All these sad young people. Francis Scott Fitzgerald

USA

Francis Scott Kay Fitzgerald(English: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald; -) - American writer, the largest representative of the so-called “lost generation” in literature. Fitzgerald is best known for his novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, as well as a number of novels and short stories about the American Jazz Age of the 1920s. The term "Jazz Age" or "Jazz Age" was coined by Fitzgerald himself and referred to the period of American history from the end of World War I to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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Biography

Fitzgerald and Sayre's first engagement failed because the Sayre family was against the marriage. At that time, Fitzgerald did not have permanent job And permanent income. The only chance to marry Zelda was literary success. Fitzgerald went to New York, where he took a job as a literary employee at an advertising agency. He never gives up trying to achieve literary recognition and writes stories, plays and poems, which he sends to various publications. His first literary attempts are unsuccessful and the manuscripts are returned. Fitzgerald suffered deeply from his failures, started drinking, quit his job and had to move back in with his parents. At his parents’ house, Fitzgerald sits down to rework the manuscript of the novel “The Romantic Egoist,” which had previously been refused publication.

In 1922, Fitzgerald purchased a mansion in Manhattan, built four years earlier in a Mediterranean style with seven bedrooms, a wood-burning fireplace and arched windows. Here he lived with his wife for two years, until he left for Europe. In this house, the writer began work on the novel “The Great Gatsby” and wrote three chapters.

Having become one of the main characters in gossip columns after the publication of Fitzgerald's first novel, Scott and Zelda began to live on a grand scale and for show: they enjoyed a fun rich life, which consisted of parties, receptions and trips to European resorts. The couple constantly “threw out” some eccentric antics that made the entire American high society talk about them: either riding around Manhattan on the roof of a taxi, or swimming in a fountain, or appearing naked at a performance. With all this, their life also consisted of constant scandals (often motivated by jealousy) and excessive alcohol consumption by both.

All this time, Scott also managed to write quite a lot for magazines, which brought in a very significant income (he was one of the highest paid authors of the time "glossy" magazines). The Fitzgeralds were famous both for their works and their luxurious lifestyle. Fitzgerald once said: “I don’t know if Zelda and I are real people or characters from one of my novels.”.

Following the first book, Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, was published in 1922, describing the painful marriage of two gifted and attractive representatives of the artistic bohemians. A collection of short stories, Tales of the Jazz Age, is also being published.

In 1924, Fitzgerald left for Europe, first to Italy, then to France. Living in Paris, he meets E. Hemingway there. It was in Paris that Fitzgerald completed and published his novel The Great Gatsby ( The Great Gatsby, 1925) is a novel that many critics, and Fitzgerald himself, consider a masterpiece of American literature of that period, a symbol of the “Jazz Age.” In 1926, a collection of short stories, All the Sad Young Men, was published.

During these years, many stories were written in which Fitzgerald earned money to ensure his high standard of living.

However, the next years of Fitzgerald's life turn out to be very difficult. To earn money, he writes for The Saturday Evening Post. His wife Zelda experiences several bouts of mental confusion starting in 1925 and gradually goes crazy. It cannot be cured. Fitzgerald experiences a painful crisis and begins to abuse alcohol.

Literary activity

Francis Scott Fitzgerald is a recognized classic of American literature. Not a single literary essay on the history of American and world literature, according to Russian literary critic Andrei Gorbunov, is possible without mentioning Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's work was studied by many American critics and researchers, in particular Maxwell Geismar (English) Russian, Malcolm Cowley (English) Russian, Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling and others.

This side of heaven

After the publication of the novel in March 1920, Fitzgerald became famous. The book was hailed as a "manifesto for a generation". In it, the writer addressed the most important topic for himself - the problem of wealth and poverty, as well as the influence of money on a person’s destiny. The novel's protagonist, Emory Blaine, is the embodiment of the American Dream. Literary critic and journalist Henry Mencken said this about Fitzgerald’s first novel:

“...an amazing novel - original in form, extremely refined in writing and magnificent in content”

The first draft of the novel was rejected by Scribner's in 1918. In it, the narration was told in the first person, and the action took place in a student environment. In its final version, the novel is divided into two books: “The Romantic Egoist” and “Education of Personality.” The first book ends with the hero dropping out of university and joining the army. The second book tells about the moral development of the personality of Emory Blaine. The books are separated chronologically by a short interlude focusing on Emory's war years. According to the author, it is military experience that influences the hero’s personality.

Editor-in-Chief of Scribner's Publishing House Maxwell Perkins[remove template] wrote to Fitzgerald:

“The book is so strikingly different from all the others that it is difficult to even predict how the public will receive it. But we are all for taking risks and support her in every possible way.”

Soon after the first novel, the writer publishes his first collection of short stories, “Emancipated and Profound” (eng. Flappers and Philosophers). It was received rather coldly by both critics and the public.

Works

Novels:

• “This side of paradise” ( This Side of Paradise, 1920)
• "Beautiful and Damned" ( The Beautiful and Damned, 1922)
• "The Great Gatsby " ( The Great Gatsby, 1925)
• "Night is tender " ( Tender is the Night, 1934)
• "The Last Tycoon" ( The Last Tycoon, unfinished, published posthumously, 1941)

Stories:

• "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" ( The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 1921)

Play:

• "Slut" ( The Vegetable, 1923, play)

Collections of short stories (published during his lifetime):

• "Emancipated and thoughtful" ( Flappers and Philosophers, 1920)
• "Tales of the Jazz Age" ( Tales of the Jazz Age, 1922)
• "All These Sad Young Men" ( All the Sad Young Men, 1926)
• "Wake Up Signals" ( Taps at Reveille, 1935)

Collection of journalism:

• "Crash"( The Crack-Up, 1945 - published after the author’s death)

After his death, many collections were published, including works that were not published in books during his lifetime.

