Scott Fitzgerald And His World

by Arthur Mizener

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Arthur Moore Mizener was an American professor of English, literary critic, and biographer. After graduating from Princeton, Mizener obtained his master's degree from Harvard. From 1951 until his retirement in 1975, he was Mellon Foundation Professor of English at Cornell University. In 1951, Mizener published the first biography of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald titled The Far Side of Paradise.
In addition to authoring the first biography of Fitzgerald, Mizener proposed the now popular interpretations of Fitzgerald's magnum opus The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the American Dream and the character of Jay Gatsby as the dream's false prophet. He popularized these interpretations in a series of talks titled "The Great Gatsby and the American Dream."
Although Mizener's biography became a commercial success, Fitzgerald's friends such as critic Edmund Wilson believed the work distorted Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's relationship and personalities for the worse. Consequently, scholars deemed Andrew Turnbull's 1962 biography Scott Fitzgerald to be a significant correction of the biographical record.
In 1971, Mizener released a biography about writer Ford Madox Ford titled The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford that received critical acclaim but did not achieve the same commercial success. He later wrote a supplemental Fitzgerald biography titled Scott Fitzgerald And His World.

Reviews

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hampered throughout by the rather ivory-towerish and smug outlook of its author. In particular, being told repeatedly how "pathetic" Fitzgerald was growing became tiresome. The second half of the book is better than the first, when Mizener at last comes back down to earth (for the most part) to stroll along beside his subject. My advice though is: don't read anything past that picture of F Scott and Zelda's tombstone (for in the final several pages of wrap-up our scribe doth verily become very specious and windbaggy indeed). Lots of cool pics anyway. And for sheer poignance, it's hard to top the following note from Zelda (in her sanitarium):

"Dearest and always Dearest Scott:
I am sorry too that there should be nothing to greet you but an empty shell....
I want you to be happy--if there were any justice you would be happy--maybe you will be anyway.
I love you anyway--even if there isn't any me or any love or even any life--
I love you."

[Lauren]

With the exception of the occasional rambling or jumbled feeling that goes along with some of the passages due to the large amounts of information and excitement to cover it all, the eloquence and passion of Mizener's words not only tell the story of Fitzgerald and his life, but sympathize with him on a beautiful and honest level that provides unusually intriguing insight reflective of Fitzgerald's own writing style. Stunningly done.

[Jeff Summers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, tons of pictures, quick read, provides a simple overview of Fitzgerald's life