The brightest writer's friendship in American literature, as strange as it may sound, is fraught with many pitfalls. Matthew Bruccoli, publisher of many works on Scott Fitzgerald, has recently begun researching the writer's friendship with his contemporary Ernest Hemingway. In his 1994 book Fitzgerald and Hemingway, a Dangerous Friendship, Bruccoli cites a passage from Hemingway's A Feast to Stay with You, according to which the writers met in Paris in 1925 at the Dingo Hotel, where a certain Duncan Chaplin.
Bruccoli goes further and claims that Chaplin was not at the hotel that day, moreover, the man was not even in Paris in 1925, and among other things, he never met Ernest Hemingway. In fact, Bruccoli provides dozens of stories from the private lives of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, which are debunked as myth as the researcher delves deeper into the study of their relationship. Like a sailor grasping the long-awaited land with both hands, Bruccoli tries with all his might to adhere to the authentic version of their shared history. This is probably why his work mainly consists of correspondence between writers, since its authenticity is not in doubt.
Above all else, Fitzgerald and Hemingway were true legends, but each in their own way. And legends always influence facts in a strange way, in much the same way as astrophysicists tell us that light begins to bend near a black hole. We, unable to verify this with our own eyes, can only believe in what we hear. Despite the obvious differences in the figures of each of the writers, it is impossible to deny the notes of amazing similarity in their destinies. First of all, their mutual and blind desire for self-destruction comes to mind, although each of them rushed towards meeting infinity at different speeds. A Holiday That Always Comes with You is especially popular for its chapters on Scott Fitzgerald, but like everything else that unites them, these passages can hardly be taken at face value. At the same time, it would be wrong to blame their content for the complete absence of true facts. 
First meeting
Fitzgerald and Hemingway actually met for the first time in Paris in 1925. By that time, Fitzgerald, three years older than his companion, was already quite a prominent writer. He had already published, if not ideal, but quite a meaningful and popular novel, “This Side of Paradise” (1920), as well as an equally successful work, “The Beautiful and the Damned” (1922). His third work and, in fact, his first masterpiece was published in the year of their meeting. By the time he met Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway only had a small collection of stories under his belt, “In Our Time,” and therefore his name was familiar to few outside the narrow literary communities of Paris. This collection was sold in small quantities - only 1300 copies.
Meeting Fitzgerald turned out to be another smile of fate for the young Hemingway. Earlier, in 1921, he had met in Chicago with Sherwood Anderson, which resulted in a letter of recommendation to Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound; now Fitzgerald himself was deeply impressed by the talent of the aspiring writer and introduced him to his editor, Max Perkins, adding that Hemingway would be an excellent find for the Scribner publishing house. If Fitzgerald did not personally raise Hemingway's star to the firmament, he at least contributed significantly to it. In the coming year, Scribner will publish Hemingway's debut novel, which opened the way for its author to the top of literary Olympus.
Origin of writers
Since then, the relationship between the two writers has become quite unusual shape. The older and more successful (at the time they met) Fitzgerald voluntarily agreed to accept the role of the “younger brother” of the stockier and more powerful Hemingway. The reason for this lies in a similar origin, but radically different characters. Both were born in the Midwest: Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota, and Hemingway on the outskirts of Chicago. Both had weak fathers and strict mothers. Scott had two older sisters who died while his mother was pregnant with him. Later another son was born, but he did not live even one hour. Hemingway grew up under the same roof with numerous sisters and dreamed of a younger brother throughout his childhood. But by the time his brother Lester was born, Ernest had long since passed adolescence. From childhood, Fitzgerald created a separate corner in his imagination for a real hero. While studying at Princeton, from which he never graduated, the writer idealized portly and strong football players, whom he could not live up to. In turn, all their acquaintances singled out in Hemingway all the above-mentioned traits of athletes, which is why both writers were perfect for each other: Fitzgerald was in dire need of a hero, and Hemingway was that very hero.