Film scripts:

• 1924 - Grit (author of the original story, neither copies of the film nor the manuscript of the story have survived)
• 1938 - Three Comrades / Three Comrades (Scott Fitzgerald's version of the script underwent significant revision, but his name remained in the credits. The original script was published as a separate book)

He also took part in working on scripts for films:

• 1923 - Glimpses of the Moon, The (author of credits, film not preserved)
• 1932 - Red-Headed Woman (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)
• 1938 - Marie Antoinette / Marie Antoinette (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)
• 1938 - A Yank at Oxford (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)
• 1939 - Raffles (revision of dialogues in the script by another author, work lasted one week)
• 1939 - Winter Carnival (Scott Fitzgerald and Bud Schulberg's storyline was rejected)
• 1939 - Everything Happens at Night (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)
• 1939 - Women, The (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)
• 1942 - Life Begins at Eight-Thirty (Scott Fitzgerald's script was rejected)

Film adaptations

• 1920 - The Chorus Girl’s Romance, (silent film, copy preserved in the Brazilian Archives)
• 1920 - The Husband Hunter, (silent film, no copies survive)
• 1921 - The Off-Shore Pirate, (silent film, no copies survive)
• 1922 - The Beautiful and Damned, (silent film, no copies survived)
• 1926 - The Great Gatsby / The Great Gatsby, (silent film, copies have not survived, only a minute-long promotional video has survived)
• 1929 - Pusher-in-the-Face (sound film, no copies survive)
• 1949 - The Great Gatsby / The Great Gatsby,
• 1954 - When I Last Saw Paris / The Last Time I Saw Paris, (based on the original screenplay by Scott Fitzgerald "Cosmopolitan", based on the Babylon Revisited story)
• 1956-1961 - episodes of the TV show Theater 90 / Playhouse 90
• 1962 - Tender Is the Night - 1962 film based on the novel of the same name.
• 1964 - Izmedju dva aviona (TV, Yugoslavia)
• 1974 - F. Scott Fitzgerald and "The Last of the Belles" (TV, USA)
• 1974 - The Great Gatsby / The Great Gatsby - 1974 film, in leading role- Robert Redford.
• 1976 - Bernice Bobs Her Hair (TV, USA)
• 1976 -

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Life on both sides of heaven

He remained in the history of literature both as a chronicler of the “Jazz Age” - the magnificent and tragic decade on the eve of the Great Depression, and as its victim. He was consistently the embodiment of the American dream and the collapse of its hopes. He sang of his generation in novels full of sadness and love, but soon no one needed either love or sadness. It seemed that he had outlived his fame, but twenty years later it turned out that his fame had outlived him for a long time...

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. His ancestors were immigrants from Ireland - the Fitzgeralds on his father's side and the McQuillans on his mother's side. Both of his grandfathers arrived in America in pursuit of a dream, both made a fortune in trading, but if Philip Francis McQuillan left his five children an inheritance of a quarter of a million dollars, then the Fitzgeralds, who managed to write their name in US history (the future writer’s great-great-grandfather was the author of the text American anthem, and his numerous descendants - prominent figures in the legislative bodies of the colonies and members of gubernatorial councils) did not make any money. Edward Fitzgerald - a handsome dandy with refined manners and with some of the sluggishness of coming from an old Southern family, he graduated from Georgetown University, worked in Chicago and finally moved to St. Paul, where he became manager of a wicker furniture manufacturing company American Rattan and Willow Works. He fell in love with Mary, or Molly at home, the eldest of McQuillan’s daughters, but the wayward girl, not distinguished by either special beauty or intelligence, was waiting for the best match and was in no hurry to make her most faithful admirer happy. When she finally agreed to become Fitzgerald's wife in 1890, she was already thirty years old. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon on the Riviera. They gave birth to two daughters and seemed happy in their calm and measured life.

When Molly was expecting her third child, both daughters died during the then raging epidemic. “Three months before I was born,” her son later recalled, “my mother lost two children. It was this grief that was my first feeling of life, although I cannot say exactly how it came to me. It seems to me that then the writer was born in me.” The boy was named in honor of his illustrious ancestor, the author of the American anthem Scott Fitzgerald Key, and his mother never tired of reminding her son’s friends, and himself, that he was a descendant of such a great man.

It is not surprising that Molly adored her son - her daughter Annabelle, who was born five years later, did not receive even half of the love that fell upon Scotty. She described every step of her son in her diary: the first word “give,” as follows from the diary, he said on July 6, 1897, and at three years old he asked: “Mom, when I get big, will I be able to have everything I want?” not allowed?"

Francis with his father.

It soon became clear that Edward Fitzgerald was a worthless businessman: at the beginning of 1898, his enterprise went bankrupt, and the family had to move to Buffalo, where Edward got a job in a company Procter&Gamble. In Buffalo, Scotty became addicted to the theater - his friend's parents were friends with one of the actors of the local troupe, and on Saturdays Scotty visited the theater, and then re-enacted the performance at home. He had an excellent memory, which allowed him to memorize huge dialogues the first time, and considerable acting abilities, thanks to which, with the help of improvised means, he could transform into all the heroes of his impromptu performance. They remember that young Fitzgerald dressed better than all the boys in the city: his clothes were not bought from a local store, but were ordered from New York. His father was also a well-known dandy throughout the area, but his mother became notorious for her sloppiness and bad manners. In the town they called her “disheveled Fitzgerald” - she always walked around with her hair askew, in dresses chosen without taste and put on haphazardly, and besides, she was completely incapable of conducting a conversation, often making unacceptable mistakes. So, one day she told her neighbor, whose husband was seriously ill (and the whole town, out of compassion, hid this fact from his wife) that she was trying to imagine what she would look like in mourning. Her incongruity, coupled with her peculiar gait and manner of comically pursing her lips, made her an object of ridicule for the entire neighborhood. Scotty, who, like all children, was sensitive to the attitude of his neighbors towards his parents, was torn between love for them and shame. He promised himself to achieve universal recognition - so that no one would ever dare to make fun of him from around the corner.

