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Lasciami l'ultimo valzer

Zelda Fitzgerald,

Flavia Abbinante (Translator),

Luca Scarlini (Contributor)

3.55 · Rating details · 3,525 ratings · 386 reviews

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald è stata la musa dell’«età del jazz». Era l’incarnazione di tutto ciò che era moderno e nuovo, il prototipo che ogni ragazza spregiudicata degli anni venti doveva seguire. Diceva di sé: «Non avevo pensieri che per me stessa. Non provavo un briciolo di sentimento d’inferiorità, impaccio o dubbio, e non avevo il benché minimo principio morale». Pubblica ...more

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Paperback, Varianti, 266 pages

Published September 1st 2009 by Bollati Boringhieri (first published 1932)

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Oct 09, 2019 Steven Godin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: america-canada, classic-fiction

Oh dear. The extravagant lifestyle and tumultuous relationship of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald may be the stuff of legend, but Zelda's novel writing abilities were a million miles away from being legendary. Zelda's one and only novel even makes Scott Fitzgerald's worst novel look good. Considering her state of mind at the time of writing this, I'm surprised she managed to complete a novel at all. To say it's rushed would an understatement, with little character development, and scenes that didn't Oh dear. The extravagant lifestyle and tumultuous relationship of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald may be the stuff of legend, but Zelda's novel writing abilities were a million miles away from being legendary. Zelda's one and only novel even makes Scott Fitzgerald's worst novel look good. Considering her state of mind at the time of writing this, I'm surprised she managed to complete a novel at all. To say it's rushed would an understatement, with little character development, and scenes that didn't have a chance to settle in properly, I got the strong feeling that the speed and purpose with which she wrote this indicates it was a story she felt desperately driven to tell. It's also easy to see that it's a work written by a troubled and very unhappy person, as some of the sentences felt like a cry for help. Scott even tried to keep her from writing the novel and was far from impressed when she sent it directly to his publisher. He believed its mixture of fact & fiction would consequently ruin them both. I read this in tandem with Scott and Zelda's love letters (of which I'm about 2/3 of the way through) and can safely say that even just a small handful of those letters left far more of an impression on me than the whole of this novel. The novel plays out heavily with details from Zelda's own life, including the many problems that contributed to her first mental breakdown in 1930, including a dysfunctional marriage, alcoholism, and exhaustion, but at the same time Save Me the Waltz is not an out and out story of the Fitzgeralds’ marriage. Alabama Beggs, the central character, and southern belle daughter of a judge, goes from nothing, to marrying the artist David Knight, to giving birth to her daughter Bonnie, to leading a lavish lifestyle in France, to her studying ballet, in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Sadly her promising career as a ballerina is cut short when she suffers a bad foot infection touring alone in Italy, which eventually leads the family to return to America where they relapse into the dissolute New York social life characteristics similar to that of their early marriage. I have always been fascinated with the lives of Scott and Zelda, and there is no doubt their private lives affected their writings (in Zelda's case about 100% more). It pains me to say it, but when compared to some of the great novels of the 1930's, Save Me the Waltz needed saving from itself.
A massive letdown. ...more

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Jun 22, 2007 Linnéa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It often strikes me as absurd to attempt to "rate" literature. Save me the Waltz, for example, is probably not a four-star book. It was, however, a four-star reading experience because I have a fascination with the Fitzgeralds; because it is challenging and fragmented and bizarre; because it makes no sense as a novel and belies the meaning of the genre. Certainly not a read for everyone, but if you have read Tender is the Night, or are at all interested in the lovely Zelda, Save Me the Waltz mig ...more

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Apr 13, 2017 Roman Clodia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I just finished reading this for the second time (in preparation for a group re-read of Tender is the Night) and this time this jumped up to a 5-star book for me. What makes it is Zelda's unique and luminous prose ('Pastel cupids frolicked amidst the morning-glories and roses in garlands swelled like goiters or some malignant disease', 'Alabama visualised herself suavely swaying to the end of a violin bow, spinning on its silver bobbin, the certain disillusion of the past into uncertain expectan ...more

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May 29, 2009 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I found this in a used bookstore around the corner from my apartment.

