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Zelda
Zelda Sayre began as a Southern beauty, became an international wonder, and died by fire in a madhouse. With her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, she moved in a golden aura of excitement, romance, and promise. The epitome of the Jazz Age, together they rode the crest of the era: to its collapse and their own.
From years of exhaustive research, Nancy Milford brings alive the to
...morePaperback, 464 pages
Published
December 3rd 1983
by Harper Perennial
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Aimee
rated it
Recommends it for:
Anyone interested in mental illness, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Paris in the 20s
Shelves:
biography-autobiography
I almost wish I hadn't read this book, as it gave me insight into the writing method of F. Scott Fitzgerald which has left not only my opinion of him but of his work in a harsh new light. He literally drove his wife insane by stealing her life, writings and personality for his own literary ends. When she herself was published his name was included as author. When she tried to write a novel about her experience with mental illness, her threatened her publisher (who was also his publisher) with...more
I've resisted reviewing this one since I've been on this website because I didn't really think I could convey how weirdly central it's become to my life. First, it's a book I discovered in my mother's stack of paperbacks when I was a kid, and the later pictures of Zelda scared the B.Jesus out of me. Then when I went to college it seemed like every artsy girl I tried to date had it on their bookshelves. Flash forward another ten years and I land a job in the city where Zelda was born and where sh...more
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Though the beginning of this book provides some strict historical information on Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the majority of it is, of necessity, a biography of her better known husband. It is a sad fact that Zelda is, essentially, an extension of him; their lives were so closely intertwined and mutually dependent that it would be impossible to look at only half of the dynamic couple.
It is difficult to get a sense of who she was in her childhood and adolescence; wild, reckless, the pam...more
It is difficult to get a sense of who she was in her childhood and adolescence; wild, reckless, the pam...more
Topnotch research, well presented with anecdotes from people who knew people who knew. Got this book from the library because I had watched "Tender Is The Night" (a disturbing autobiographical movie: had F. Scott Fitzgerald no conscience?) on TCM and Robert Osborne mentioned Milford's book as the only one that covered Zelda Sayre's creativity and squashed dreams, as well as her struggle with mental and emotional mayhem. Creative coupling is mercurial: drop either partner's dreams on th...more
I think I read this when I was recuperating from an automobile accident and had beaucoup time on my hands.
It was very enjoyable and I think got me caught up in getting books on Fitzgerald, the Murphys, Dorothy Parker, etc., that whole crowd in other words.
She did have mental problems and if you look at her entire life, you can see them showing up here and there all along the way.
I believe she wrote one book and I have heard it questioned, either in print or ...more
It was very enjoyable and I think got me caught up in getting books on Fitzgerald, the Murphys, Dorothy Parker, etc., that whole crowd in other words.
She did have mental problems and if you look at her entire life, you can see them showing up here and there all along the way.
I believe she wrote one book and I have heard it questioned, either in print or ...more
Amazing. Milford did an excellent job of portraying the Fitzgerald couple. However, her writing was not the main attraction of this book, it was Zelda's. Her letter's to Scott were steeped in metaphors and beautiful in their conveyance of so many emotions.[return]Here is one that she wrote to describe the rainy sky:[return][return]"filled with copper clouds like the after-math of cannon-fire, pre-war, civil-war clouds and I feel all empty and bored and very much in love with you, my dear on...more
"Half of our friends would tell you in all seriousness that my drinking drove Zelda mad. The other half would tell you that her madness drove me to drink." - Scott Fitzgerald
This was a very in depth biography, and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a fascinating and enigmatic subject for Milford to take on.
The early years of the Fitzgeralds are by far the easiest to read through, and the most fun to be immersed in, but the author renders the blow out fights and drunk...more
This was a very in depth biography, and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a fascinating and enigmatic subject for Milford to take on.