Scotty was fond of reading and even tried to write himself, but following the example of his friends, he now devoted more and more time to sports, which he had previously avoided. Rugby became his passion, his idols were famous players. And yet, he did not look at all like an athlete - a fragile, graceful young handsome man with delicate facial features, huge gray-green eyes and a shock of golden curls; he, as they recalled, was completely alien to rudeness and vulgarity - his father even suggested five dollars to anyone who hears a harsh word from his son. He loved the dances he learned in dance class, and for the first time fell in love with his mazurka partner, Kitty Williams. He enjoyed life, and she seemed to reciprocate his feelings.

However, things went from bad to worse for his father, and he was finally fired in March 1908.

One afternoon, Fitzgerald recalled many years later, the phone rang and his mother answered. I did not understand what she said, but I felt that misfortune had overtaken us... Then, kneeling down, I began to pray. “Merciful God,” I cried to the Almighty, “do not allow us to end up in a house for the poor.” After some time, the father returned. My premonitions were justified: he lost his place.

He recalled that his father, who went to work in the morning as a young, successful man, returned in the evening as a broken old man. He could not recover from the stigma he received as a loser until the end of his days. And his son felt that from now on all the family’s hopes were placed on him - this spurred him on, but at the same time frightened him.

The Fitzgeralds returned to St. Paul, where they lived quite comfortably due to the inheritance of grandfather McQuillan. While the whole town quietly made fun of his parents, Scotty became one of the most popular teenagers in his circle: his beauty, sophistication, charm and precocious intelligence attracted friends of all ages to him. Pretty soon he became convinced that he was superior to other people - both in intelligence and in everything else. When he was sent to a local school, he tried to shine in all areas. Mr. Wheeler, one of his teachers, recalled Fitzgerald as “a cheerful, energetic, fair-haired young man who was still school years knew what was destined for him in life... He showed extraordinary ingenuity in the plays that we staged, and remained in memory as a writer, always reciting his works in front of the whole school... It was his pride in his successes in literary field helped him find his true calling.” In 1909, the school newspaper published his first story, “The Mystery of Raymond Mortgage,” and then three more, and from then on, Fitzgerald was finally convinced that he would become a great writer. At the same time, he painfully longed for recognition, admiration and fame - and while it could not be achieved through literature, he tried to achieve success in sports. His abilities did not allow him to shine in rugby, but he prevailed with drive and determination, more than once getting injured in single combat with stronger opponents.

After two years of school in St. Paul, Scotty was sent to New Jersey, to the Newman School, a boarding school for children from respectable Catholic families. Here he was met with severe disappointment: the superiority of intelligence and personal charm that Scott knew in himself was not appreciated by anyone, and his success in rugby was terrible: after he, frightened, avoided a collision with the enemy, he was considered a coward and subjected to real boycott Only in his second year did Fitzgerald find his niche: three of his stories were published in the school magazine, he enthusiastically wrote songs and sketches for the local drama club and, although due to poor academic performance he was not allowed to act himself, he enjoyed directing, preparing sets and inventing jokes. He also excelled in sports: he won an athletics competition and performed very successfully in several matches. One report attributed the victory of Newman's school mainly to his "sharp and unexpected spurts."

In the summer of 1913, he entered Princeton - the choice of this school was largely due to the success of the local rugby team, but he dropped out of the team within a few days - in his own words, “retired with half honor and a sprained ankle.”

Freshman life consisted of lectures, poker, library studies, drinking, practical jokes and reading. They recalled that at that time Fitzgerald hardly drank - his body did not tolerate alcohol well, but he constantly played pranks on his classmates. He strived to get into literary university journals, literally chasing editors and bombarding the editors with an endless stream of poems, essays, sketches, stories and notes. Finally he managed to achieve his first successes: he won the competition for best scenario, and when the university's Triangle Theater toured neighboring states, his name appeared in the newspapers, which praised the "talented verses of F. S. Fitzgerald." Newspaper Louisville Post she even wrote: “The lyrics were written by F. S. Fitzgerald, who can now rightly be ranked among the most talented writers of humorous songs in America.” These praises went to his head. “The success of Triangle,” he later admitted to one of his classmates, “is the worst thing that could happen to me. As long as I’m unknown, I’m a pretty nice guy, but as soon as I gain even a little popularity, I puff up like a turkey.”

Ginevra King.