On the wordy side, but not at all the impenetrable mess people make it out to be. I happen to love dense, elaborate prose. Hers is synesthesiacally brilliant. It's true, the paragraphs are somewhat lacking in rhythm. So much energy went into the individual sentences. But it's one of those books that make me kick my feet with joy and occasionally pause to meditate on a thought or description.

Poor Zelda! Even the cover is dedicat ...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Bethany rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: wishlist, dusty-corner

I very nearly regretted picking up this book when, four lines in, I ran into this humdinger of a sentence:

“Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbridges from emotional retractions and scaulding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes.”

“Oh snap,” I thought. “I’m never going to get through this.”
Either I grew used to it, or she toned her writing down, but reading Save Me the Walt ...more

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Apr 10, 2017 Jess rated it liked it · review of another edition

I approached this review with some trepidation. I've been fascinated with the Fitzgeralds, admire FS Fitzgerald's writing, and have been curious to read Zelda's work. Obviously a work of fiction, yet this novel has been surmised to be a reflection of Zelda's view of their courtship and marriage. If you've read the fiction novel Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald you will be surprised to also see parallels in the storyline. After reading this, I felt mildly deflated.. as if you just discovered someo ...more

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Dec 17, 2021 Teresa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

2.5

The 1967 preface says of this novel: “[F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar Henry Dan] Piper points out that the reader who is jarred by the prose at first will find it less turgid beginning about one-third of the way along.” My experience was the opposite. I thought the novel started off wonderfully. Alabama Beggs’s childhood is rendered convincingly and in suitably innocent impressionism. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf at times.

A passage from page 49:

So much of the theoretical youth…had wedged it 2.5

The 1967 preface says of this novel: “[F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar Henry Dan] Piper points out that the reader who is jarred by the prose at first will find it less turgid beginning about one-third of the way along.” My experience was the opposite. I thought the novel started off wonderfully. Alabama Beggs’s childhood is rendered convincingly and in suitably innocent impressionism. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf at times.

A passage from page 49:

So much of the theoretical youth…had wedged itself beneath the low-hung rafters, that the fire destroying this shrine of wartime nostalgias may have been a case of combustion from emotional saturation. No officer could have visited it three times without falling in love, engaging himself to marry and to populate the countryside with little country clubs exactly like it.

Yes, that first sentence is awkward. It’s the second sentence I like, plus it reminded me of Zelda Fitzgerald’s painting in which opera-goers are represented by black top hats.

I didn’t mark another passage until p. 211 (out of 229) with the description of Alabama in physical pain. Besides its standing on its own merits, it brought to mind a scene in Woolf’s The Voyage Out. Like Woolf, Fitzgerald experienced mental illness and knew how to describe pain.

Sometimes her foot hurt her so terribly that she closed her eyes and floated off on the waves of the afternoon. Invariably she went to the same delirious place. There was a lake there so clear that she could not tell the bottom from the top; a pointed island lay heavy on the waters like an abandoned thunderbolt…The word ‘sick’ effaced itself against the poisonous air and jittered lamely about between the tips of the island and halted on the white road that ran straight through the middle, ‘Sick’ turned and twisted about the narrow ribbon of the highway like a roasting pig on a spit, and woke Alabama gouging at her eyeballs with the prongs of its letters.

The whole middle of the novel is why it took me so long to finish. Between my two quoted passages are too many lengthy similes, attached to the end of almost every sentence, which usually follows a line of sometimes confusing dialogue. While the metaphors disclose an intriguing imagination, there are simply too many of them. This style is used throughout the time the family lives in Europe, the main chunk of the work.

At the end of the novel, back in Alabama’s hometown, with the family ready to take off again, the dialogue turns witty and for a brief time, dare I say, Woolfian, almost The Waves-ish. Despite my reading experience and this low rating, I think I’ll continue to have a soft spot for the book. I certainly have one for Zelda. ...more

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Feb 28, 2017 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-20th-century, kindle, e-books, american-fiction, viciados-em-livros, mtbr-challenge-2017, read-2017

This is the first and only book written by Zelda Zayre, aka Zelda Fitzgerald.