The early years of the Fitzgeralds are by far the easiest to read through, and the most fun to be immersed in, but the author renders the blow out fights and drunk...more
I never thought I'd even want to read about Zelda Fitzgerald because I read all about Hemingway first and he didn't like her and I admit that influenced my opinion of her. Then one day I read that she died in a fire in mental hospital. That piqued my interest so I bought the book and am glad to say was not disappointed. I still don't "like" Zelda, but do understand her as a person more because of this extremely detailed book. It is one of the better biographies I've ever read. F.Sc...more
Zelda Fitzgerald was from a normal middle American family. Her life became a symbol of the excesses of the jazz age.
Too much fun, too much booze, too much chaos, life lived too fast and bound to come to grief. But the reality was more complex.
This is a good book for those who like F. Scott Fitzgeralds books and want to know more about the love of his life.
Milford has harsh criticism of Fitzgerald, as if he could have done more to save Zeldas life, and also cure his own addic...more
Too much fun, too much booze, too much chaos, life lived too fast and bound to come to grief. But the reality was more complex.
This is a good book for those who like F. Scott Fitzgeralds books and want to know more about the love of his life.
Milford has harsh criticism of Fitzgerald, as if he could have done more to save Zeldas life, and also cure his own addic...more
It's hard to review "Zelda" without tying in my feelings about Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald and their crazy, codependent relationship. But I can't find any fault in Nancy Milford's work, and for such a long biography to hold my interest all the way through is sort of amazing, so I'm giving it five stars.
I first learned about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald a few years ago when I tried to read a couple of Scott Fitzgerald's books. I couldn't STAND the main characters in any of the boo...more
I first learned about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald a few years ago when I tried to read a couple of Scott Fitzgerald's books. I couldn't STAND the main characters in any of the boo...more
The fun loving crazy ones, are usually just that, crazy. Makes me glad to be boring.
Very interesting. I was looking for some summer reading where I would learn something. And I did! This was an interesting read not only about F. Scott's life, Zelda's, but also how people with mental illness where dealt with in the 1930s and 1940s. Turns out that at about the age of 32 Zelda would live out her days in an array of mental insititutions.
Since it discussed their lives you could see many characters that F. Scott created who were in fact just taken from their everyday ...more
Since it discussed their lives you could see many characters that F. Scott created who were in fact just taken from their everyday ...more
I didn't really want to read this book. I had little interest in the protagonist. Still I found it lying around, picked it up & started anyway. I've read the Great Gatsby, who hasn't. After this I'll read it again with greater interest. Tender is the Night is stacked somewhere in the mass of books I've accumulated over several years of digging through used book stores & you know I'm gonna read that too. This wasn't a great biography. Still I found myself wanting to find out what happens; wanting...more
Before reading, I had no particular attachment to either of the Fitzgeralds, but I read this (a) because I had liked Nancy Milford's biography of Millay, and (b) because I wanted some insight since I have a reading of Save Me the Waltz in the works.
I admit, this biography left me with a sympathy for Zelda and a slight disdain towards Scott. I don't think Nancy Milford was overtly on anyone's side, but obviously, this book was about Zelda, so perhaps the scales did tip in her favour. ...more
I admit, this biography left me with a sympathy for Zelda and a slight disdain towards Scott. I don't think Nancy Milford was overtly on anyone's side, but obviously, this book was about Zelda, so perhaps the scales did tip in her favour. ...more
An insanely comprehensive look at the legitimate person behind a surprising number of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels. Milford offers some innocuous yet amazing vignettes of Zelda, one of my favorites occurring early in the book in which she describes kissing a man just because he had a mustache and she wanted to see what it was like. Keep in mind that I definitely got more out of this than her sexual proclivities. Zelda's is a tragic story but Milford fleshes out the person immersed in it. A p...more
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"Zelda" leaves one exclaiming, "What a waste!" I don't mean the book, wihich is in fact quite a fine boiography of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. It's her (i.e., Zelda's)n life that was a waste. Spoiled, sexually advanced and yet very naive, she's overwhelmed by her marriage, his tgalent, and a complete lack of common sense or even ordinary competence. A thrill-seeker from extreme youth, poor Z. finally winds up with a disconnect from reality at about age 30, and spends the rest...more
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I was interested in reading about Zelda after I read "The Paris Wife," which was about Hemingway and his wife in Paris and all their famous, talented friends. Zelda was such a remarkable woman in her own right. Too bad she was always cast in the shadow of her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. The section in the book about her mental illness was quite depressing. Since reading her book I have looked up her artwork and it is really quite amazing! Worth the read.