However, his academic success was far from so brilliant - he barely managed to crawl from course to course. In addition, he fell in love and began to pay even less attention to his studies. His chosen one was sixteen-year-old Ginevra King from Chicago, a brunette beauty who had a reputation as a “frivolous girl” and a “frivolous girl.” All the time that Fitzgerald considered her his girlfriend, she was surrounded by fans and did not even think about hiding it from Scott. Finally, it was transparently hinted to him that he was not a match for such a brilliant girl (and Ginevra was from a wealthy aristocratic family), and they parted. Fitzgerald was forever scarred by this story. The unsuccessful ending to their romance was one of the reasons why Fitzgerald stayed for a second year as a sophomore. He never graduated from the university - in April 1917, the United States entered the First World War, and Scott Fitzgerald immediately signed up as a volunteer. It is believed that he did this out of fear of failure in the exams; he himself claimed that he was driven by a sincere impulse:

“As for my joining the army,” he wrote to his mother, “please, let’s not make a tragedy out of it or make pompous speeches about heroism—I am equally disgusted by both. I did this completely deliberately. I am not moved by calls for self-sacrifice for the sake of the homeland or the halo of a hero. I only joined the army because others did... I have never felt more elated than I am now.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald during his military service, 1918

After undergoing officer training, during which he spent more time writing his first novel than thinking about the intricacies of tactics and strategy, Scott was promoted to lieutenant and led a company of the 45th Infantry Regiment, and then he was transferred to the 67th Regiment, stationed near the city Montgomery, capital of Alabama. Fitzgerald, by this time already a first lieutenant, was assigned to the headquarters company and, according to recollections, proudly sported boots with spurs. He rushed to the front, reveling in dark fantasies about his own death and the fate of his generation: “If we ever return,” Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his cousin Cecilia, “which I don’t really care about, we will grow old in the worst sense of the word.” . After all, there is little attraction in life except youth, and in old age, I suppose, the love of the youth of others.”

In July 1918, at a dance at the Montgomery Club, he saw a lovely girl. A seventeen-year-old beauty with delicate features, golden hair, huge dark blue eyes, graceful movements and a frivolous laugh captivated him at first sight - Scott immediately approached and introduced himself. The girl's name was Zelda Sayre, a name her mother read in a novel about a gypsy queen. She was the daughter of a local judge, the granddaughter of senators and a descendant of the most respectable families of the southern states, intelligent, spoiled, feminine, flighty, tender and flighty, surrounded by admirers and not seeking to conquer. She was filled with a thirst for life, the joy of being and a frivolous courage with which she easily discarded all conventions and rules. Fitzgerald biographer Andrew Turnbull wrote: “The meeting of these two men, whose deep kinship was just beginning with the pure, untouched beauty they radiated, was an act of magic, if not fate. Contemporaries found that they looked alike like brother and sister. But how much internal similarity there was in them! Fitzgerald first met a girl whose indomitable thirst for life matched his own and whose recklessness, originality, and wit never ceased to excite him... He was attracted to her not only by her appearance, but he unaccountably fell in love with the depths of her soul.” The young officer immediately became a regular guest in the Sayres' house, spending hours walking with Zelda in the garden or enthusiastically reading her his own and other people's poems. “It seemed that some unearthly force, some inspired delight was drawing him upward,” Zelda wrote about those days. “He seemed to have a secret ability to soar in the air, but, yielding to conventions, he agreed to walk on the ground.”

At the time, Scott was working on his first novel, which he called The Romantic Egoist. In the summer he sent the first draft of the novel to the publishing house Scribner's. The novel was not accepted, but the review of it was surprisingly good. Fitzgerald immediately rushed to rewrite the novel, but the second edition was categorically rejected. Scott sought to achieve glory at the front - ironically, when his regiment was already being loaded onto ships, the shipment was delayed due to an influenza epidemic, and then the war ended. He proposed to Zelda, but she delayed answering, unsure whether Scott could provide her with a decent lifestyle. “I simply cannot imagine a miserable, colorless existence,” she justified herself, “because then you will soon lose interest in me.” According to legend, she set a condition for her admirer: she would become his wife if he became famous.

Scott was discharged in February 1919. He spent the next four months in New York, reveling in all the wonders of this city. He found a job in an advertising agency, and in his free time he visited one publishing house after another, trying to publish at least some of his works; he received one hundred and twenty-two refusals from publishers, but was not going to stop. He visited Zelda twice, trying to persuade her to marry, but she was adamant and eventually, tired of his persistence, broke up with him. Scott quit his job and drank for several weeks in a row until Prohibition came into force in the United States on July 1, 1919.

Having sobered up, Scott pulled himself together. He returned to his parents and decided to concentrate on the novel: for two months he worked hard, following a pre-arranged schedule, until, finally, the old “Romantic Egoist” turned into a new novel called “This Side of Paradise.” In September the book was accepted for publication by the publishing house Scribner's:“The book is so strikingly different from all the others,” wrote editor Maxwell Perkins, “that it is difficult even to predict how the public will receive it. But we are all for taking risks and support her in every possible way.”

Intoxicated by his first success, Scott wrote several excellent stories, which were immediately bought by reputable magazines. In November, he went to Montgomery again, and this time Zelda agreed to marry him - the wedding was decided to take place immediately after the publication of the novel. Expecting the most joyful event of his life - or rather, two at once - Scott lived in New York, writing one story after another, and spending the rest of his time drinking with friends. On March 26, the novel was published, and on April 3, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Zelda Sayre and Francis Scott Fitzgerald were married in the presence of their closest friends. They adored each other, and it seemed to them that only boundless happiness awaited them ahead.

Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, early 1920s.

Many years later, Scott wrote to his daughter: “I loved your mother and I love you very much, but our marriage with her was a terrible, irreparable mistake. I can’t stand women who are raised to be idle.” Marriage to Zelda became the happiness of his whole life - and it was also his main curse. Zelda, who, according to recollections, had a much stronger character and much less respect for established norms, who did not want to count money and look at those around her, whirled Scott into a whirlwind of a happy and carefree life, where he barely found the strength and time to create. She became the prototype of almost all of his heroines, gave him ideas for stories, through her he got to know other people and his whole life - and yet she limited his horizons, obscuring the whole world with her bright personality.

