Book Brief: So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan

So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
by Maureen Corrigan
narrated by the author
Hachette Audio, 2014
10 hours and 46 minutes
source: purchased with audible credit

Publisher's summary:
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.

Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great - and utterly unusual - So We Read On  takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic", and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender.

My thoughts:
So We Read On  is an interesting mix of literary discussion, F. Scott Fitzgerald biography, and memoir. It was made even more enjoyable by the author's narration. I learned a lot about Fitzgerald's life and The Great Gatsby  (both in terms of historical perspective and literary insight), and a little about Corrigan, too.  I laughed out loud when she referenced her high school senior trip to Rocking Horse Ranch in the Catskill Mountains. My class visited that same ranch several years later. I'm sure it's much nice now!

I'd say a reread of The Great Gatsby is now imminent - it's been over a decade.

Whether you're a true Gatsby aficionado or a casual reader curious about Fitzgerald and his great novel, you will find much to enjoy in this book.

My rating:

Happy Birthday, Zelda!

Since I am currently reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night,  Zelda's birthday must be noted. She most certainly influenced her husband's writing, and the character of Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night bears a striking similarity to Zelda.

From today's Writer's Almanac:


It's the birthday of writer and socialite Zelda Fitzgerald (books by this author), born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama (1900). She was named after the fictional gypsy heroine in Zelda's Fortune (1874), one of her mother's favorite books. She was the youngest of five children, and she rebelled against the strict discipline of her father, an Alabama Supreme Court judge. She snuck out of her window at night, smoked cigarettes, bobbed her hair, and wore a flesh-colored swimsuit so that people would think she was swimming nude. She spent her evenings at dances and parties with the officers stationed at nearby Camp Sheridan, and they competed for her attention. One officer performed the full manual of arms drill outside her door, and others took turns trying to outdo each other with fancy airplane stunts in the sky above the Sayre household.

It was at Camp Sheridan that Zelda met a young officer named Scott Fitzgerald. He was beautiful, like Zelda — they were both petite, with blond hair and light eyes. Years later, in her autobiographical novel Save Me the Waltz (1932), she wrote: "He smelled like new goods. Being close to him with her face in the space between his ear and his stiff army collar was like being initiated into the subterranean reserves of a fine fabric store exuding the delicacy of cambrics and linen and luxury bound in bales." Scott and Zelda spent a lot of time together, but she didn't want to commit to him; even though he was confident that he was going to be rich and famous, Zelda was hesitant, and her parents were unconvinced. She wrote to him: "Mamma knows that we are going to be married some day — But she keeps leaving stories of young authors, turned out on a dark and stormy night, on my pillow — I wonder if you hadn't better write to my Daddy — just before I leave — I wish I were detached — sorter without relatives. I'm not exactly scared of 'em, but they could be so unpleasant about what I'm going to do."

After the publication of Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), Zelda agreed to marry Scott. They became the most famous couple of the Jazz Age. They were the center of attention at parties, where their drunken exploits became the stuff of legend.

Zelda was a writer in her own right, and Scott borrowed from her ideas and sometimes copied writing from her verbatim. When they were dating in Montgomery, Zelda showed Scott her diary, and he used that and her letters in This Side of Paradise. He had modeled the main character, Rosalind, after a woman he had been in love with at Princeton, named Ginevra King; but after meeting Zelda, he reworked the character of Rosalind until she was a combination of both women.

When Zelda was hired to write a review of The Beautiful and the Damned for the New York Herald Tribune, she wrote: "It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald — I believe that is how he spells his name — seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home." She also encouraged readers to buy the book so that Scott could buy her a new dress and a platinum ring.

She said, "I don't want to live — I want to love first, and live incidentally."

Tuesday Intro: Tender is the Night

"On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed facade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people; a decade ago it was almost deserted after its English clientele went north in April. Now, many bungalows cluster near it, but when this story begins only the cupolas of a dozen old villas rotted like water lilies among the massed pines between Gausse's Hôtel des Étrangers and Cannes, five miles away."

Tender is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My 'Paris in July' reading continues this week with Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a book I loved in high school and have been meaning to reread for years. So far, the language is a more flowery than I remembered and the plot isn't even vaguely familiar yet. High school was quite a few years ago...

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph(s). Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

Paris in July is hosted by Karen and Tamara.

Short Story Monday: "The Jelly-Bean" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean.  Much as I desire to make him an appealing character, I feel it would be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point.  He was a bred-in-the bone, dyed-in-the wool, ninety-nine three-quarters per cent Jelly-bean and he grew lazily all during Jelly-bean season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly-beans well below the Mason-Dixon line.

So begins F. Scott Fitzgerald's 24 page story, "The Jelly-Bean".  I was immediately captivated by the language and tone, but also slightly confused.  Thankfully, Fitzgerald provided the answer to my question just two paragraphs later:

"Jelly-bean is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular - I am idling, I have idled, I will idle.

The first chapter introduces Jim Powell.  He never liked parties much, was mostly scared of girls, and, at twenty-one, has returned from the war (he served in a navy-yard in Brooklyn) to live above Tilly's Garage, where he occasionally works. He also happens to be a champion crap-shooter.

The second chapter is written mostly in dialogue. An old friend invites Jim to a party at the country club. On impulse he accepts, but feels woefully out of place.

So ten o'clock found the Jelly-bean with his legs crossed and his arms conservatively folded, trying to look casually at home and politely uninterested in the dancers.  At heart he was torn between overwhelming self-consciousness and an intense curiosity as to all that went on around him.

At the party, Jim is dazzled by the popular Nancy Lamar, also reputed to be a fine crap-shooter, but one who often gets into trouble after too much "good old corn". Remember, this is during prohibition.

An after hours crap shoot follows the dance. Jim watches as Nancy has an amazing winning streak, however her luck turns as the alcohol flows. He steps in to "save" her, and is rewarded.  As morning breaks, Fitzgerald writes poetically of Jim's change in attitude, his desire to better himself, and finally, a realization.

In this heat nothing mattered. All life was weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance for the cool that was soft and caressing like a woman's hand on a tired forehead.

This story originally appeared in The Metropolitan periodical, and was included in Fitzgerald's Tales of the Jazz Age in 1922. This is a wonderful story, and I look forward to reading more from the collection.  You can read "The Jelly-Bean" here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.