Hemingway Vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse into a fragile friendship...
Review:

Fitzgerald appealed to me in high school, when I was pretty much a romantic teen-ager who fancied the tragic story of Daisy and the Great Gatsby.

Hemingway was my favorite author when I was in grad school. His writing is clean, precise and open to interpretation, unlike that of other writers of his time who told you every single thing about a character's motivation.

While I've read a lot about Hemingway's life, I never realized the two men were so close during Hemingway's rise and Fitzgerald's fall in the literary world. By following their relationship through their many letters, Scott Donaldson sheds light on two distinctly different literary careers. Fitzgerald was pretty much the voice of the jazz age, while Hemingway took up the torch for the lost generation. Each had his foibles, to be sure, but it seems Hemingway was the more disciplined of the two and, as such, enjoyed a longer career.

I enjoyed the book and am happy to add it to my collection of Hemingway resources.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Great Beginning, Dissapointing Ending
Review: I feel as if I should write two reviews: one for the first 2/3 of this book, one for the final 1/3. The first part is an interesting account of the Hemingway-Fitzgerald friendship. From being expatriot friends to bitter enemies, the story is a facinating one, especially if you've read multiple works from the two Greats. Direct quotations from their letters to each other, Maxwell Perkins and other literary giants of the time make the book even more interesting.

Then they both die... and the book continues for another 100+ pages. It's as if the author realized his book was only 250 pages long and had to fill out the binding with unnecessary rehash. Obviously drinking played an important part in both writers' lives, and it was chronicled in their relationship. There's no need to devote 40 more pages to discussing their drinking further (actually, repeating the discussion would be more appropriate here)!

Ultimately, the first part is good if not amazing. It certainly isn't good enough to make up for the terribly dull ending. To be honest, I wish I'd have read a biography of each instead. Perhaps you should do the same. Even better, read their actual works!

P.S. I'm not exactly dissuading you from this book. It is well written and interesting. Just be prepared for some boring parts and an empty stomach at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Still engrossing after all these years
Review: Throughout "Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald - The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship," Scott Donaldson has both contributed to and distinguished himself from "the outpouring of biographical material that has kept them both in the public eye." This is a well-researched and fully documented discourse on the eventual reversal of mentor/novice roles and the concluding "exercise in sadomasochism" between these two giants of twentieth century American literature. Although my own studies (and the many, many research papers I've graded) on these men and their works made me hesitate to revisit it all again, I was pleasantly surprised by this fresh and very readable treatise.