Different writers' destinies
The key element that makes it possible to draw a clear dividing line between the friendship of Hemingway and Fitzgerald is the significant difference between their writing careers, shaped by their own life circumstances. In fact, Scott Fitzgerald earned a pittance from the publication of his novels. On the other hand, by 1930 he had amassed a decent capital thanks to his writing short stories, however, later this source of income dried up for the writer. He was in dire need of money. In 1920, he married the glamorous but fickle woman Zelda, and from then on the couple became the epitome of luxury and extravagant living. In Europe they were used to living surrounded by wealth, so Fitzgerald, who wanted to write novels, was forced to write more financially profitable ones short stories, mostly of second-rate quality even in Fitzgerald's own opinion. Fate the villain turned out to be a rather whimsical lady, and therefore his bad stories sold even better than really high-quality stories.
Ironically, Fitzgerald's career as a short story writer came to a standstill the same year he met Hemingway. Thus, Scott Fitzgerald did not write a single novel for the next nine years until he finished the book "", which was considered a real failure, both by critics and by ordinary readers. According to Hemingway, the reason for this stagnation in creativity was the book “The Great Gatsby,” the success of which aroused in the author’s soul the doubt that he would never be able to write such a text again. Beginning in 1925, Fitzgerald's life became a three-way war: he battled alcoholism, his wife's constant seizures (Zelda was hospitalized for mental illness in 1930), and a foolish desire to create real novels while forced to write simple stories for newspapers to cover all the hidden costs. Later, during the period, even newspaper stories ceased to generate any worthwhile income, and Fitzgerald was forced to seek his new career in Hollywood, writing scripts for films that also failed at the box office.
Compared to such litigation, Hemingway's fate shone the most bright colors. While Fitzgerald's career began to go downhill, Hemingway was just beginning his long climb to the top. After the publication of The Sun Also Rises in 1926, Hemnguay divorced his first wife Hadley Richardson and married a rich girl, Pauline Pfeiffer. There is a place for two more spouses in his life, and on this occasion Fitzgerald made a caustic remark, saying that Ernest needs every time new wife when he writes another book. The novel "" was written on the west coast of America, where Paulina's influential uncle gave the young couple an entire mansion. Without having to write just to make a living thanks to the success of his first novel and the wealth of his second wife, Hemingway could and did allow himself to look down on Fitzgerald's newspaper work. Later, in the 1930s, Hemingway also escaped the fate of writing Hollywood scripts, in which even William Faulkner became mired. By the way, he worked on a script based on Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not,” but Hollywood is Hollywood, and in the film that was released, almost nothing remained of the original work. The year 1940 was marked by two serious events: in parallel with the death of Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway's career reached its apogee with the publication of the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. As a result, we see an example of friendship between two writers, one of whom was on the way down, and the second on the way up.
"Internecine" relations
Hemingway's attitude towards Fitzgerald in the book "A Holiday That Always Comes With You" can to a certain extent be called a mishmash of exaggerations and memories spoiled by alcohol. One of Hemingway’s biographers even suggested that the portrayal of Fitzgerald as a weak, drunk, mentally unstable man was nothing more than a deliberate attempt to “defile” his comrade after Edmund Wilson and many other critics overestimated their views in relation to creativity Fitzgerald after his death. But despite the presence of certain distortions of meaning, Hemingway was hardly the only person who found it difficult to be surrounded by Scott Fitzgerald. Charming and touching when sober, Fitzgerald completely lost control of himself and his emotions when he drank. Although one of the most famous drinkers in American literature, Fitzgerald actually did not tolerate the effects of this poison well. Ignorance of one's own measure automatically reduced the writer's authority in Hemingway's eyes, since it was prerequisite to pass his “masculinity test.” Their mutual friends, including Gerald and Sarah Murphy, also confirm the fact that Fitzgerald became uncontrollable when drunk. Hemingway even stated that at a certain period he left orders so that no one would pass on his Paris address to Fitzgerald in order to avoid his drunken visits. After spending several weekends at Scott's house in 1928, Hemingway said that fighting a bull seemed more tempting than a couple of days alone with the writer. 
