I've done it. First Zelda, then Hadley, then Scott, and finally Hem. Completing A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's recollection of his first five years in Paris,  felt like completing a jigsaw puzzle. Z taught me about Zelda Fitzgerald and how she felt about her husband and the Hemingways. The Paris Wife introduced me to the tragically romantic life of Hadley Hemingway, and it showed me how she felt about the Fitzgeralds. Between the Short Autobiography of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tender is the Night, I feel like I know F. Scott Fitzgerald and his perception of the people around him.  And A Moveable Feast was the perfect way to wrap it up.

Since people in the book call Ernest "Hem" (except Hadley, who calls him Tatie), that's exactly what I'm going to do. Hem is admirable. His writing oftentimes mirrors his personality - it's simple and straightforward, it's got depth and it can rip your heart out. At least, A Moveable Feast did that to me. By reading The Paris Wife before this memoir, I had excellent background information while I cruised through this novel.  I think I have a secret obsession with the romance between Hadley and Hem, because I found myself rereading the chapters in which she was mentioned.  I have a very strong inkling that he wrote this book as an apology to her.

Although the author discusses his relationship with several friends (Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Sylvia Beach), I learned the most about Fitzgerald from this book. Hem painted a picture of a man who couldn't hold his alcohol and desperately needed his wife's approval - but, he also seems to enjoy his company. They feed off of each other's strengths. While Fitzgerald can offer the advice of a published author, Hem can offer the social maturity and cool-headedness that Scott and Zelda lack.  Their friendship is both deep and shallow. They might be guilty of using each other to further their own careers,  but they genuinely wanted to see each other succeed.

I highly recommend reading the restored version of this memoir. Originally, the book was edited for publication by Mary Hemingway after Ernest's death; however, his sons, Patrick and Sean, poured through the original manuscripts to put together this version of the book, which stays truer to Hem's intentions for his readers. It also includes a very interesting collection of scrapped introductory paragraphs for the memoir, all of which address Hadley directly. Here's what I mean: 

And there's also:

Are you sensing a theme? Here's one more (remember that last phone call Hadley had with Tatie in The Paris Wife?):

As you can probably gather from these drafts, the book is full of praise for Hadley. It talks about how much fun they had together, how pleasant she was, and how he broke her heart. And it breaks my heart all over again to read about their romance from Hem's vantage point. It really is a fantastic book, and I hope any lover of this generation's work will take the time to read it. 

PS: If you haven't read any of the books in this blog yet, the order in which I've read them has been amazing - like they were intended to be read in this sequence. If you follow in this order, let me know what you think! Happy reading.

After finishing Z (and recommending it to all of my friends), I was compelled to read as much as I possibly could about the expatriates in the social circle of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. One of the books recommended to me was the best-seller "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain, a novel told through the eyes of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife. I am so glad I read it when I did.

If you're a serial reader like myself, you can't go wrong reading this book after you've finished the story of Zelda's life with husband F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Z narrates the intricate F. Scott Fitzgerald-Ernest Hemingway bond formed in Paris through Zelda's eyes, The Paris Wife does the same through Hadley's eyes, also shedding light on how other people perceive Zelda and her eccentricities. It's the perfect recipe for obsession. 

The story paints a bleak picture of a girl in her twenties, slightly depressed, uninvested in her own life. Both of Hadley's parents had passed away, her depressed father committed suicide in their family home, and her controlling, feminist mother had recently died of an illness. Hadley, who could have had her own job and home at this point in her life, was single and living temporarily with her sister and her husband in St. Louis. Then she met Ernest.

It's another whirlwind romance, much like the Fitzgeralds: an unlikely match - naive, understated Hadley and exciting, ambitious (and younger) budding author Ernest that begins on a trip to Chicago and results in an abundance of heartfelt letters written back and forth. The transformation of Hadley's attitude is nothing short of captivating - the once emotionally-drained girl in her mid-to-late-twenties becomes excited, eager to receive mail from Ernest. After reading their many correspondences, I honest-to-God wanted to start writing love letters to my husband from work. Handwritten letters are such a lost romance.

The two marry quickly. They venture to Paris, living in a meager apartment as Ernest begins his writing career. They soon find friends in the same expatriate circle as Z - Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hadley has few friends and often finds herself biding her time alone at the apartment, waiting for Ernest to come back from his writing quarters elsewhere. Hadley would do anything for the betterment of Ernest, something that Ernest reciprocates for a while, but stops dramatically toward the end of the novel.

Hadley isn't your typical 1920s Parisian housewife - instead of joining the latest fashion trends, she sticks to her modest attire. She bobs her hair but instantly regrets it. She's a stark contrast to Zelda Fitzgerald's lavish Parisian lifestyle. And Ernest loves her all the more for being that way, appreciating her sensible nature. 

Allow me to digress for just a few sentences. If you read Z before you read The Paris Wife, you learned that Ernest Hemingway is not the man that Hadley thinks he is. He attempts to seduce Zelda, and Zelda sees him all over town with other women, including the tragic antagonist in the novel, Pauline. You would think that reading Z first would spoil the ending of The Paris Wife. However, it intensifies the reading so much more - you know what's really happening, and you want to yell things at your book to get Hadley to stop it. But you can't. You can only sit back and read it as it plays out.

Moving on, there's a turning point in the book, when Hadley joins Ernest on a trip, attempting to take his life's worth of writing in a valise so he can show it for possible publication, but it gets stolen on the train. His forgiveness is never complete. He tries, you can tell, but the wound it causes in their relationship never completely heals. 

As you continue to read, you can see the relationship unraveling as Hadley tries harder and harder to win Ernest's affections back. It's difficult to read, as you might find yourself pulling so hard for the sake of Hadley, who has devoted the last five years of her life to Ernest's work and has repeatedly been slighted by the person she loves most. Ernest and Hadley's relationship began so pure and true, so simple and passionate. As it draws to the end, you want so badly for Hadley to win. I find it hard to believe that all readers are not heartbroken as they read the final pages.