The novel This Side of Paradise was unexpectedly enthusiastically received by critics. The autobiographical story about student life, the frivolous society of “frappers” and the unhappy love of a poor young man for a rich girl instantly made its author famous and rich. It was perceived as a manifesto of an entire generation, a hymn to youth and joy of life. Following the novel, a collection of short stories “Emancipated and Profound” was published, which also enjoyed enormous success - publishing house Scribner's used to accompany the release of the novel with a collection of short stories by the same author. Turnbull wrote:

It is interesting to look at Fitzgerald at the zenith of his first glory - he would never be happier, although the six to eight years that followed turned out to be relatively cloudless. Faun with curly hair blond hair With his hair parted in the middle and a half-serious, half-joking expression on his face, he exuded understanding and a certain revelation that made you tremble in his presence. He embodied the American dream—youth, beauty, wealth, early success—and believed in these attributes of happiness so passionately that he endowed them with a certain grandeur. Scott and Zelda presented perfect couple... You wanted to protect them, keep them as they were, hope that the idyll would last forever.

However, the Fitzgeralds did not visit the idyllic pair of porcelain doves very often. Zelda believed that she lived to “always be young and beautiful, always have fun, have fun and never be responsible for anything,” and her husband was sure that he, young, handsome, rich and famous, could do anything. Overflowing with the joy of life, they indulged in such antics that others could not get away with. They were constantly drunk - and this was during the Prohibition period! - made brawls in restaurants, danced on tables, rode on the roof of a taxi, at dinner parties behaved like ill-mannered children, throwing food and climbing under chairs, got into fights, or even stole carts from street vendors and rode them around New York streets. According to biographers, he could do a handstand in the middle of a luxury hotel lobby only because his name had not been in the newspapers for several days. The couple quickly made their mark on the scandalous pages of gossip columns, becoming one of the symbols of the “Jazz Age” - this is the name Fitzgerald gave to his second collection of stories, and so with his light hand they began to call this time. The twenties were characterized by the same dynamism and unpredictability as jazz, and the same hidden brokenness and doom. Young people who knew no restrictions, who did not count money and who did not take anyone into account, wonderful egoists, full of wonderful ideas and not striving to implement them, spending their lives on pleasures and joys - these were the heroes of his works, and this is how he himself began to be considered.

The Fitzgeralds lived as if in a golden mist. When the money ran out, Scott wrote a story that was published in The Saturday Evening Post, and the merry life continued. In early 1921, Zelda discovered that she was pregnant. Frightened by their new situation, tired of the New York bustle, they decided to go to Europe. They visited England, France (where they didn’t like it - they didn’t speak French well, and Parisians then very rarely knew English) and Italy, where they didn’t like it even more, and then returned to St. Paul, where on October 26, 1921 Zelda gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Frances Scott. They say that when Zelda came out of the anesthesia, she said: “I hope she becomes a pretty little fool, a pretty little fool.” Scott adored his little Scottie, becoming one of the most caring fathers. She alone could tear him away from work on his new novel, “The Beautiful and the Doomed.” Just as biographical as This Side of Paradise, but much more pessimistic, the novel, which tells the story of the painful marriage of two members of the aristocratic elite, frivolously and sadly squandered their lives and loves, was published in 1922. Scott admitted that Zelda made a significant contribution to the text of the novel: he not only copied Gloria from her - main character, but also received a lot of valuable advice from her: for example, the ending was written according to Zelda’s plan. The dust jacket featured a couple who looked suspiciously like the Fitzgeralds themselves, much to Scott's displeasure. The novel was received very warmly by critics, but it sold somewhat worse than the first: The pessimism and bitterness of the story were not particularly popular with the public. In the fall, the Fitzgeralds rented a house in the town of Great Neck on Long Island, which had become a kind of suburban colony of New York bohemians - for example, the famous Broadway actress Lillian Russell, producer and composer George Cohan, who was called “the man who owns Broadway,” lived nearby. , and the creator of the famous revues Florenz Ziegfeld. The Fitzgeralds hoped to find peace and quiet here, and Scott hoped to work on a new novel, but an endless series of parties and receptions quickly ruined their plans. Although life here was very useful for Scott's work - The Great Gatsby was conceived here and was largely based on Great Neck society - it was hardly useful for him. The Fitzgerald house was always full of guests, alcohol flowed like a river, and life still seemed like a holiday, in which, however, tragic notes were already felt. Fitzgerald, who had recently exclaimed in delight: “If only you knew how wonderful it is to be young, handsome and famous,” was already beginning to wonder what to do next, and had not yet found an answer. He was terrified of remaining a hostage to his first success, but could not decide for himself whether to become a writer of high literature, not paying attention to sales and public opinion, or to work for high fees. Writing became increasingly difficult: the stories he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post for the sake of money, they exhausted him, leaving no energy for a novel. He was in debt all the time: although his income grew year by year, they, or rather Zelda, always spent much more than he earned, and this also depressed him. The rights to make a film based on This Side of Paradise brought him ten thousand. Half was immediately used to pay off debts, and the rest of the money was dispersed for unknown reasons.

Finding himself in a financial hole, Scott locked himself in a room and tirelessly wrote stories for two months, the fees for which covered all his debts. Then he worked for several more months to ensure that he could calmly begin the novel. He wanted to save money and go to Europe and finish The Great Gatsby. There was no need to persuade Zelda: she was always easy-going. “I hate a room without an open suitcase,” she said, “otherwise it begins to seem musty to me.”

