Scott Fitzgerald

Rating:
Summary: Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Review: I found Jeffrey's Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald dismaying. Not that Meyers' doesn't write well (he does), or capture the essence of Fitzgerald's dissipation, but the book seemed a deliberate hack job. It is largely a continuous stream of references to Fitzgerald's obstinacy, egotism, inferiority, outrageousness, drunkenness and worse. I don't know where anyone got the idea that Meyers' wrote with any compassion in this biography. This work only makes Fitzgerald look pathetic. Of course, in many ways he was...but I see no scholarly effort to recognize the quality and enduring value of much of his work. While they pull few punches themselves, I'd recommend Mizener's The Far Side of Paradise, and Bruccoli's Some Sort of Epic Grandeur for a more balanced perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Review: I found Jeffrey's Meyers' biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald dismaying. Not that Meyers' doesn't write well (he does), or capture the essence of Fitzgerald's dissipation, but the book seemed a deliberate hack job. It is largely a continuous stream of references to Fitzgerald's obstinacy, egotism, inferiority, outrageousness, drunkenness and worse. I don't know where anyone got the idea that Meyers' wrote with any compassion in this biography. This work only makes Fitzgerald look pathetic. Of course, in many ways he was...but I see no scholarly effort to recognize the quality and enduring value of much of his work. While they pull few punches themselves, I'd recommend Mizener's The Far Side of Paradise, and Bruccoli's Some Sort of Epic Grandeur for a more balanced perspective.

Rating:
Summary: Must read biography of Fitzgerald
Review: I've spent the last six months working my way through Scott Fitzgerald's novels and short stories. It became fairly obvious early on that a lot of what he was writing about in his fiction was autobiographical. I became interested in purchasing a biography so that I could get a feel for how much of his life he actually put into his work. I usually shy away from buying them because I find they are usually sensational or bland and almost never in between, but this book certainly runs against the norm. The many anecdotes (not all of them flattering) Meyer's includes in this biography give great insight into Fitzgerald's world and all of the inner demons that he struggled with within himself, not to mention those of his wife. Where other authors may have focused on his alcoholism, etc., Meyers never loses site of Fitzgerald, the extraordinary writer.

Rating:
Summary: Must read biography of Fitzgerald
Review: I've spent the last six months working my way through Scott Fitzgerald's novels and short stories. It became fairly obvious early on that a lot of what he was writing about in his fiction was autobiographical. I became interested in purchasing a biography so that I could get a feel for how much of his life he actually put into his work. I usually shy away from buying them because I find they are usually sensational or bland and almost never in between, but this book certainly runs against the norm. The many anecdotes (not all of them flattering) Meyer's includes in this biography give great insight into Fitzgerald's world and all of the inner demons that he struggled with within himself, not to mention those of his wife. Where other authors may have focused on his alcoholism, etc., Meyers never loses site of Fitzgerald, the extraordinary writer.

Rating:
Summary: excellent biography
Review: Meyers has an excellent biography of Fitzgerald, based heavily on letters, journals, and other writings. Meyers also gets pretty into an analysis of each of Fitzgerald's books and some of his better short stories. I will say that the first couple of chapters are slow going, but it gets better when Fitzgerald meets Zelda. And Meyers gives a pretty good portrait of her as well. This is really a first rate biography.

Rating:
Summary: A profound disappointment
Review: While a good biography should give us insight into what a person was like, Meyers apparently thinks himself qualified to tell us what Fitzgerald was thinking and feeling throughout his life, and those mind-reading attempts ring false.

Fitzgerald once said that all the characters in his novels were based on him. Meyers seems to believe the reverse - that Fitzgerald's personality can be illustrated almost entirely by the characters in his novels. Thus, Meyers provides the reader with a shallow caricature of Fitzgerald - where all his faults are enhanced and the real person underneath is passed over completely.

For a better glimpse of the person F. Scott Fitzgerald was, I strongly recommend F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters.