Z is for ...

Z is for ... Zelda.


I have a bit of a thing for the Lost Generation. I've been on Hemingway and Dos Passos kicks lately, I adore Dorothy Parker, and I can't ever get enough of Gerald and Sara Murphy. I've always been kind of lukewarm about F. Scott Fitzgerald, though, and I think recently I figured out why: he was an oppressive jerk, specifically in regards to his wife, Zelda.

There's a lot of interest in Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald right now because of the latest film of The Great Gatsby (which I have not yet seen). There's a handful of books that have just come out looking at their life together through her eyes, which was just not done years ago. Like a lot of other literary wives, she was seen as merely window dressing, a muse, or a deterrent. Most of the time these wives turn out to be fantastically talented people who subverted their own dreams so their spouse could shine. In many cases, they completely devoted themselves to taking care of their spouse so they could work on their masterpieces. Vera Nabokov is one of them. Even without her famous spouse, she was a fascinating person in her own right and I'm so grateful that authors like Stacy Schiff and Nancy Milford see fit to focus on the person just outside the spotlight.

But Zelda is different. Hers is a sadder story and I think one that illustrates the fight for women's rights. Because that battle isn't just for equal pay, control over our health care, or legal permissions; at its heart, the women's rights movement is about respect. And Zelda didn't get much of it.

I'm reading Nancy Milford's fantastic biography of her right now.
It's heartbreaking.

While I certainly do not deny that Zelda had a personality order or some other psychiatric illness, it's clear from their letters and other people's reminisces that Scott Fitzgerald had an awful lot to do with her deteriorated mental state. Her cosseted, traditional Southern girlhood also contributed to her conflicts.

Although Fitzgerald held her up as the first flapper and queen of her kind, Zelda wanted to be useful and successful, in spite of her protestations that she didn't "want to live, I want to love first and live incidentally."

She was never trained to do any kind of useful work, or even trained in the arts. She was a bright girl but found school boring and no one bothered to try to interest her in her studies because as a southern belle, she was just going to marry and have babies anyway. She found herself so alone when Scott worked that she longed to have

something of her own to do. So she wrote too. She was undisciplined and untrained, but imaginative and extraordinarily creative with her word play. But Scott didn't like her treading on his turf, and he was especially livid when she wrote a novel, Save Me the Waltz, that was heavily autobiographical.

The reason for his anger toward this novel? Scott Fitzgerald had planned to use Zelda's life and experiences for HIS next novel, Tender is the Night. He didn't feel that Zelda had any right to her own life story. He actually used whole passages from her letters to him AND her diaries word for word in his novels! And yet he was furious that she try to write about her own experiences herself.

And he was cruel about it. According to Milford, "he mercilessly exposed Zelda in his characterization of Nicole Diver.  He drew upon Zelda's most terrible and private letters to him, written in the anguish of the early months of her illness... snipped and pieced them together in Book II with very little regard for Zelda's reaction or for the precarious balance of her sanity."

Zelda, in the hospital again after another relapse, was upset by the book. She said of it, "What made me mad was that he made the girl so awful and kept on reiterating

how she had ruined his life and I couldn't help identifying myself with her because she had so many of my experiences .... But on the whole, I don't think it's true- I don't think it's really what happened."

In a therapy session, Scott called her- to her face- a third rate writer and a third rate talent. He denigrated her for devoting herself to ballet, convinced she was delusional thinking she could be a top rate dancer at her age. He was blind to the fact that she just wanted something for herself, and every time she found something, he made sure to take it away from her in one way or another. She had to give up so much of herself in order for him to be happy with himself. All her desperation came through when she said, "I'm so tired of compromises. Shaving off one part of oneself after another until there is nothing left."

Scott made frequent mention of her as if she were an acquisition, something whose procurement would serve only to make him seem better in the eyes of others. He didn't necessarily want Zelda the person- he wanted the most popular girl in Montgomery, Alabama. The prettiest girl, the one with the most men after her. It's debatable whether her illness drove him to his excessive drinking or his drinking played a part in her illness, but he came to blame her for all his woes. His 'asset' had become a liability. He told Malcolm Cowley, "That girl had everything... she was the belle of Montgomery, the daughter of the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court... everybody in Alabama and Georgia knew about her, everybody that counted. She had beauty, talent, family, she could do anything she wanted to, and she's thrown it all away." Well, she could do anything Scott wanted her to do. And apparently her talent was to be admired only when it didn't compete with his. She was to stay up on her pedestal where he put her.

After enough blow-ups over her writing, she turned to painting, but she was in the full throes of a mental illness that no one knew how to treat at the time, and they're scary things. Looking at her paintings, while inventive and intriguing, they're clearly a window into a broken mind. They're not paintings you could live with for long.

This isn't necessarily a very cheerful post, but at least we have the reassurance that things have gotten better for women since the 20s and 30s.  The recent findings that fairly soon more women will be the primary breadwinners in their families than men show that we have indeed come a long way since Zelda's time when women were supposed to simply step back and be taken care of. However, the backlash to this change reminds us that our advancements cannot be taken lightly, as there are plenty of people- men and women, unfortunately- who wish to see us revert to old, stereotyped gender roles and not the fulfillment of our ambitions.

In reading this book, I've often found myself wondering what Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald might have been like if she had come of age in the 21st century. Would her star have shone brighter than her husband's if she had just been allowed to accomplish something other than being popular and partying? And just perhaps, was that fear that she might actually be the true talent in the family what fueled the drinking that sent Scott Fitzgerald to his grave at the age of forty-four?