In the summer, the Fitzgeralds rented Villa Marie on the Riviera, in the town of San Rafael. While his wife was enjoying life, Scott was working so enthusiastically that he did not even notice how Zelda started an affair with the French pilot Edouard Josan. Upon learning of this, Scott was shocked: he was sincerely convinced of the need for marital fidelity, and Zelda’s infatuation deeply wounded him. According to legend, he made a scene for her and locked her in her bedroom for a month, although biographers more often write simply about a serious conversation. Be that as it may, this incident was in some way beneficial for Scott. He wrote to his editor Perkins: “I have experienced bitter moments, but my work has not suffered from it. I've finally grown up." His work became deeper, his images more powerful, his style more refined and lighter. He wrote to one of his friends: “My novel is about how illusions are wasted, which give the world such color that, having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false.” He tried his best to create something “new, unusual, beautiful, simple and at the same time compositionally openwork” and was more demanding of himself than ever. The novel "The Great Gatsby" became his pinnacle, his masterpiece. Fitzgerald himself wrote without false modesty: “This novel, the effort spent on it, the result itself gave me strength. Now I consider myself superior to any young American writer, without exception." Reviewers were full of praise. Gertrude Stein compared Fitzgerald to Thackeray, and Thomas Stern Eliot called Gatsby "the first step that American literature took after Henry James." However, sales were poor - the public no longer wanted to read about the lives of frivolous rich people, preferring books “about people on the street.”

Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda and Scotty, Paris, 1925

In May 1925, the Fitzgeralds moved to Paris. There they met the then aspiring writer Ernest Hemingway - a year ago Scott had read several of his stories and was fascinated by their power and skill. The two writers quickly became friends, although they seemed to have nothing in common except for their passion for alcohol and literature: Hemingway fought, was an athlete, fisherman and traveler, while Scott had not been involved in sports for a long time and did not like “travelling for the sake of traveling.” Ham's style was distinguished by refined laconicism and restraint; he wrote enthusiastically about those very " ordinary people”, which Scott did not want to know, while Fitzgerald demonstrated elegant, lace-like, woven phrases, and talked about the life of rich slackers with sadness and hopelessness. However, for a long time they almost never separated. Scott sincerely appreciated Hemingway's talent and did everything to ensure that his publishing house Scribner's signed a contract with Ham.

In Paris, the Fitzgeralds met the Murphys, a beautiful and wealthy couple who settled in Antibes and gathered a real American colony in their Villa America. They quickly became friends with the Fitzgeralds, especially Zelda.

Her beauty was unusual, Gerald Murphy wrote about her. “Some kind of strength was felt in her entire appearance. U She had very beautiful, but not classic features, a piercing eagle gaze and a captivatingly graceful figure. She moved gracefully. She spoke in a soft voice, with a slight Southern accent, like some - but I think most - Southern women. She felt the slightest nuances of her appearance and therefore wore elegant, wide-cut dresses. An amazing sense of color helped her choose dresses that suited her extraordinarily. On her head stood a mop of lovely tousled hair, not quite blond, but not brown either. It always seemed to me no coincidence that her favorite flower was the peony. There were just a lot of them growing in our garden, and every time she came to visit us, she took away an armful of peonies with her. She was always inventing something with them. Sometimes she pinned them to her dress on her chest, and then they emphasized her beauty even more.

Scott admired the Murphys, who embodied his ideal of people, and at the same time tormented them with his antics: at a dinner party he threw a berry from a dessert at the English duchess, or broke their favorite glasses. Drunk, Scott generally pulled out strange tricks: once he and a friend argued whether it was possible to saw a man with a saw - and they decided to experiment on a waiter, who was tied to a chair so as not to run away. He barely escaped. Previously, in New York, such things came from the overwhelming joy of life and he got away with it, but now they were destructive and caused rejection. He started a new novel, but the work was very slow and painful, and this made Scott suffer even more.

Zelda was acting increasingly strange. She could withdraw into herself, not reacting to what was happening around her, and began to be rude or laugh loudly for no reason. Her beauty still attracted a lot of admirers to her, but if before it made Scott happy, now he clearly suffered and sometimes seemed to take revenge.

One day, Isadora Duncan was next to them on the veranda of the restaurant. Fitzgerald approached her to express his admiration. They started talking, and, as they remember, Isadora began to stroke Scott’s hair - and then Zelda got up from the table and rushed down the flight of stairs. Fortunately, the stairs were not high and Zelda escaped with a skinned knee. On the way back, Zelda and Scott got lost, drove onto a narrow-gauge railway - and fell asleep while their car was standing right on the tracks.

Finally the couple tired of France (and France tired of them in many ways), and in early 1927 they returned to the United States. First, the Fitzgeralds went to Hollywood for two months: Scott wanted to try his hand at a new business, but instead of writing a script, he became interested in the young actress Louise Moran - he would later describe her in the novel Tender is the Night in the image of Rosemary Hoyt. Their relationship never went beyond light flirting, but Zelda was so jealous that her antics amazed even the usual Hollywood.