The plot is quite autobiographical even if it's a piece of fiction. The main character, Alabama is a portrait of a wife of a famous artist who struggles to live her own life in the shadow of the success a famous husband. Sometimes, she is quite obsessive in becoming a dancer even if she was not young any longer.

One feels that Zelda wrote this book as an auto-therapeutic way out in order to surpass her mental issues (she ...more

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Nov 13, 2009 n* Dalal rated it liked it · review of another edition

As I picked up Save Me the Waltz to read it a second time, the dry brittle pages started crumbling under my fingers, the dog-eared corners simply gave up and fell away, leaving me surrounded with tiny flakes of yellow paper.

Though I wanted to read this while also reading Tender Is the Night, it looks like I'll need to do some book rescue before I can read this one. When I first bought this book, it was out-of-print and impossible to find; I got lucky with a cheap paperback at an oblivious bookst ...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Robert Strandquist rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: while-in-belgium

Why five stars for such an unevenly written novel? Despite her over use of similes, Zelda's writing sizzles with dazzling descriptions. I'm convinced that she either wrote or edited the first party scene in "Gatsby" because that same cadence of phrasing in those long sentences that crescendo to delirious heights appear throughout "Save Me the Waltz." Another bias that supports five stars rests in my sympathy for Zelda's protagonist, Alabama. When her manic swings are on the rise, her aesthetics ...more

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Apr 02, 2021 Imogen Kathleen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021, classics

Justice for Zelda Fitzgerald. Can somebody PLEASE update that godawful Goodreads book description?
Written whilst in hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia, Save Me The Waltz is a deeply personal look into the Fitzgeralds' marriage. Whilst the writing was quite clunky at times, Zelda has a talent for creating a whimsical air and I enjoyed reading about the ballet scenes. For a first and only novel, it was a good start. I think I preferred this as an insight into Zelda's life than as a story in ...more

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Dec 24, 2013 Steven rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, american, fitzgerald, books-i-own

Zelda wrote Save Me the Waltz, her first and only novel, during the six weeks that she spent in a sanatorium in 1932. It draws on many of the same experiences that would go into her husband Scott's Tender is the Night (which, incidentally, is probably my favorite of his novels). Apparently, the novel was originally much more vehement than the final, edited version suggests (Zelda resisted, but finally caved in and let Scott and Maxwell Perkins edit some of its more critical notes). It begins rou ...more

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Jul 28, 2015 Terry ~ Huntress of Erudition rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I think that Zelda Fitzgerald wrote this book as a reaction to F Scott Fitzgerald using their lives and anecdotes as a basis for many of his books. She was a frustrated ballerina and made her protagonist become the star of a ballet troupe in Naples, Italy, where she was asked to join, but was not allowed to accept, by her husband. I felt the book was well written and her explanation of various horrible things that aspiring ballerinas endure was enlightening. It also illuminated her spiral into m ...more

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Jun 12, 2008 Zoe Crosher is currently reading it · review of another edition

Recommended to Zoe by: Leslie Grant

Curious as to what the mysterious and haunted figure of Zelda had to say for herself. Have just gotten through the intro, but am a bit mortified by Harry T. Moore of Illinois State University's statement that "Obviously, Save Me The Waltz is not at this height of achievement. Yet it deserves to be read as something more than a mere commentary on or analogue of Tender is the Night...this book may lack the finished craftsmanship of Fitzgerald's work, but Save Me the Waltz has a current of life run ...more

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Jul 18, 2013 Uncle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

"I am so outrageously clever that I believe I could be a whole world to myself if I didn't like living in Daddy's better." - Alabama Beggs

As the glamorous wife of a famous author, Zelda Fitzgerald was already a celebrity when her first (and only published) novel, Save Me the Waltz, appeared in 1932. Was her public notoriety responsible for the book’s lukewarm reception with readers and critics alike?