The best biography on this subject that I have read. It is thoroughly researched, including first-hand interviews with people who knew the Fitzgeralds--people who have now passed away--and it quotes long passages from letters between the couple, allowing the reader to see inside their relationship without Milford's interference. Milford doesn't take too strong of an editorialized view of who broke down the marriage, which is rare, but still offers psychological insight into the Fitzgeralds' head...more
While the book gives you an outstanding feel and understanding for Zelda and Scott, it is heavily bogged down by excerpts from old letters, Scott's books and stories, and Zelda's writing. I understand that the author was trying to show the correlation between fiction and life, but most of it could have been sumarized. Half way through the book, I just began skimming all the excepts and even a lot of the letters since they just reiterated what was already established. I wouldn't be surpised if a ...more
Especially after hearing all about the conflicts and disputes within her from third people throughout time, it was a great experience to know a little bit of what Zelda actually thinks. Though it's very hard to find now, there's this book called "Zelda: An Illustrated Life", I think it was written by some of her relatives and it gives a great insight of Zelda's personality and the things she tried to achieve.
This book haunted me when I read it as a teen. Partially, because it followed a life so charming and lively into the ravages of bad marriage and mental collapse. However, it left a lot of unanswered questions and is hardly definitive. There have been some new things written which exceed the scope of this book, but taken alone it is a powerful portrait, though tragic.
Parts of this uneven book read like they are lifted straight from the author's masters thesis on Zelda Fitzgerald's literary output, while others are quite entertaining and readable. Zelda was a talented (though unfocused) writer herself, and at first Scott encouraged her talent. As he fell deeper into raging alcoholism and struggled harder to write, he became bitter and resentful, and was basically a huge jerk. An interesting look at both the Jazz Age and what it means to be an artist.
Scott and Zelda were buried in a public cemetery just down the road from where I taught in Rockville, Md. The famous pitcher Walter Johnson was also buried in the same cemetery. Eventually the couple's bodies were exhumed and reburied in a nearby Catholic cemetery. Zelda had also been confined to an institution in Rockville.
English Translation Studies
Zelda's relationship with Scott wasn't as simple as you would think. For years before everything ended they felt the spark was gone yet they couldn't be away from each other. Scott was possessive about his "material", their life. Zelda seemed fine with it for most of the time even though she wanted to pursue her own dreams. Illness came in the way and the heyday of their glorious days didn't last for long. Such a sad figure she was and what's even ...more
Zelda's relationship with Scott wasn't as simple as you would think. For years before everything ended they felt the spark was gone yet they couldn't be away from each other. Scott was possessive about his "material", their life. Zelda seemed fine with it for most of the time even though she wanted to pursue her own dreams. Illness came in the way and the heyday of their glorious days didn't last for long. Such a sad figure she was and what's even ...more
i really wanted to love this book and i did until about 3/4 of the way thru when i got distracted with work. sadly i lost the impetus to finish in a timely manner. however, this is a fanatically researched book with incredible detail about zelda's life and her marriage to f. scott.
Fascinating look at Zelda's life. The first half seemed much more interesting to me, but I that was mostly to do with the author's needing to go over each of their books. This was necessary to tell the Fitzgerald's tales, but since both of them wrote such autobiographical accounts of their lives into all of their work, I did get a bit tired of reading about the same occurances time and time again.
I was stunned by Zelda's change in character and outlook and by Scott's possessivene...more
I was stunned by Zelda's change in character and outlook and by Scott's possessivene...more
An excellent biography of one of the most fascinating women of the 20th century. Zelda Fitzgerald lived a thwarted life - her writing was thwarted by her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and her life stymied by her mental illness. An excellent read!
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