. Fitzgerald began in earnest the writing of his next novel, which he hoped would be a considerable departure from his commercial fiction and would be sustained by a developed artistic vision. Writing to Max Perkins shortly before their departure to Europe, Fitzgerald reflected on the time that he had wasted in the previous two years. He also articulated his hopes for his new book. It was not to be concerned with “trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world. So I tread slowly and carefully + at times in considerable distress. The book will be a consciously artistic achievment [sic] + must depend on that as the 1st books did not” (Fitzgerald 1994, p. 67).

Through the summer months Fitzgerald worked on his novel and Zelda was largely left to her own devices, often spending time at the beach sunbathing and swimming in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. During July, she became involved with a French aviator by the name of Edouard Jozan. The exact nature of the relationship between the two is unknown, with Jozan claiming after the deaths of both Fitzgeralds that it was an innocent flirtation. However—whatever the truth—it introduced a wedge between husband and wife which, some biographers have argued, was never fully repaired. Curiously, it was also a traumatic event that both of them drew upon and reimagined—not only in their fiction—but as an ever‐evolving story that the couple shared with friends.

During this period, the Fitzgeralds met Sara and Gerald Murphy, a glamorous and well‐connected couple who were noted for their exquisite entertaining as well as their artistic group of friends that included Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, and Jean Cocteau. They would remain friends and frequent correspondents of Fitzgerald for the rest of his life, despite his drunken antics sometimes putting pressure on his relationships with the Murphys and others.

Fitzgerald spent the remainder of 1924 and the early months of 1925 revising the galley proofs of his novel, which after a series of name changes was now called The Great Gatsby. Much of this work was undertaken in Italy, where the Fitzgeralds spent a number of months in both Rome and Capri. During the process he was in regular contact with his editor, Max Perkins, at Scribner's. In a letter dated October 10, 1924, Fitzgerald wrote to him about an upcoming writer that he had heard of but (up to that point) had not met but believed he would be a good fit for Perkins's editorship. “This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemmingway [sic], who lives in Paris, (an American) writes for the Transatlantic Review + has a brilliant future … I'd look him up right away. He's the real thing” (Fitzgerald 1994, p. 82).

On April 10, 1925, The Great Gatsby was published. Now widely hailed as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, at the time of its publication its significance was missed by the book‐buying public and it had a critical reception that was mixed at best. The initial print run was 20,870 copies priced at $2.00. In August, an additional 3,000 copies were printed, some of which “were still in Scribner's warehouse when Fitzgerald died” (Bruccoli 2002, p. 217). Fellow writers such as Willa Cather and Edith Wharton wrote to Fitzgerald to express their admiration for the novel. Indeed, poet T. S. Eliot had read it three times when he declared it “the first step American fiction has taken since Henry James” in a letter to the author dated December 31, 1925 (Eliot 2009, p. 813). However, the novel failed to have the impact that Fitzgerald had hoped it would have and the disappointment was not easily—if ever—shaken.

A few weeks after publication, the Fitzgeralds were once again on the move, this time to Paris, where they rented an apartment at 14 rue de Tilsitt. Sometime toward the end of April, Fitzgerald finally met Ernest Hemingway, the writer whom he had praised to Max Perkins some months before. The only detailed record of this first encounter is in Hemingway's posthumously published memoir A Moveable Feast (1964). The accuracy of much of the book is deeply questionable with the depiction of Fitzgerald unflattering and cruel. The pair shared a close friendship for a while and Fitzgerald was crucial in Hemingway moving publishers to Scribner's. He was also instrumental in offering editorial advice to the younger man in relation to his first novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926). However, the relationship became increasingly strained and antagonistic as the years passed. Max Perkins, editor to both men, acted as an intermediary, communicating to both men about the other.

Over the next few years, the Fitzgeralds lived at different locations in Paris and the South of France as well as periodic returns to the United States. Both Fitzgeralds were drinking heavily but for Scott the tightening grip of alcoholism was interfering with his productivity. He was in increasing amounts of debt with both Scribner's and Harold Ober despite still being paid considerable sums of money for his short stories. For example, in 1926 according to Fitzgerald's own ledger his income was $25,686.05 (Bruccoli 2002, p. 532). Key events during this period were the beginning of a new novel shortly after the publication of Gatsby that would not see completion until 1934; publication of the important short story “The Rich Boy” (1926); a Broadway production of The Great Gatsby also in 1926; and a stint in Hollywood as a screenwriter in the opening months of 1927. The return to the United States during 1927 and 1928 also marked the beginning of Zelda's serious study of dance that would continue for a number of years with some success.

As the 1920s gave way to the 1930s a tidal wave of disaster struck both Fitzgeralds. The Wall Street crash of October 1929 drew to a close the carefree spirit of the Jazz Age with financial, psychological, and emotional ramifications for many. The unprecedented downturn meant a shrinking of the lucrative magazine market and the amount of money publications were prepared to pay for short stories, which directly affected Fitzgerald's livelihood. Compounding his growing financial worries and alcoholism, Zelda's mental health began to rapidly deteriorate leading to a complete breakdown that required hospitalization in April 1930. She would be in and out of expensive sanitoriums in Switzerland until September 1931 when the couple returned to the United States. In between, Fitzgerald had briefly returned to the United States in January of that year to bury his father. Zelda would go through the same upset when her own father, Judge Anthony Sayre, died in November 1931, marking a hellish eighteen months for the pair. The couple seemed to reflect on a personal level the distress and the chaos of the United States as the 1920s came to an abrupt halt and the Great Depression engulfed everything in its wake.