The public continues to be fascinated by the tragic personal stories of F. Scott and Zelda Fitz "I am so outrageously clever that I believe I could be a whole world to myself if I didn't like living in Daddy's better." - Alabama Beggs

As the glamorous wife of a famous author, Zelda Fitzgerald was already a celebrity when her first (and only published) novel, Save Me the Waltz, appeared in 1932. Was her public notoriety responsible for the book’s lukewarm reception with readers and critics alike?

The public continues to be fascinated by the tragic personal stories of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and their tempestuous marriage. Zelda’s highly-autobiographical Save Me the Waltz continues to exist in baffling obscurity, yet the book’s literary merits are significant. Readers will be very aware that the book is a first novel, so it certainly has its faults. I personally found its structure uneven, with the occasional awkward gap in the story's progress.

Alabama Beggs, youngest of a Southern judge’s three daughters, is a young girl coming of age in an American South on the verge of the First World War. By the war’s end, she has matured into a hardened flirt, one who keeps her suitors, mostly officers from the local military base, on tenterhooks. She receives their attentions, including offers of marriage, with cool indifference. Yet almost implausibly she accepts the proposal of David Knight, who seemingly has very little to offer the sought-after beauty.

David Knight, if he is meant to represent F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author’s husband, is not portrayed very sympathetically. His sarcasm, his jealousy, his constant worrying about money, gives the impression of a rather pinched, overly-critical man. Their marriage begins to struggle when the couple travel to Europe, following David’s success as a painter. It is in France where they begin to rub elbows with wealthy expatriates, a circle which nonetheless leave Alabama feeling excluded and patronized.

In Paris, she becomes a student of classical ballet, in spite of its excruciating demands on her body. The formerly idle gadabout blossoms through a regime of backbreaking discipline. In spite of its grueling work, the petty jealousies of other dancers, and its general shabbiness, ballet finally allows Alabama the freedom to be her own person. The dance sections of the book are, in my opinion, the best written and most memorable.

Zelda Fitzgerald can write unforgettably, with skill and brilliance, about the people and places she truly loved. It might be an overstatement to view Save Me the Waltz as a cri de coeur. But the book is certainly not about her public image, nor her rich and famous friends, nor her notoriously extravagant globe-trotting lifestyle. What inspired her writing was her childhood in Alabama, her long-suffering parents, her complicated husband, her adored yet neglected child, and her own struggles to find inspiration and expression through art.

My copy is the Vintage paperback, which includes Harry T. Moore's preface to the 1968 edition, and textual notes by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Moore's preface (no doubt meant to argue for the novel's significance) is oddly backhanded about book and its author. Bruccoli's notes reconstruct how the book was edited, revised, and ultimately, published. These notes seem to refute the widely-held belief that the author's husband tried to suppress and sabotage the book's publication.
...more

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May 23, 2013 Nigeyb rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I gave up reading after 140 pages. This book really isn't my cup of tea. I am surprised and disappointed as I love both The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, and so was looking forward to reading Zelda Fitzgerald's perspective on some of the events that inspired Tender Is the Night.

Quite a few reviews I glanced at, before starting the book, suggested that this was more than a literary footnote, and was a good book in its own right. I disagree. It's overwritten, confused and vainly strives f ...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Val rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: group

I hope Zelda Fitzgerald found that writing this book was a valuable and rewarding experience; I can't say that I found reading it was.

Several reviewers have mentioned that Zelda's style is verbose and convoluted, but she does use several styles in the book and the rampant verbosity becomes less prevalent as the story progresses. The overblown metaphors and strings of similes are the style and voice of a pretentious, self-obsessed, romantically inclined teenager. It is a style for readers who hav ...more

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Dec 27, 2010 Leslie-ann rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I am not sure it is fair to classify this as a "literary curio"--it goes beyond that in many ways. It is a tangle of madness, misery, and even general misanthropy, but it is also tinged with love, admiration, and moments of lucidity.

