The Disenchanted

This book, published in 1950, is the best book on Scott Fitzgerald I've ever read, and I've read the most acclaimed autobiographies. Schulberg, who is still alive at 94, by the way, as of this writing, somehow manages, with consummate skill and pathos, through the lengthy, inebriated flashbacks herein, to capture the life of Scott and Zelda at their zenith in the 1920s as no other writer (of whom I'm aware) has: "Even though he was quite sure of what was ahead, a vestigial, irremovable romanticism hurried him on. His mind's eye, incurably bifocal, could never stop searching for the fairy-tale maiden who made his young manhood such a time of bewitchment, when springtime was the only season and the days revolved on a lovers' spectrum of sunlight, twilight, candlelight and dawn." (p. 127 in my copy) Somehow, in Schulberg's short, disastrous time he spent with Fitzgerald, he came to feel a profound sympathy for the artist that time (for a time) had forgotten, so much so that he is able to cast a light on the young couple (as he transmits in the delirious flashbacks) that it's difficult to believe he was only six in 1920. None of the other reviews here comment on the effect this had on Schulberg as a man and a writer. Before he met Fitzgerald, he was a left-wing, socialist ideologue who regarded Fitzgerald and his whole generation as "decadent." He began to rethink later, to the point of "naming names" to the House Unamerican Activities Committee and to writing the award-winning screenplay for "On the Waterfront." What has this to do with his encounter with Fitzgerald? Near the end of the book is this passage: "Was it possible - and here heresy really struck deep - for an irresponsible individualist, hopelessly confused, to write a moving, maybe even profound, revelation of social breakdown?" The answer is, of course: "Yes." Until he met Fitzgerald, this would have been, well, "heresy." I have a few quibbles with the book, such as the slurred idiom he lends to the drunken Fitzgerald. It kept reminding me of the older brother, Jamie, in O'Neil's play "Long Day's Journey Into Night." But these qualms are minor compared with overall impression of the irresponsible, besotted, dying Fitzgerald unwilling to let time have its way with him, for "Lovers are their own season and their own time."

How challenging it must have been for Budd Schulberg to write about his idol(and coworker) without his crown in a sympathetic, poignant manner in the sketchy years, maligned as a drunken has-been.Those of us who have read F. Scott Fitgerald's works hunger for facts about the downslide of this artist. Though fictionalized, Schulberg creates an unforgettable figure who addresses the tragedy of the American artist in a sympathetic way. It was as if he had devoured Fitzgerald's soul and projected it through the charming prism and novelty of the "Pat Hobby Stories," into his Hollywood years with great success. When Fitzgerald(Hadley Halliday)dreams backwards or forward,longing for Zelda(Jere),you are transported as well with tremendous believability. I didn't care how long the story went, it was entirely like a dream, the way we would like to be remembered, so that when it endsd, you were left with a deep emptiness.There are so many treats in this work that capture Fitzgerald's brilliant one-liners when half-baked, as well as charming narrative runs, that there is no mistaking Schulberg's admiration.You will forget Hemingway's macho ranking. This haunting, inspired work stands as the best biography of the human F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think Budd Schulberg might have heard of John Barrymore's(Errol Flynn) jibe at critics during his downslide,"I would rather be a has-been than a never was." This book gives us proof of Fitzgerald's innocence of the charges, "A tremendous talent...you don't lose that. You just lose the way of putting it to work." This is why we see car crashes and special-effects instead of art today.

During his tragic later years, when his once stellar literary career was in shambles, his beautiful wife Zelda in a mental institution, alcoholic and reduced to a 9 to 5 screenwriter on the Hollywood conveyor belt, Scott Fitzgerald once wrote himself a postcard and mailed it to the Garden of Allah where he was staying. To me, that moment defines him. It's sad -- undoubtedly he was lonely in Hollywood, and felt his identity slipping away -- but it's also endearing too. Even in the lowest times, Fitzgerald retained his capacity for hope, never gave up the battle, as we saw in his final effort, the unfinished, but still highly satisfying "The Last Tycoon." Budd Schulberg understands this essential truth about Fitzgerald. And that's why The Disenchanted succeeds. At a time when many of his generation had forgotten or scorned the fallen Fitzgerald, Schulberg sees the diamond hidden in the wreck. And he paints a picture of both without once being patronizing or overly fawning. And I think Schulberg understood -- what many of Fitzgerald's critics don't -- how, beneath his soaring romanticism and elegant prose -- what an excellent realist Fitzgerald could be, especially when faced with overwhelming odds. But we also see his many faults -- his drinking, his self-pity, his inability to let go of the past, and inability (or refusal) to adjust to new realities. In the end, however, there is "some sort of epic grandeur," as Fitzgerald himself once put it, to these lives, something to be pitied, yes, but also wondered at, held tightly and saved. Schulberg captures it, at times almost as vividly and intensely as Fitzgerald himself. Great book.

Written in 1950, "The Disenchanted" is the thinly disguised story of F. Scott Fitzgerald in his alcoholic decline, when life had overtaken him to the point that his genius could no longer be expressed in the only way he knew how: his writing.When Budd Schulberg was at Dartmouth College, he was assigned to accompany the fabled Fitzgerald while the great man made a stab at writing a screenplay for Hollywood. As Fitzgerald afficionados well know, this humiliating attempt at regaining his literary glory was a disaster for Fitzerald, and, as we see in this fictionalized account, quite an eye-opener for the impressionable young Schulberg.What struck me most about the book was the purity of the writing, and the intensity with which the author expresses the two stories within: one about the young man's hero worship that turns to pity; the other about the disintegration of a genius. I have never again read such a moving account of the tragic relationship between Zelda and F. Scott, or the impact their relationship had on themselves and others. Because of "The Disenchanted," which I first read as a preteen, I turned to F. Scott Fitzgerald and read everything he had ever written. I believe that my understanding of his works and his life were and are rooted in Budd Schulberg's moving and brilliant book, and if I could have thanked him in person, I would have done so, a thousand times over.

I read it - and was amazed how it crept in slowly and overwhelmed me. This is the story about a writer. It is difficult to explain in a short review why this story is so fascinating, there are a lot of details involved in demonstrating author's position. The hero lives, loves, and loses his love in a most unexpected, prosaic - and that is why very life-like - fashion. Just his charming wife eventually becomes an alcoholic, a hysterical, unpleasant woman. He doesn't see the person he loves in her anymore. But he misses that person so much... This is his tragedy. But it is not the plot of the book. During the action of the book, this author, former success, but broke after Great Depression years, takes on a job writing second hand script, which he cannot even make himself to begin. He is there, among commercially oriented "artists" of Hollywood mass-production, with whom he is highly incompatible. The main plot of the book takes three or four days, but excursions into the past are numerous. During his job, the hero gets drunk (he is somewhat unbalanced one, like maybe all writers - but in constrast to his wife, "reasonably" unbalanced, like so many of us), keeps telling his story to his young collegue, and eventually dies from mixture of diabetes and frozen toes. The book is very complicated, and full of details. I do not think, the author takes any position, except one: LIFE is very complicated, full of details, full of practical irony, and it DOES NOT TAKE POSITIONS either. There is no particular plot in life, and heros turn outcasts and the other way around without any system. We people are very complicated ones, and almost noone knows his reasons for doing things - unless you believe in Freud, and even so, you can find a dozen of ways to interprete - and ingenious writers are the most complicated breed. In addition, this book is full of phrases, that can become eternal quotations. Such as (not exact quotation, just how I remember) "Never does man feel so abandoned in America, as when he goes nowhere in particular on Monday morning" I enjoyed this book a lot