Books don't often make me show physical, outward emotion. They don't often find themselves in my hands for several hours at a time, either. But this one did both.

Therese Anne Fowler nailed it. The story of Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is absolutely mesmerizing. Buying the book is buying a ticket into the mind of an artist - you ride with Zelda on an emotional roller coaster from the beginning to the end of her relationship with Scott. And this isn't a one-ticket roller coaster, it's the big one - the one that makes you think you might be the first casualty at the theme park.

The novel starts in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda seems like the relatively normal Southern teenager: about to celebrate her 18th birthday, a talented dancer, a volunteer for the local Red Cross chapter. But there's something different about her. She's ridiculously quick-witted. She has no filter, in conversations or in her behavior. And she's fun. She's really fun.

The romance between Zelda and Scott is breathtaking. In the early days of their courtship, he throws her an elaborate birthday bash in her hometown, very similar to Gatsby. As Scott is in the army, he soon begins traveling, penning a steady flow of correspondences with Zelda as he goes. The book reflects both Scott and Zelda's letters, and you soon realize that Zelda's talent for writing almost matches Scott's, an important point to remember as the book progresses.

You're then taken on a whirlwind adventure through the engagement and marriage of the two, which happens hours after Zelda arrives in New York City for the first time. It's amazing to see how Zelda's Southern ways quickly disintegrate - the city life and the flapper lifestyle are becoming increasingly popular, and she dives into it head first (literally, when she impulsively bobs her hair).  Her socially eccentric behaviors and attitudes are fueled by Scott, who insists on spending excessive amounts of money to showcase his success after the publication of This Side of Paradise. However, the money isn't always there, and you see the ups and downs a writer and writer's family experiences as the work comes and goes.

The novel portrays Scott's controlling behaviors in several ways, one strong representation occurring when Zelda gives birth to their daughter. During her pregnancy, the couple planned on naming the baby Patricia; however, in the delivery room, Scott insists on naming the girl after himself, calling her Scottie. Zelda disagrees, but Scott prevails, and Scottie was Scottie because of Scott's impulse. The famous "I hope she'll be a fool. That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." comes from this delivery - Zelda wept it at her daughter's birth.

Zelda and Scott take Europe by storm, moving there at the suggestion that it will help Scott with his writing, because that's what several American writers are doing - packing up and moving into an exclusive expatriate circle of the rich and famous on the French Riviera. Said circle includes the likes of Ernest Hemingway (whom Scott takes a keen liking to - almost an obsession with) and Gertrude Stein - now known as The Lost Generation.

Wine. Whiskey. Affairs. Sunbathing. Dancing. Writing. Traveling. The lifestyle the couple leads in Paris is lavish and full of indulgent activities. You quickly see the deterioration of both Zelda and Scott's health, both mentally and physically. Scott drinks all the time. He's unfaithful to Zelda. When he's not writing, he's with Hemingway, helping him become an established author, or passing time one of the many bars on the Riviera. But he still loves his wife, always finding a way to hook her again after she begins to fade away from him.

Zelda takes interest in her own artistic talents - painting, writing, dancing. Writing is one of her strongest suits: she wrote stories for magazines under both her and Scott's name, in order to get the most money for it. The effect this has on her mentality is disastrous, though. Both she and Scott have egos the size of Manhattan, and as Scott's increases with his popularity, Zelda's begins to shrivel, taking her personality down with it. She compensates by throwing herself at her dancing, practicing ballet for hours a day, obsessively mastering technique until she's completely exhausted herself. You know, though, that her love for Scott is what's causing these obsessions - she's filling the void where he used to be, always by her side, now spending it with other people, women, friends and alcohol.

The climax of the novel happens toward the end. It's the event that we who have studied the lives of the Fitzgeralds know is coming - Zelda experiences a mental breakdown in a Parisian movie theater. From then on, she spends her life in and out of mental institutions (where, from the novel, it seems as though she isn't entirely sick), bouncing from one to another with long breaks in between, until her tragic ending.

SPOILER ALERT: The next paragraphs will reveal the end of the book. You've been warned!

The ending of the book made me cry. Twice. 

Zelda and Scott remained married, although they end up living in different places during their middle aged years. Zelda moves back to Montgomery, away from Scott and his lifestyle, for the sake of her mental health, while Scott moves to work on writing and movies in California and other places. 

Here's the first time I cried: While Zelda is in Montgomery, living at her parents' house, she receives news that Scott has died of a heart attack. There she is, in the same place where she used to wait anxiously for his letters to arrive during their courtship, now very much detached from him, and learning of his death. Instead of hopping on the train for his funeral, she stays. Her mental stability isn't strong enough. She never says goodbye.

To me, this was heartbreaking. You can almost visualize the couple becoming increasingly more dependent on each other, you can see their intense love and need for one another become stronger as you turn every page. In a way, the effect their lives have on each other lead to their destinies. Zelda's mental health takes a toll on Fitzgerald's work, her distractions causing him to "lose his touch" and struggle with his writing. Fitzgerald's lifestyle takes a toll on Zelda - his behaviors possibly being the reason for his wife's mental breakdown and eventual return to Montgomery. They are where they are, separated and broken versions of their once exuberant personas, because of each other. 

I wont tell you the second time I cried, although you already know what happens if you've studied the end of Zelda's life. I already knew, but the culmination of all of the emotions the novel stirred up inside of me made it impossible not to cry. 

If you haven't yet read this book, I encourage you to do so. Thank you, Therese Anne Fowler, for restoring my faith in literature. My addiction to books is again in full swing.