Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship

And thus we are presented with the personal letters of the two roots of modern literature, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the former's influence to be found in every Grisham book that tops the charts, the latter in his most diluted form in the paperback romance read by the housewife in Des Moines. It was inevitable that, on what starts as a fairly even friendly competition, we see Hemingway become the unreachable success and celebrity, and the communal feeling of the 20's letters gives way to silence through much of the thirties, Fitzgerald a troubled alcoholic who no one wanted much of. But Bruccoli winds us through the dead spaces, keeps us updated as to their whereabouts and gives us revelations through their letters to others (i.e. Fitz's review of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' as a tiresome boy's adventure, Hem's betrayal of Scott in 'Snows of Kilimanjaro). He does a fine, unhysterical job of setting the record straight, as the ying and yang of 20th century writing descend from friendship into the petty bitchery that plagues all us mere mortals.

It's fair to say more books have been written about F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway than either man wrote, and arguably the most fascinating topic concerns their rocky friendship.Matthew J. Bruccoli is considered the expert on Fitzgerald, having written and edited more than two dozen books on the writer. His classic, 'Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship' is the result of 15 years' research which includes a fascinating and careful analysis of a newly-released batch of Hemingway's letters to and about Fitzgerald.The book covers the length and breadth of the writers' friendship, from when they met in 1925 in Paris following publication of Fitzgerald's third and best-known novel, 'The Great Gatsby', and a year before Hemingway published his first, 'The Sun Also Rises' (thanks partly to Fitzgerald for introducing Hemingway to his publisher, Scribner's). Bruccoli covers enormous ground and in great detail, exploding many myths regarding the writers' stormy friendship up until Fitzgerald's death in 1940. He shows that while Fitzgerald was the older and more successful of the two authors at the time they met, from the beginning to the end, he assumed a subordinate role to the gregarious Hemingway. Bruccoli sums up the writers' relationship this way:"On the evidence of their correspondence, Hemingway emerges as a better friend than his self-portrait in 'A Movable Feast' shows ~ until 1936. Both men were savers and preserved most of their letters to each other. Fifty-seven letters or telegrams have been located; 28 from Fitzgerald, and 29 from Hemingway."Fitzgerald and Hemingway functioned differently as letter writers. Fiztgerald's letters are carefully written and have his characteristic warmth of expression; they have no direct connection with his literary work. Hemingway's letters are informal and discursive. In addition to imparting information, his letters document the Hemingway image. They had a literary function: Hemingway was an almost compulsive letter writer and used correspondence as warm-up or cooling-off exercises for his literary work."When it comes to relationships, writers generally have a poor score card, as Bruccoli concedes:"The mortality rate of literary friendships is high. Writers tend to be bad risks as friends ~ probably for much the same reasons that they are bad matrimonial risks. They expend the best parts of themselves in their work. Moreover, literary ambition has a way of turning into literary competition; if fame is the spur, envy may be a concomitant."In addition to analyzing anecdotes and the writers' correspondence, the book also includes a number of photos, a timeline of events covering both of their lives as well as an appendix of Fitzgerald's 'Notebooks' references to Hemingway which were printed in 'The Crack Up'.'Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship' is a detailed and exhaustive examination of the friendship of two great American writers. It offers a fresh insight into their working l

This book is a gem and should be on the reading list of any fan of Fitzgerald or Hemingway. Much of the contents are anecdotal recollections of Hemingway regarding Fitzgerald who he regarded as immensely talented but weak and dominated (by Zelda and the bottle). A variety of letters between the two help to bring to life the closeness that was in evidence in the early friendship before Fitzgerald's decline and Hemingway's enormous success (followed by his growing intolerance of the waning and less successful like FSF). This book also does not attempt to hide the sometimes incomprehensible mean -spiritedness of Hemingway when despite all his success (largely aided by the early support of others he later cast aside) still felt enough threatened to throw his drowning friends an anchor.

This has new stuff that wasn't in Brucolli's previous book on the two authors SCOTT AND ERNEST. I read that one, and when starting FITZGERALD AND HEMINGWAY, thought I'd read the same book, but with a few added facts. Well, there are tons of new facts in F & H that are EXTREMELY interesting to the Fitzgerald and Hemingway fan. I recommend this book highly. I've read much of it more than once.