Until a certain time, the relationship between the writers was quite strong, even despite the fact that Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald hated each other (Hemingway accused her of indulging Fitzgerald's weaknesses). They regularly maintained correspondence, mostly very friendly, and Fitzgerald, as a true critic, also left several pertinent comments on the novel “A Farewell to Arms,” which contributed to the formation of Hemingway’s style. Later, their relationship deteriorated somewhat. The reason for this was the publication by Fitzgerald of a number of articles in which he talks about his own failures. Hemingway was horrified by such frank confessions from his friend; he sincerely believed that each person should find solutions to his own problems on his own; all this cannot be brought to public court. In The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hemingway unambiguously reproaches his friend, who very painfully pricked Fitzgerald's soul. And later, the stream of cruel criticism from the previously friendly side did not stop: in 1934, Scott published the previously mentioned novel “ Night is tender", about which Hemingway speaks mostly negatively. To the writer’s credit, several years later he will re-read this novel and change his attitude towards it.
Friends in misfortune
Perhaps the main difference between both writers is that in the public mind Fitzgerald is more perceived as a failure. But we should not forget that Hemingway also had his weaknesses, which were pointed out by Scott Fitzgerald. For example, he was right in his judgment about the role of women in the life of Ernest Hemingway. He preferred to solve marital problems by running away from them, which is why he had four wives. Despite Zelda's severe mental illness, Fitzgerald remained faithful to her until the end of his life. In addition, Fitzgerald noted that, like him personally, Hemingway also has psychological vulnerabilities, although of a slightly different order. He attributed his problems to the realm of melancholy, while his friend was prone to megalomania. And so it turned out! By 1940, when Scott Fitzgerald died and Ernest Hemingway was at the height of his fame, none of them could have imagined that last days the second will not be much different from the death of the first. Hemingway never even mentally put himself in the awkward position that Fitzgerald found himself in in 1937 when he went to Hollywood to write screenplays. But last years Hemingway's life was haunted by the same ghosts as his friend: alcoholism, mental problems and an ever-growing anxiety that he would never again achieve his own level. He marked the chapters dedicated to Scott Fitzgerald in the book “A Holiday That Is Always With You” with the following introduction:
“His talent was as natural as the pattern of pollen on the wings of a butterfly. At one time he understood this no more than a butterfly, and did not notice how the pattern had worn out and faded. Later, he realized that his wings were damaged, and understood how they worked, and learned to think, but he could no longer fly, because the love of flying disappeared, and all that remained in his memory was how easily he once flew ... "
It was 1957 when Hemingway addressed these lines to his late friend, and, in fairness, they apply no less to their author.
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XIII
Triumph over time
In the fall of 1933, Scott Fitzgerald, having never finished his novel, launched an advertising campaign for it. Before sending the first batch for serialization to the magazine, which he and Perkins agreed on, he wrote to his editor:
“I must admit that I have to be careful in saying that this is my first book in seven years, as it may not have what a seven-year work should have. People will expect too much from it, too much volume and scope... This is my fourth novel - the story of my difficult years. It is important to note that she was not immune to depression. Or it is impossible not to note that it is connected with Americans who have gone abroad... There is no need for exclamations like: “Finally, the long-awaited one, etc.”.
The impression of the book can be expressed in the words: “Oh yes.”
Name "Night is tender" Fitzgerald took from "Ode to a Nightingale" John Keats. Perkins told James Gray of " St. Paul Dispatch" that the story describes "the glittering lives of the rich, but stupid people on the Riviera through the eyes of a simple, “green” and very young person.” The person is the young actress Rosemary Hoyt, fascinated by the attractive psychiatrist Richard Diver. Fitzgerald begins the story with a flashback to the beginning of Dr. Diver's relationship with his wife and former patient Nicole, and then moves into the conflict of the middle of the book.
“Overall the book is very good. The plot is very dense... This is the kind of story that Henry James could have written, but of course it is written in the style of Fitzgerald, not James.", Perkins wrote to Hemingway.
Max noted that this book rose from a much greater depth than the writer’s previous works, and that “Scott would never have written it if he had not had to deal with sanitariums, psychiatrists, etc., etc., in connection with Zelda’s illness.”. The novel was complex, and Perkins believed that it was not worth cutting it into pieces and publishing them in a magazine. But “Authors need to eat, and magazines need to live”. It seemed to the editor that it was his proposal to serialize the work that prompted Fitzgerald to bring it to completion: “He had to do it as soon as the contract was made.”