Had this been properly revised, I think it could have been quite a masterpiece. Zelda has this remarkable way with words (half of the lines in the book will require you to read them two or three times over) even though some of her phrasing in somewhat incomprehensibl ...more

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Aug 29, 2008 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cuckoos, 20th-centurylit-early

Southern belle, Alabama Beggs, is the youngest daughter of a prominent judge and unlike her two older sisters from her endearing wit to her attitude towards life. She meets David Knight during his visit to the South during World War I; they marry and ultimately move to live in the Riviera. David, an artist, carries on an affair with an actress, a relationship of which Alabama is aware. In her desperate attempts to salvage the marriage she throws herself into learning ballet, an exceptionally dif ...more

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Oct 03, 2017 Susy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

1.5 stars
Thank God I finally finished this book. The background story sounded very interesting but Zelda's writing style is just not for me. I don't like elaborate prose, and if you can say something about Zelda's writing it's that it is very elaborate. She uses elaborate comparisons which often didn't make any sense to me (but maybe that's because I just don't like that kind of writing) and she uses them a lot, sometimes even two or three in one sentence. I felt that in the later parts of the b ...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Algie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Algie by: Google

Poor thing.

Poor, poor thing.

Zelda had such a wonderfully, dismally, perfectly sad life, that was absolutely filled with her optimistic outlook and biting wit. I loved the part of her childhood, where she was so conniving and so intent on catching everyone out. She was not just a literary curio, she was a literary Queen. Heralded only as the wife of Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda deserves far more a substantial place on the pantheon.

It was, however, a trial to read at times. Her words flow slightly c ...more

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Feb 08, 2015 Michael rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1930s, modern-classic

Save Me the Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs, a young Southern girl who meets and falls in love with David Knight during World War I. The two inevitably get married and David goes on to become a successful painter, before moving their family to the French Riviera. However Alabama is determined to find her own success and takes up ballet. When she lands her first solo debut in the opera Faust the cracks in their marriage become evident.

After an episode of hysteria in 1932, Zelda Fitzgerald was Save Me the Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs, a young Southern girl who meets and falls in love with David Knight during World War I. The two inevitably get married and David goes on to become a successful painter, before moving their family to the French Riviera. However Alabama is determined to find her own success and takes up ballet. When she lands her first solo debut in the opera Faust the cracks in their marriage become evident.

After an episode of hysteria in 1932, Zelda Fitzgerald was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for treatment. Dr Adolf Meyer, an expert on schizophrenia was her doctor and as part of her recovery routine he got her to write at least two hours a day. Save Me the Waltz was written over the course of six weeks and was the first and only novel to be published by Zelda Fitzgerald. Her husband was outraged that she took so much of their personal life and added it into this novel. Despite the fact that the majority of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels are also autobiographical and he used the same material for his novel Tender is the Night.

I wanted to read Save Me the Waltz after reading Tender is the Night to compare the similarities. The problem I soon discovered is that Save Me the Waltz has possibly been whitewashed by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Apparently he helped Zelda revise her book and the amount that has been changed is unknown because her original manuscript has been lost. However Scott went from being irate to writing to Maxwell Perkins at Scribner (their publisher) “Here is Zelda’s novel. It is a good novel now, perhaps a very good novel—I am too close to tell.” I am inclined to believe that he has made sure he comes across better than originally written but without the original that is purely speculation.

The major theme within Save Me the Waltz is around the intense desire for Alabama/Zelda to succeed for themselves. It was not enough for either person to be the wife behind a successful man, and it explores the problems faced in doing this in a male dominated society. When Alabama gets her dream job in Naples with the San Carlo Opera Ballet Company, David does not want to move. Considering that he is a painter and could really work from anywhere, it says a lot about their marriage. This does not hinder Alabama from perusing her dreams and she goes to Naples anyway, leaving her husband to look after their child alone. Now this move may make people uneasy but it really plays with the power dynamic of marriage. Zelda Fitzgerald wants to challenge the conceptions people had of the role of a wife in a marriage and ask why it was alright for a man to go away for work but not the woman.

This can be a very difficult novel to read, knowing the historical context and history behind the story. Comparing this book with Tender is the Night does not leave F. Scott Fitzgerald in pleasant light but then again his novel did not do that either. One of the most powerful lines in this novel can be found right near the end and it beautifully wraps up the whole book into a few lines. “Emptying the ashtrays was very expressive of myself. I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labelled ‘the past,’ and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, I am ready to continue.”