** And thus our exploration of the alphabet has come to a close. Next blog series- numbers! And hopefully more frequent posting!

I is for...

Well, of course, I is for Ithaca.

I've loved Ithaca from the time I went to swim camp at Ithaca College when I was 16, all through the almost ten years I've spent as a proud I-town citizen. I spent four years in between as a student at Ithaca College and while the grand majority of my fellow classmates knew only a select handful of bars and Joe's, I loved riding the bus around town and discovering everything else Ithaca had to offer.  When Brett was finally nearing the completion of his master's degree, we discussed where we wanted to settle. The midwest was definitely out- for a variety of reasons, the biggest being tornados. As we'd both had family crises that year, we really didn't want to be too far from our families. Far enough away to prevent a pop-in, but close enough that it didn't require a military maneuver to rush to someone's aid who was ill or hurt. We looked at each other and said, "Ithaca." It was unanimous and we really didn't entertain any other suggestions. We just knew it was where we belonged.

And although there are drawbacks (winter that goes on until May, the taxes, students cluttering town all wearing that same uniform of super-skinny jeans, a blazer and oddly-colored ballet flats, the "reality" that surrounds our ten square miles, etc.) we love Ithaca. When we were first moved here, we lived in a townhouse up by the mall and I worked downtown. Every day as I drove down the hill, I would see the sailboats out on the lake, see the towers over at IC and the IM Pei-designed Johnson Museum at Cornell that looks like a coffeemaker and think, I am lucky to live here. Nine years later and living on a different hill, I still think so.

So, here is a list of some of the things I love about Ithaca:

• Namgyal Monastery. One of the coolest things about Ithaca is our Buddhist Monastery, currently located in a house downtown. There's nothing better than seeing the monks tooling around town in their robes, just getting a newspaper or whatnot. Also- it's the North American seat of the Dalai Lama and he pops in from time to time.

• Howard Cogan. Howard, one of my professors at IC, was an ad man who created the Ithaca is Gorges slogan and gave the rights to the city. He taught Ad Lab, an intensive course where the students create an ad campaign for a national client, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation. You spend untold hours working on every detail of the campaign: research, creative, media placement, etc. and it's expected you'll give up your Spring Break to stay on campus and work. I did it twice, once my junior year for no credit because the class had already filled up. Since I'd taken the brand-new research mini-course in the fall and already put all this time and effort into it, it seemed stupid to give up just because I wasn't going to get 3 credit hours. It meant I was insanely busy trying to make it up my senior year, but totally worth it. Howard was more of a steward than an instructor for Ad Lab, there to steer us gently but leaving the work and major decisions to us. He and his wife Helen had a dinner for the Ad Lab kids at their house after the competition. He was like a big Jewish Santa Claus, and one of the best parts of Ad Lab was lining up for a hug from him. He passed away a few years ago. His was the first Jewish funeral service I ever attended. I use something that Howard taught me everyday in every aspect of my job.

• Ithaca Bakery. The Flat Rock sandwich: Roast turkey, fresh local goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, extra-virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar, on a Baguette. Need I say more?

• Cayuga Lake. Even though you technically can't swim in it anywhere in Ithaca, it's a gorgeous focal point.

• Mulholland Wildflower Preserve. One of my favorite places to take Minchy for adventures and quiet, secluded dips in the creek.

• Cinemapolis. Our local art house movie theatre. Where all the films I want to see are showing, like Moonrise Kingdom. Also, they have delicious air-popped popcorn that you can get parmesan cheese sprinkled on.

• Briar Patch Veterinary Clinic. Where we've taken our dogs since we got 'em. I love that they remember Frances & Minchy's histories and are so genuinely happy to see them. I also love that they are so practical-minded and emphasize common sense alternatives to surgery whenever possible. And believe it or not, our dogs don't mind going to see the vet.

• Tompkins County SPCA. A No-Kill shelter since 2001, our SPCA is innovative, creative, and above all, extraordinarily caring. Animals that wouldn't stand a chance at other shelters get 2nd, 3rd, 4th and more chances here at a loving, forever home. They do good work.

• We have an awesome library.

• We have an awesome mayor. Svante Myrick is one of the youngest mayors in US history at age 24 and one of the few to be popularly elected by city-wide vote. He's Ithaca's youngest mayor and our first Mayor of African-American heritage to hold the office. In addition to being a sharp guy, he's also got a great sense of humor and one of the most entertaining Facebook pages I've ever seen. Since he doesn't have a car and mostly bikes, he made his Mayor's Parking Space into a park space. 

The Mayor's Office has Funky Fridays!

He has advice for students on how to party without the police!

The Mayor in his Park Space with LA Kings' captain Dustin Brown,
oh, and the Stanley Cup.

• Cocktails- at Felicia's and Lot 10. I'm partial to the Lavendar Lemonade and Hemingway Daiquiri.

Evil DragonEye

• A local bus system so great that I gave up my car nearly three years ago and haven't missed it since. Also, they have really nice drivers (except Evil Dragoneye.)

• E.B. White's papers (including drafts of Charlotte's Web) live at Cornell University.

• Novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote "Lolita" in Ithaca-and he almost burned it here after the story was rejected by every American publisher. His wife,Vera, changed literary history when she pulled the manuscript from the incinerator behind their rented house on East Seneca St.

Well, I'm sure I've left a lot of things out, but this was by no means an inclusive list. Please feel free to comment on any of your Ithaca favorites that I may have missed!  (Please note: I only included things/places/people in Ithaca proper, not any outside of town, such as Taughannock Falls, etc.)