Scott sped up to deliver the excerpts to the magazine on time. Max couldn't wait to get his hands on the complete manuscript and publish it in book form. He suggested that Fitzgerald send the pages to the publisher in batches as they finished polishing, and Perkins would send them to the printer while the author worked on the rest. The proposal made sense, since Scott was moving very slowly. He was still his strictest editor. He checked every sentence not only for literary perfection, but also refined phrases to almost surgical precision. When it became clear that it would take many weeks before the author was satisfied with the text, Scott wrote to his editor: “After all, Max, I’m a hard worker.”
And by the spring of 1934, he completely rewrote the entire novel. Perkins received the completed manuscript and immediately began reading through it. He felt that there was some lag in the book, mainly due to the episode at the train station, which was on the periphery of the main story. He suggested that Fitzgerald consider cutting because "once people get to Dick Diver, their interest in the book and their perception of the book will increase from thirty to forty percent." Fitzgerald appreciated Perkins' advice, but was unsure how to remove the train sequence. He stated:
« I like the slow heat; he seems to have something important psychological significance, affecting not only my work, but my career as a whole. It's a damn selfish association, isn't it?»
Even when the book went into typesetting, Fitzgerald did not stop poking at it, so furiously that the proofs he proofread became black from editing. Scribners I had to run another set, and then another.
“A terrible mess,” Fitzgerald concluded as he returned the kit, but he still couldn’t stop himself. He sent Max instructions for transmitting copies of reviews to the right people, a copy of the advertisement and expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that red and yellow colors on the dust jacket are more suitable for the Italian Riviera and do not evoke associations with the white and blue sparkles of the Cote d'Azur.
“God, I feel damned bad bothering you with all this.“Scott said. – But the book, of course, contains my whole life, and I can’t help but be a perfectionist.”
Later he said:
“I have been stewing in this book and with these characters for so long that now I often feel as if real world does not exist, but there are only these characters, and no matter how pretentious it may sound(and for God's sake I have to talk about my work in a pretentious way), this is an indisputable fact - their joys and sorrows are as significant to me as everything that happens in real life.” Naturally, Fitzgerald needed money, but the remaining advances from the book royalties had already been depleted. Perkins found a way: he gave him a loan for two thousand dollars on a five percent deposit and on the condition that it would be repaid when they sold the film rights. Circulations " Scribner's Magazine"grew with each new party books "Night is tender". It was inspiring. But the return was small. Fitzgerald received the only compliments from writers and filmmakers.
"Alas, it seems I have once again written a book for writers unable to fill anyone's pockets with gold.", he wrote to Perkins.
Max hoped for more:
« If for some reason the book turned out to be above the interests of the general public - for a reason that I do not see, since I liked it incredibly - this means even more than just succes d'estime185
Success with critics, but not with the general public, that is, lack of commercial success.
" Fitzgerald eventually decided to dedicate his novel to Gerald and Sarah Murphy, who served in part as the inspiration for Dick and Nicole Diver. He wrote to Perkins: " The only thing I regret is that I cannot dedicate the book to you, as I should, because only God knows how long you stuck with me in this business in sickness and in health, and it was sick for quite a long time time».
By mid-March, the first printed version of the novel "Night is tender" was sewn and glued.
Zelda now spent several hours a day drawing pictures and reading Scott's book. To her horror, she found there an almost verbatim retelling of her own letters and a description of her own illness. And as a result, her wrinkles deepened and her lips began to tremble. Zelda agreed to art dealer Cary Rose to exhibit her paintings in the gallery, but could not cope with the preparations.
