by Mona Finston (Tue Nov 17, 2009)
I often think that I was born several
decades too late. I was not terribly comfortable coming of age in the 1960s,
and 1970s, when Timothy Leary urged us all to ‘turn on, tune in and drop out,'
and ‘free love' seemed to come at a price.
Instead, I longed for the era when
Cole Porter wrote about how a ‘a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something
shocking.' I loved the music, the wild abandon and the clothing (especially the
clothing) associated with the 1920s - at least the 1920s as described by writers
like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Women were flappers, free and unbridled. Men were
dapper and everyone engaged in carefree, clever banter. They all appeared so
civilized and sophisticated (that is - when they weren't busy shooting each
other down or passing out dead drunk from illegal alcohol). It seemed a time of
great creativity and a cultural melding of the great cities of the U.S. and
Europe - and Zelda Fitzgerald was my hero.
Perhaps that's why, in 1975, when I walked
down the aisle, it was not in a frilly white gown and stiff veil, but in an
off-white suit of chiffon with hand-painted roses covering the sheer jacket and
voluminous palazzo pants. On my head was perched a straw hat with the most
enormous brim in creation. I was told that, on that day, I looked like Daisy
Buchanan, Fitzgerald's heroine from The Great Gatsby, meaning that I also
resembled the woman on whom Daisy was based - Zelda Fitzgerald.
I first read ‘Zelda,' by Nancy Milford, in
the early 1970s. It was the book that hooked me forevermore on biographies and
I was eager to revisit it 35 years later. When I finally located a copy of the
book, I noticed immediately that either this reprint used tiny type or that my
eyes had gotten considerably worse. I
donned my reading glasses and jumped back into a world that I'd romanticized, I
came to discover, almost beyond recognition.
Using personal letters and first hand
accounts, Milford wove a compelling tale of a woman who had great potential. Even
as a child, she commanded attention with her dancing and her demeanor. As an
adult, she was fearless, desired and unattainable. An adventurer. Described as ‘audacious.'
All the things I longed to be. Zelda was wooed by many and ultimately won by F.
Scott Fitzgerald. She soon became the inspiration for many of his characters. In
fact, he used episodes from Zelda's life so often and in such great detail that
they virtually ceased to be her own. As a budding novelist herself, Zelda often
battled with her husband for the right to write about her own experiences. She
usually lost. Her career, and her life, always came second to her husband's,
leaving her frustrated and searching for her own successes, often in
desperation. She needed to find an identity
of her own - apart from the one crafted for her by Fitzgerald - but never
really did.
The book chronicles the couple's volatile
relationship - their famous friends (Hemingway, to name one), the glamour,
globetrotting, fighting, boozing (incredible bouts of drinking) and betrayals. It
brings you right into their world through the letters penned by Zelda to Scott
and vice versa as well as those written by close friends. Woven together, you
get an intimate look at a time and place, inhabited by two remarkably unstable
personalities. Ultimately, ‘Zelda' is the story of a woman's horrible descent
into mental illness; a woman who was idolized by others for the life they
thought she led. Zelda's life, however, which seemed so full of possibility at
the start, turned out to be a horror, ripping her from her husband and child
and placing her in a series of clinics and mental hospitals.
Rereading ‘Zelda' made me wonder what I'd
gleaned from the book 35 years ago. It seems that my young self saw the
romance, the glamour - but little else. Who knows - maybe I even thought that a
descent into madness was somehow romantic and exciting. I can only say now that
I'm glad I no longer have those palazzo pants and hat hanging in my closet - for
they would only remind me of a tragic story of potential unrealized and a mind
sadly wasted.