While I cannot say that Save Me the Waltz is a strong novel, it was a fascinating exploration into the lives of the Fitzgeralds. I am glad to have read and compared this book to Tender is the Night but I think it has only fuelled my interest into this couple. I still need to read a biography or two on the Fitzgeralds but I am beginning to get a better idea of their lives. I think if you are going to read Tender is the Night, you need to read Save Me the Waltz so you can have perspective on the autobiographical elements; even if they were tainted by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s edits.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2015/... ...more

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Aug 24, 2021 Cara (Wilde Book Garden) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

1.75 stars?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is still The Worst, and I still can't stand The Great Gatsby, and I still have so much sympathy for Zelda, but sadly I could not stand her novel.

5% beautiful/clever lines and meaningful scenes, 95% word salad. Of the "I understand all these words separately" variety.

CW: Racism, grief, exercise to the point of self-harm, dieting, fat-shaming, cheating ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Emma Holtrust rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2016, the-lost-generation

Review originally posted on The Beauty of Literature

Those of you that follow me on Tumblr will know that I have been obsessed with The Lost Generation authors. In the never ending search of a thesis topic, I have now decided to focus on them and first up is Zelda Fitzgerald - a woman I've read so much about, but never read what she wrote. And thankfully I decided to change that.

Save Me the Waltz is the mostly autobiographical story of Zelda, represented by the main character Alabama, from her ch Review originally posted on The Beauty of Literature

Those of you that follow me on Tumblr will know that I have been obsessed with The Lost Generation authors. In the never ending search of a thesis topic, I have now decided to focus on them and first up is Zelda Fitzgerald - a woman I've read so much about, but never read what she wrote. And thankfully I decided to change that.

Save Me the Waltz is the mostly autobiographical story of Zelda, represented by the main character Alabama, from her childhood until her father passes away, and focuses mostly on her marriage with David Knight. David is a successful painter and when the couple moves to Paris, Alabama tries to find her own creativity in a world controlled by men. She starts ballet at 27, just like Zelda did, and describes beautifully the agony and release she finds in this.

While this book is often read as a companion novel to Fitzgerald's work, mostly Tender is the Night, this discredits the creativity that can be found in Save Me the Waltz. While it does focus on the relationship between Zelda and Scott, and there are some clear parallels in events that happened in the book and in their real lives, the book mainly focuses on Alabama's struggle to find herself in a male oriented world. While in New York, she has nothing to do and aimlessly, and unhappily, wanders after her husband. In Paris, she discovers ballet and throws herself into it, even though her body cannot really handle the work.

This is where Zelda's fiction truly shines. My edition of the book followed the original manuscript which was filled with grammatical errors and words put in places that don't make any sense. Though this might bother some readers, it gave me the feel of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and helped me relate to the main character. We are thrown into a world we cannot fully grasp, no matter how often we read a sentence or even the whole book, just like Alabama is navigating a world she'll never grasp. The descriptions are beautiful though and it was so easy to feel the pain from all the ballet training. All the female characters, who are only properly introduced once Alabama enters the female world of dancing, are realistic and well-rounded and all struggle with finding their way in post war Paris.

Save Me the Waltz can be a confusing read and you might have to give yourself a few pages to get into, but it is also one of the most beautiful and gripping books I've ever read. It made me ache for Zelda Fitzgerald's talent; if she can produce a novel like this in just six weeks while admitted in a mental hospital, I wish we could have discovered the books she could have written earlier in her life. She might be the wife of one of the most famous authors, but she was a talented author in herself, who was able to describe the struggles of being a woman and the world of Parisian ballet in a way I've never encountered before. This book is one to read, just for the beauty of itself. ...more

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Jul 06, 2017 Ali rated it liked it · review of another edition