She eventually broke down and returned to Phipps Clinic. And after spending a month there without any improvement, Scott placed her in the luxurious Craig House vacation home, two hours up the Hudson from New York. Scott and his daughter arrived in New York at the end of March - for the opening of the Zelda show. Scottie stayed with the Perkinses. Zelda was released for the day for an exhibition and lunch with Max and Scott. She didn't seem healthy to the editor. Her sunken eyes glittered feverishly; the hair, once golden against the bronze skin after the sun of the Riviera, seemed mousey. The exhibition was a moderate success. Scott, oddly enough, looked better than he had in years. And Perkins wrote to Hemingway:
“I believe Scott will be able to make a full recovery with the help of Tender is the Night.” He has improved it greatly since the revision: when I read it before, it was a chaos, and he has turned it into an incredible, extraordinary work... The furnishings of his home are still poor, but he himself, as I saw, looks renewed. He has a lot of plans for further creativity“He wants to start a new novel immediately.”
That same week, Louise hosted a dinner party in Fitzgerald's honor. It was attended by Allan Campbell and Dorothy Parker, who married a year later life together, as well as Elizabeth Lemmon. It was a strange society. Scott got drunk and started going on a rampage. Dorothy Parker was overly caustic and stung everyone at the table with harsh words. Louise desperately tried to find at least something funny in all this. Max sat motionless all evening, like a board. Elizabeth looked lovely in a pale gray dress with a huge velvet rose on the front. And this is the only thing that made the editor happy. Otherwise he found nothing pleasant.
“He was uncomfortable in the company of Allan Campbell“, admitted Elizabeth. – Because he thought they were still living in sin.". At the end of the evening, Carey Ross, who had been trying to out-drink Scott, gave up and moaned on the sofa.
“I’m sure if we had met under different circumstances, we would have liked him,” Louise said generously.
“Oh Louise,” said Dorothy Parker. “You always talk as if you think God is always listening to you.” Fitzgerald was leaving New York in such confusion that he forgot to pay his bill for his room at the Algonquin Hotel. Max took care of that too.
Romance in mid-April "Night is tender" was published. Fitzgerald was worried about sales.
“The Great Gatsby’s size and focus on a male audience played against it.”, he wrote to Perkins, while this book... is a woman's book. I think, if given a chance, it can make its way as fiction sells well in the current climate.”
There were many reviews, some very favorable. Kind personal letters from James Branch Cabell, Carl Van Vechten, Sean Leslie, John O'Hara and various others from the crowd " The New Yorker" fell on Fitzgerald like flower petals. Morley Callaghan, to whom Perkins sent a copy, wrote to his editor: “This is an amazing book, a ruthless book! Looks like Scott is the only American(at least from those I know), mastering the French style of writing, is quite capable of pinpointing a character, and then giving a general impression of him, flavored with a good dose of wit, without tearing this piece out of the overall fabric of the narrative.”
Scott was pleased with the kind words, but he was very impatiently awaiting the opinion of Hemingway, who had not yet made his verdict. After several months abroad, a third of which he spent in Africa, Ernest returned to Key West. He wrote to Perkins that he hoped the novel would receive good reviews. "Night is tender". But after reading it, he formed his own opinion. He believed that the novel had both the brilliance and the flaws inherent in all of Fitzgerald's work. His cascades of phrases are magnificent, all hidden beneath the surface, behind "the tattered Christmas decorations that constitute Scott's vision of literature."
Ernest believed that the characters suffered from their own youth, that even Scott’s stupid romantic ideas about them and about himself make it clear that the creator emotionally knows nothing about his heroes. Hemingway noted that Fitzgerald, in putting Gerald and Sarah Murphy to paper, for example, emphasized “their voices, their house, and how beautiful they looked.” And then he simply turned them into some kind of romantic figures, without fully understanding them. He made Sarah a psychopath, then Zelda, then Sarah again, and "eventually nothing." Likewise, Dick Diver did things that happened to Scott, but that Gerald Murphy would never stoop to.
Perkins agreed with Hemingway's comment about Fitzgerald's attempt to cling to youthful dreams, but also believed that "the magnificent work he did was a product of youthful romanticism." Max saw Scott in Baltimore and discussed the matter with him. He explained to Hemingway:
“There are some fundamental questions about which he has a lot of very strange and incredible ideas. This has always been his spirit. But I think I understood something. Yes, he is a 35-36 year old man with a huge talent for writing, and he is in a state of complete hopelessness. But it is useless to talk to him about it directly. The only way to get through is to go through a roundabout route that someone smarter than me can find.”
