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Today would have been the 110th birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald, born this day in 1896 in Minnesota. My favorite period of American History is the 1920's (and then the Gilded Age), and the writer that epitomizes that period the most and is the most identified with it, is F. Scott himself.
Considering that his first book was published in 1920, and his fame lasted throughout the 1920's, only to fall in disfavor during the 30's and the great depression. For someone who came to epitomize the jazz age, he lived a remarkably sad life. His greatest work, The Great Gatsby didn't sell all that well, the love of his life ended up in an asylum where she later tragically died, and he basically drank himself to death, in between dashing off short stories to support Zelda and their lifestyle.
He went out to Hollywood to write for the screen, but I think he ended up with only one credit for the entire time that he was out there. He finally died of a heart attack in the home of his mistress in 1940, leaving an unfinished manuscript about the movie business called The Last Tycoon.
I've read alot of books about the twenties and Fitzgerald, but he still remains some what of a cipher to me. Still, I can always read his stories and novels, trying to imagine what it must of been like after WW1, during that carefree, crazy time.
Thanks for reading!
EKM
Wow, thanks for telling us about him, Elizabeth. You've written him to be someone overlooked that we really should know. =D
ReplyDeleteThe Great Gatsby was one of my favorite books in high school, but I think people still see him as a writer they need to slog through in school, instead of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. And the movies have never done him justice, although Robert Redford did look impossibly handsome as Gatsby in the movie they made in the 70's with Mia Farrow.
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