The one and only novel written by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Save me the Waltz is the novel my very small book group chose for our July read. It is the book Zelda wrote during a period she spent in a Baltimore hospital to receive psychiatric treatment, while there she spent around two hours a day writing as a part of a daily routine to aid her recovery. The book was written in just a few weeks and to be absolutely honest it shows. Both Harry T Moore who wrote the introduction printed in this editio The one and only novel written by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Save me the Waltz is the novel my very small book group chose for our July read. It is the book Zelda wrote during a period she spent in a Baltimore hospital to receive psychiatric treatment, while there she spent around two hours a day writing as a part of a daily routine to aid her recovery. The book was written in just a few weeks and to be absolutely honest it shows. Both Harry T Moore who wrote the introduction printed in this edition, and the Wikipedia page for the novel suggest that F. Scott Fitzgerald insisted upon or at least strongly encouraged her to make various revisions. I can’t help but feel very sad for this woman who had so many hopes and dreams, suffered so much illness and who, devastated by the lack of success her novel had, never published another.

I wonder whether Zelda is still best for who she married (the fate of many women with talent and ambition sadly) or whether Vintage’s re-issuing of this novel in 2001 and the recent novel; Z a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler has re-established interest in Zelda for her own sake – I hope so. In her day, she was a famous glamour girl and an aspiring ballerina, dubbed the first American flapper by her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda and Scott were the epitome of the jazz age, and their story still fascinates many fans today. The novel is highly autobiographical, and tells a similar story to that of F. Scot’s novel Tender is the Night. There are many well written passages, some lovely description and the novel shows that Zelda was certainly a writer of some talent – however there is also a lot of the novel which is rather overwritten, and for me the characters lacked depth. The novel is still fascinating for what it might teach us about Zelda herself.

“She felt the essence of herself pulled finer and smaller like those streams of spun glass that pull and stretch till there remains but a glimmering illusion. Neither falling nor breaking, the stream spins finer. She felt herself very small and ecstatic. Alabama was in love.”

The novel tells the story of Alabama Biggs, the youngest of three sisters, she grows up in the south, fascinated by her older, beautiful sisters and their beaus, she is in a hurry to grow up. The daughters of Judge Austin Biggs and Miss Millie – the opening to this novel had a wonderful Southern feel which transports the reader to another time entirely.

“A southern moon is a sodden moon, and sultry. When it swamps the fields and the rustling sandy roads and the sticky honeysuckle hedges in its sweet stagnation, your fight to hold on to reality is like a protestation against a first waft of ether.”

Just before World War One Alabama meets her own beau, David Knight, the two marry and David goes on to become a very successful painter. The Knights (like the Fitzgeralds of course) become the toast of jazz society – everyone seems to know them or want to know them, their lives for a time is almost one long party.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/... ...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Rory rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a hard book to read--an even harder book to write.

So much of this novel has to been seen in the context of Zelda Fitzgerald being the wife of the most popular and well regarded writer of her peers. So much of what is wrong with this book feels like it is because of that weight pressing on the author--but it is a book that should not be ignored or forgotten.

The story is simple--a beautiful couple mixed in the world of fame, art, love and hope... Him a world famous painter and her a world ...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Roof Beam Reader (Adam) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Read the full review:

https://roofbeamreader.com/2012/05/06... ...more

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Aug 28, 2021 Mattea Gernentz rated it liked it · review of another edition

"'Death is the only real elegance,' she said to herself" (220).

On its own, this isn't a book I would heartily recommend. However, being autobiographically steeped in the dramatic lives of the Fitzgeralds, I believe it holds a lot of insight and captures the spirit of the era. Zelda's prose is decadent (sometimes too sugary and pretentious but sometimes clairvoyant and startlingly acute), and it's clear the inner life of Alabama (the protagonist) is Zelda's focus as the French Riviera, Naples, Sw "'Death is the only real elegance,' she said to herself" (220).