"Night is tender" became a bestseller in New York for a very short term, but national sales barely reached the ten thousand mark, which was nowhere near comparable to several other novels. For example, a book "Anthony is unhappy"186
original name "Anthony Adverse". It was filmed in 1936 (the film won four Oscar awards). Not translated into Russian.
Hervey Allen sold nearly a million copies between 1933 and 1934. Fitzgerald was able to overtake even less famous writer Perkins. Stark Young, after a series of unsuccessful books, created, under the auspices of Max, a novel about the old South, which was called "So Red is the Rose".187
original name "So Red the Rose". In 1935 it was filmed. The book has not been translated into Russian.
It became one of the most talked about books of the year. Fitzgerald fell deeper and deeper into debt. He took Zelda from "the pawn shop of that exorbitantly expensive clinic" in New York and sent her to Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital on the outskirts of Baltimore. She was practically in a stupor. To meet Fitzgerald's immediate needs, Perkins squeezed out Scribners another six hundred dollars as an advance on the next collection of stories. Preparing this book for publication turned out to be more difficult than Perkins and Fitzgerald expected. Many of the stories in the collection were created just during the final preparation of the novel, and Scott “exposed and wounded” their strongest parts in order to fill weak spots "Night is tender". Because the novel went through so many changes, Fitzgerald couldn't remember what ended up being the same and what wasn't. It was necessary to leaf through the novel to understand which phrases from the collection had already been used in it. Perkins said he saw no reason why the author couldn't repeat himself from time to time, as Hemingway did, and Scott accused him of "hypocrisy":
“Each of us has our own strengths, mine is a heightened sense of precision in work. He can afford to sag storyline, which I cannot allow, and in the end I must be the final judge of what is acceptable in such situations. Max, I repeat for the third time, this is by no means a question of laziness. It's entirely a matter of self-preservation."
Four months later, while Fitzgerald was still combing the novel for sentences he could steal from himself, Scott wrote to Perkins:
“I know that several people have already read my book a couple of times, and I think there is nothing that irritates or frustrates a reader more than an author who uses the same phrase over and over again, as if his imagination has become exhausted.”
To cope with his debts, Fitzgerald returned to writing short stories for " Saturday Evening Post“, but after a few weeks I overstrained myself and fell ill. In his “Report” he noted: “Difficult times are beginning for me.” While he was recovering, Thomas Wolfe sent him a warm letter about "Night is tender".
“Damn thank you for your letter, it came at a difficult moment and that made it even sweeter. I was glad to hear from our common father, Max, that you are soon going to publish new book», Fitzgerald replied.
But, as in the case of the collection, it was much easier to achieve this in words than in reality.
Elizabeth Nowell, Wolfe's new agent, said:
"In the publishing world, the novel unknown writer- This is an extremely difficult thing to sell. The only thing that can be even more difficult is to publish an author who has already had some success, but who, due to lack of work, has become a has-been for readers.” Since the novel "Look at your home, angel" Perkins' main concern was Wolfe's career. Perkins was powerless to accelerate its development until the second book hit the press. For several months, Tom twisted the events of his life into the book with such fanaticism that Perkins began to worry that the writer would drive himself to exhaustion. He also feared that if Wolfe continued working, his book would not fit between the covers. The manuscript was already four times the size of the rough version "Look at your home, angel" and ten times greater than any other novel. And Wolfe also added fifty thousand words every month. And for the benefit of the author himself, Perkins thought about radical measures. By the end of 1933, Tom's tension, growing like a mountain, led to insomnia and nightmares in which the writer was tormented by guilt.
He later said this in an article for "The Carolina Magazine":
“He was choked by everything: time, his old enemy, the volume and complexity of the material, constant and not always pleasant questions from people about how the work on the new book was progressing, plus financial pressure.”
Perkins was convinced that Wolfe was on the verge and feared that he might go crazy. One day, standing in the common room of the editorial office, Max, shaking his head, announced to his colleagues:
“I think I need to take this book from him.” Wolfe clearly remembered Perkins' actions.