The screenwriter's work disappointed Fitzgerald; his script was rejected. The couple moved to the town of Wilmington on the Delaware, where they continued their antics as if they were still in New York. He drank more and more, her character deteriorated more and more. She was tired of being just the wife of a famous writer - although before the wedding she claimed: “I hope I never become so ambitious as to try to create something.” Now she dreamed of becoming famous herself: to begin with, while giving an interview, she began to talk about how much Scott’s novels owed to her, and once even stated: “Mr. Fitzgerald apparently believes that plagiarism begins in the family.” She even began to write herself - she could easily write stories, essays and plays, but later she decided that there was no point in competing with famous writer on his field, and instead of literature, she became interested in painting and dancing. She dreamed of becoming a professional ballerina and dancing in Diaghilev’s troupe, and in the name of this dream (somewhat strange for a woman who first took up ballet at the age of twenty-seven) she was ready to study for days on end. Teachers said that she had a certain talent, but Scott sincerely considered his wife’s activities a waste of time and was also offended, thinking that she could not appreciate either his talent or the efforts that he had to put in to create something worthy . “Strange as it may seem, I never managed to convince her that I was a first-class writer,” he said. “She knows that I write well, but she has no idea how well... When I turned from popular writer into a serious artist, large figure, she couldn’t understand it and didn’t even try to help me.” Scott churned out story after story while his novel made little progress. After the relative success of Gatsby, which, although it sold poorly, was considered a masterpiece by critics, Scott was constantly tormented by the thought that he would never create anything worthy again. Depressive moods ate him from the inside, and he drowned his despair with alcohol. The Fitzgeralds spent the summer seasons in France: on the eve of the stock market crash, life there for Americans seemed delightfully cheap, cheerful and carefree, and this is exactly what the Fitzgeralds lacked. But Paris did not cure the blues: Scott continued to drink, and Zelda plunged headlong into ballet, their family life went wrong. Scott's relationship with Hemingway also deteriorated more and more: Fitzgerald was painfully jealous of his friend's first successes, while his own seemed to be far in the past. At this time, Zelda had her first nervous breakdown: in April 1930, she was admitted to the clinic “in a state of great excitability, having lost all control over herself.” A week later, Zelda was discharged, but soon, due to constant exhausting rehearsals, she again ended up in a hospital. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, she spent several months in a Swiss sanatorium - all this time Scott lived nearby, regularly traveling to Paris, where Scottie remained in the care of a governess. He tried to do everything for Zelda's recovery, even punched Scribner's publication of a collection of her stories, but the collection was never published. Scott was not allowed to visit his wife—the thought of her husband gave her eczema—and he begged the doctor to at least allow him to send her flowers. He felt guilty for her illness, and suffered because he could not do anything for her. In January 1931 from heart attack Edward Fitzgerald died, and Scott went to his funeral and then returned to Switzerland. He again has to work hard to pay for his wife’s expensive treatment with royalties for stories - he already received four thousand dollars for a story, but was still deeply in debt. In June her condition improved, in September she was discharged from the sanatorium, and the couple returned to their homeland. They wanted to spend the winter in Montgomery so Scott could finally finish his novel and Zelda could spend time with her parents. Judge Sayre was seriously ill, but Scott found it possible to leave his sick wife and dying father-in-law to go to Hollywood for two months. He was supposed to write the script for M.G.M. however, this time nothing worked: Zelda bombarded him with jealous letters and stories for editing, and when he finally returned, she again had a breakdown. At the Phipps Hospital in Baltimore, however, she spent her time usefully: she sculpted, painted a lot, and finally finished her novel, which she called “Waltz You Dance with Me.” Without saying a word to her husband, she sent the novel to Scribner's. Upon learning of this, Scott was both horrified and furious: in Zelda's novel there was so much from his own, not yet completed novel, Tender is the Night, and besides, he himself was brought out in an impartial form under the name of Emory Blaine (and after all, was the name of a character in Scott's novel This Side of Paradise).

“My appearance in a novel written by my wife in the guise of a colorless portrait artist,” he wrote to the editor, “with ideas drawn from Clive Bell, Léger, etc., puts me in a stupid position and Zelda in a ridiculous position. This mixture of the real and the imaginary is designed to destroy us or what remains of us both. I can't come to terms with this. I cannot allow the name of a hero I have suffered to be used to place deeply personal facts from my life in the hands of friends and enemies acquired over the years. My God, I immortalized her in my books, and her only intention in creating this faded hero was to turn me into a nonentity.

Scott forced Zelda to heavily rework the novel; however, the mere news that her novel had been accepted for publication almost healed her.

The Fitzgerald family, 1931

Scott settled in Maryland to be closer to the clinic where Zelda was being treated. He was working on a novel, caring devotedly for Scotty, messing around with the neighborhood kids, and seemed to be relatively happy for the first time in a long time. His daughter became the main meaning of his life, his only joy and hope. He raised Scottie strictly, but it was clear that he sincerely and deeply loved her. Zelda spent time alternately with her family and at the Phipps Clinic. Her novel was published, but sold very poorly; her play, produced by a Baltimore troupe, was a flop. She plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss of illness - sometimes, however, briefly emerging from there as the former carefree Zelda. Looking at her, Scott drank more and more. This made him write worse and worse, and, having received another refusal from his once devoted The Saturday Evening Post, went on a drinking binge again. There was a catastrophic lack of money. And in such an atmosphere, he finished his most lyrical novel, “Tender is the Night,” his confession and his beloved, suffering child. In October 1933, he sent the manuscript to the publishing house. Six months later the novel was published.

Critical reviews were different: some admired Fitzgerald's talent, his insight, brightness and lyricism, others criticized the novel for the absence of traces of the Great Depression, compositional looseness and pessimism. The novel was a short success among the public; after two months they forgot about the book.

Zelda poses for the cover of her first novel.

It seemed to Fitzgerald that his existence had lost its meaning: although he worked hard and fruitfully, as he had not been able to do for a long time - in a few months he created about ten stories, two scripts and a preface to the new edition of Gatsby - creativity no longer brought any joy, no satisfaction. Tired of the same themes and template plots, Scott created a series of stories on medieval themes (later he planned to create a novel based on them about a medieval knight, who, judging by the sketches, was in many ways similar to Hemingway), became interested in the theory of rugby (one day, in minutes drunken insomnia, he proposed the “two composition” system, which a few years later was almost universally accepted) and even planned to give a course of lectures in his native Princeton, but this proposal was gratefully rejected. He was ill - he developed tuberculosis, was deeply in debt and, moreover, on the verge of despair.