On its own, this isn't a book I would heartily recommend. However, being autobiographically steeped in the dramatic lives of the Fitzgeralds, I believe it holds a lot of insight and captures the spirit of the era. Zelda's prose is decadent (sometimes too sugary and pretentious but sometimes clairvoyant and startlingly acute), and it's clear the inner life of Alabama (the protagonist) is Zelda's focus as the French Riviera, Naples, Switzerland, and the Deep South blur in the background. I think it's telling that F. Scott was outraged upon initially reading the text ("my God, my books made her a legend and her single intention in this somewhat thin portrait is to make me a non-entity"-1932), and I wish that Zelda's first draft were still accessible. He urged her to revise, which she did. I don't know if I agree with the back cover of my paperback that this is "one of the most shattering self-portraits of a woman ever committed to paper." Shattering in what way? Is it utterly revolutionary? No. Did it shatter my preconceived notion of Zelda in some way? No. Was it heartrending emotionally? No. The novel was written as Zelda was recovering from a breakdown, and it feels to me like her taking her agency back in some way—fighting to have her truth heard and to tell it with some gravitas. The foreshadowing of "My daughter, I am so outrageously clever that I believe I could be a whole world to myself if I didn't like living in Daddy's better" (96) is so key in understanding Alabama/Zelda's pursuit of ballet. The audacity of writing this novel and her decision to become a professional ballerina at 27 share a motive and sense of significance: "'Can't you understand that I'm not trying to get anything - I don't think I am - but to get rid of some of myself?'" (157).

***

"'I should like to write about my travels. I liked New York.'
'Yes, New York is like a Bible illustration, isn't it?'
'Do you read the Bible?'
'The book of Genesis. I love the part about God's being so pleased with everything. I like to think that God is happy.'
'I don't see how he could be.'
'I don't either, but I suppose somebody has to feel every possible way about everything that happens. Nobody else claiming that particular attribute, we have accredited it to God - at least, Genesis has'" (85). ...more

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Sep 05, 2021 Julia (Shakespeare and Such) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

2.2/5 stars, full review to come! Zelda sure gave it her all but maybe she should have held back just a little? The intentions were good and I liked some ideas and some phrases but 😬

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pacing: 3/5
Writing: 2/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

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Oct 10, 2018 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Imperfect but I loved it.

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About Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald

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Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, was a novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, rich, beautiful Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, was a novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, rich, beautiful, and energetic.

Zelda Sayre grew up in a wealthy and prim southern family. Even as a child her audacious behavior was the subject of Montgomery gossip. Shortly after finishing high school, she met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance. A whirlwind courtship ensued. Though he had professed his infatuation, she continued seeing other men. Despite fights and a prolonged break-up, they married in 1920, and spent the early part of the decade as literary celebrities in New York. Later in the 1920s, they moved to Europe, recast as famous expatriates of the Lost Generation. While Scott received acclaim for The Great Gatsby and his short stories, and the couple socialized with literary luminaries like Ernest Hemingway, their marriage was a tangle of jealousy, resentment and acrimony. Scott used their relationship as material in his novels, even lifting snippets from Zelda's diary and assigning them to his fictional heroines. Seeking an artistic identity of her own, Zelda wrote magazine articles and short stories, and at 27 became obsessed with a career as a ballerina, practicing to exhaustion.

The strain of her tempestuous marriage, Scott's increasing alcoholism, and her growing instability presaged Zelda's admittance to a sanatorium in 1930. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. While in a Maryland clinic, she wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932. Scott was furious that she had used material from their life together, though he had done the same, such as in Tender Is the Night, published in 1934; the two novels provide contrasting portrayals of the couple's failing marriage.

Back in America, Scott went to Hollywood where he tried screenwriting and began an affair with the movie columnist Sheilah Graham. In 1936, Zelda entered the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Scott died in Hollywood in 1940, having last seen Zelda a year and a half earlier. She spent her remaining years working on a second novel, which she never completed, and she painted extensively. In 1948, the hospital at which she had been a patient caught fire, causing her death. Interest in the Fitzgeralds resurged shortly after her death: the couple has been the subject of popular books, movies and scholarly attention. After a life as an emblem of the Jazz Age, Roaring Twenties, and Lost Generation, Zelda Fitzgerald posthumously found a new role: after a popular 1970 biography portrayed her as a victim of an overbearing husband, she became a feminist icon. ...more