"In mid-December that year, – he wrote in an essay "Stories of a Novel", – the publisher, who had been silently watching me throughout this terrible period, invited me to his home and calmly informed me that my book was finished.”
Wolfe also recalled his reaction:
“At first I could only look at him dumbfounded, and then with deep despair I replied that he was mistaken, that the book was still not finished, that it would never be finished and that I could not write anymore. He replied with the same quiet inflexibility that the book was finished, whether I knew it or not, and then told me to go to the room and put in order the manuscript materials that had accumulated over two years.
Tom obeyed. He spent six days on his knees in his apartment, surrounded by mountains of paper. On the night of December fourteenth, at about half past eleven, Wolfe arrived to meet Perkins. He was late, as usual. He entered the office and placed a heavy package on the table. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, the package was two feet tall. Perkins opened it and found a typewritten text, about three thousand rough pages - the first part of the novel. Sheets various types the papers were not properly numbered, since the chapters were written out of order.
“God knows, it was all still terribly fragmentary and disjointed, but in any case, now he could look at it and express his opinion.”, Tom explained later in a letter to his mother.
“You often repeated that if I give you something that you can pick up and appreciate, you will join in the work and help me get out of the thicket. Well, here's your chance. I think we both have a desperate job ahead of us, but if you tell me this job is worth it and tell me to keep working, I think there will literally be nothing I can't handle... But I don't envy you about that work that lies ahead of us", Wolfe wrote to Perkins the next day. Despite all the rhymes and chants that Perkins called “dithyrambs” and which pierced the entire manuscript like marble veins, Tom noted:
“When I get through this, you will see the many intertwining plots of this book, or should I say when you get through this, since I am ashamed to admit that I need your help now more than ever.”
Wolfe was speaking literally, and Perkins knew it. A few years later, in his article for " The Carolina Magazine"Perkins explained what was at the root of this task:
“I, a man who thought Tom was a genius and also loved him, was unable to bear his failure and was almost as desperate as Wolfe at how much there was to do. But the point is that if I did him any good - and I did - it was that I tried to keep him from losing faith in himself, because I believed in him. What he really needed was teamwork and understanding of his long-term crisis - all that I could give him.” A few years later, Max wrote to John Terry:
“I swore to myself that I would do it even if it killed me, just like Van Wyck Brooks said one day when I left lunch early and went to the office to meet Tom.” Two days before Christmas 1933, Wolfe delivered the remaining pages. Max had already read most of them in short passages over the past years. And for the first time, he could finally familiarize himself with them in the proper sequence. Wolfe subsequently noted in "Stories of a Novel", that once again his intuition did not let his publisher down:
“He was right when he said I finished the book. It was not ready in a form that could be published or read. It was not even a book, but the skeleton of a book, but for the first time in four years this skeleton was finally assembled. I was like a drowning man who, on his last legs and in a mortal struggle, suddenly feels the ground under his feet again. My spirit soared with the greatest triumph I have ever felt."
Reading the million-word manuscript, Perkins discovered that it included two distinct cycles—one chronological and one thematic. The first, as Wolfe later noted and formulated, "was a movement describing the period of wandering and hunger of human youth."
It was a story that grew out of the idea that "every man seeks his father". Her hero was again Eugene Gant, trying to find himself. This cycle was called "About Time and the River". Another "described a period of greater confidence and was dominated by unity of passion." It was the George Webber story, still called "October Fair". The second part was relatively complete, but the author agreed with the publisher that other material should be published first, thereby continuing the odyssey of Eugene Gant.
Assuming that the book could be published in the summer of 1934, Perkins and Wolfe began working on Scribners two hours daily, Monday to Saturday. Max researched the material and realized that he would like to see it in two versions. Half "About Time and the River" was finished but needed to be shortened. The other half needed to be written. They argued every day. Perkins insisted that it was the author's duty to be selective in the writing process. And Wolfe stated that the main task the author’s goal is to illuminate the reader’s whole life as it is. Once the manuscript's first hundreds of puzzles were put together, Perkins realized it would take several more months before the manuscript was ready for publication. They decided to work in the office at night, six days a week.