At the beginning of 1935, Scott organized an exhibition of Zelda's paintings in New York - although critics noted her obvious creative talent, it was clear that her mind was not all right. She tried to commit suicide by throwing herself in front of a train, and he could barely hold her back. Finally, he was forced to admit to himself that Zelda's illness was incurable. “I lost hope on the country roads leading to Zelda’s clinics,” he wrote in his diary. However, he did not stop loving her - or rather, the memory of what she was, and although he considered himself free from the obligations of marital fidelity (he even had a short but whirlwind romance with a married lady from Memphis), he still remained devoted to her.

Our love was the only one in a century,” he said. – When there was a rift in our relationship, life lost all meaning for me. If Zelda gets better, I will be happy and at peace again. If not, I will suffer for the rest of my days. Zelda and I were everything to each other, the embodiment of everyone human relations- brother and sister, mother and son, father and daughter, husband and wife.

Molly Fitzgerald died in September 1936. Scott was grieving both her death and the fact that the inheritance did not cover even half of his debts. Scott was sure he only had a few years to live. Illness, lack of money, creative crisis, alcoholism and Zelda's increasingly deteriorating condition threatened

finish it off in much more short term, only the thought of her daughter kept her from committing suicide. Scottie had a passion for literature, and her father put a lot of effort into persuading her to do something else; he didn't mind. literary career as such, but believed that it would be better if this happened later and at the behest of her heart, and not because from the very beginning she was not doing anything else.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood, 1937

Fitzgerald was on the verge of despair, but with the help of friends he found a way out of the hole into which he had driven himself. In mid-1937, his agent negotiated a contract with the studio. MGM for a thousand dollars a week: this was a lot of money for a writer who felt that he had exhausted himself to the bottom. Fitzgerald considered this contract to be the grace of God and firmly decided to do everything so that the film bosses would not be disappointed in him. Arriving in Hollywood, he settled at the Garden of Allah Hotel, former house movie star Alla Nazimova, and got to work. He stopped drinking and plunged headlong into learning all the intricacies of his new profession, pestering his neighbors with thousands of questions. Many of them still remembered Fitzgerald from his first visit to California - young, self-confident, intoxicated with his own talent, and now they watched with disappointment the aged, tired, lost all ardor Scott.

Almost from his very first days in Hollywood, Fitzgerald met the woman who was destined to become his last love. Sheila Graham, whose real name was Lily Sheil, the daughter of Jewish emigrants from Ukraine, grew up in abject poverty in London and spent her life trying to forget her childhood, full of sorrows and deprivations. She was placed in an orphanage at age six, from where she escaped at fourteen to care for her mother with cancer. At seventeen, she married an elderly, bankrupt businessman, John Graham Gillam, who helped her hone her manners, get an education and turned a blind eye to her infidelities and escapades. Lily danced in the music hall and at the same time began to be published in newspapers, and later published two novels. In 1933, she left for America, where she worked for such reputable publications as The Mirror And The Journal. At this time, she had long imagined a different life for herself: Sheila Graham called herself a descendant of an aristocratic family, talked about a rich house in London and a boarding house in France, wrote loud provocative articles and was engaged to the Marquess of Donegall. In 1935, she was sent to Hollywood to write a gossip column - in this capacity, along with the famous Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, she had unlimited power to create careers and ruin destinies. When she met Fitzgerald, she was divorced, engaged, and eager to conquer the world.

Andrew Turnbull wrote: “They... were a curious couple - a bankrupt writer and an ambitious woman who had grown up in poverty. Sheila had an easy-going personality, and in some ways Fitzgerald was lucky to be loved by such an energetic and attractive woman. In Scott's current precarious position, with his fame fading, he had no limitless options. He managed to hold her solely by charm, tenderness and understanding - she had never even suspected the existence of such a relationship.” He quickly exposed her fictitious biography, but did not turn away from her, as she feared, but on the contrary, he was moved and even said that he regretted that he did not know her earlier, when he could have taken care of her.

Sheila didn't just decorate herself last years Fitzgerald's life—perhaps the reason he lived it at all. She led a sober lifestyle and did everything to get him to stop drinking, replacing alcohol with coffee. She was a workaholic - and created all the conditions for Scott to work. She knew how to enjoy life without escapades and crazy antics, and gave this quiet and calm joy to Fitzgerald. Very soon their love grew into a passion that, at least for Fitzgerald, resembled a kind of addiction. He suffered when she left him even for a couple of hours, constantly called her and was jealous of everyone she met - without him or in his presence. Sheila, whose job required constant meetings with people, was forced to sit at home in the company of only Scott - however, she did not suffer from this (at least in words). One day, Sheila even had to go to the hospital to get an excuse not to meet with the editor-in-chief, who came specifically to meet with her from New York. However, she was happy next to him - in her own words, she “began to live when he appeared.” She even treated Scott's regular meetings with Zelda with unexpected understanding and tolerance: he spent all holidays and some weekends with his wife. Only when one day, during a vacation, Zelda began to publicly accuse him of being a dangerous maniac and forcibly holding her, Scott could not stand it and told the doctor that he was relieving himself of all obligations towards Zelda, because he could no longer properly look after her. for her, however, he still paid the bills for her treatment. “The time when I could do that has passed. Every time I see her,” he wrote to her doctor, “something happens to me that puts me in front of her in a worse, and not in a better, light. I will always have pity for her, mixed with the pain that haunts me relentlessly - pain for the beautiful child whom I once loved and with whom I was happy, as I will never be happy again.”

Turnbull Andrew