Sometimes Perkins wrote short instructions directly on the pages: “Insert passage on the train” or “Finish with Leopold.” Other instructions were more detailed.
LIST OF THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE URGENTLY, IN THE FIRST EDITION:
1. Make the rich man from the introduction older, middle-aged.
3. Completely write out all the dialogues from the prison scene and the arrest scene.
4. Use material from Man on the Wheel and Abraham Jones 188
Here Perkins refers to passages of Woolf that were ultimately left out of the novel and that the collector William B. Wisdom gave to the Harvard Library (Houghton Library). Excerpt with subtitle "Man on a Wheel: the first part of the third section of K-19" not included in Wolfe's second novel "About Time and the River", but material from it was used by the author. Excerpt "Abraham Jones" also linked to novel chapters "About Time and the River".For the first year in the city and all the scenes from the university.
5. Tell the story of love attraction from beginning to end, starting with meeting the woman, etc.
6. Diversify the scenes of jealousy and madness with a large number of dialogues with the woman.
7. Use the description of the journey home and the bustling city scenes from Man on Wheels. You can also use these scenes to tie into the train station scene. Play with his desire to return home, his feelings of homesickness and restlessness, and then you can develop the idea that his hometown has become unfamiliar and strange and that he has come to think that he can no longer live there.
8. A possible ending to the book could be a return to the city, the scene with the man in the window and the idea that “some things never change.”
9. Regarding the “night scene” that precedes the station, write down all the night’s dialogues and events, including the death scene in the subway.
10. Cut out the daughter reference.
11. Complete all possible scenes with dialogues.
12. Add scenes of childhood memories additional stories and dialogues.
Wolfe and Perkins spent almost all their time together, and rumors about their work spread throughout New York. They became the subject of ridicule at almost every literary gathering.
"Maxwell Perkins, editor of Scribners, is a man with a legitimate right to express his grievances, wrote critic John Chamberlain in "The Book of All Times".189
original name "Books of the Times". Published in 1935, not translated into Russian.
– It is said that Mr. Perkins and Thomas Wolfe fought almost hand-to-hand for three days, making every effort, over the phrase that needed to be cut. And that trucks are seen delivering Wolfe's manuscripts right to the doors of Scribners."
Most of these stories were filled with fantasies, some were complete lies.
In the spring of 1934, Wolfe decided: let his new typist, who could even make out what Tom himself called "my confused Chinese", will retype everything that remains in the manuscript so that Max “saw the whole work as completely as possible.” This was a necessary step. Tom confided to his friend, writer Robert Reynolds: “I guess I can’t tell which one is mine anymore.”
“God only knows what I would do without him. I once told him that when the book came out, he would be able to claim that it was the only book he had ever written himself. I think he pulled me out of my mire with sheer strength and calm determination.”
Perkins and Wolfe struggled with the novel throughout the spring.
"I cut and cut her cruelly, wrote Max to the Frere-Reeves publishing house in London. – But then, of course, I’ll discuss everything with Tom.”
Chapter by chapter - Max often marked their endings - they checked every paragraph and every sentence.
“For me, cutting has always been the most difficult and frustrating part of writing.”, noted Wolfe in "Stories of a Novel". Perkins brought to the work an objectivity and sense of perspective that Wolfe lacked.
Max started with the scene that topped Tom's stack of pages. The scene began from the moment at which the romance was interrupted "Look at your home, angel" Eugene Gantt, who was about to set out for the Harvard hills, stood on the platform railway station Altamont and said goodbye to his family. This scene included more than thirty thousand words.
Perkins told Wolfe that it needed to be compressed to ten thousand. IN " Harvard Library Bulletin he recalled saying to Tom:
“When you're waiting for a train, there's a certain anxiety about it. Something has to happen. I think you need to endure exactly this feeling and not drag it out into thirty thousand words.”
Perkins noted material that might be suitable, showed it to Wolfe, and he understood what the editor meant. Tom later wrote to Robert Reynolds:
“This pruning makes me suffer, but I understand that it needs to be done. It's terrible when you have to throw away something good, but as you probably know, sometimes even the best things just don't have a place in the overall scheme of a book."
As with the novel "Look at your home, angel" Perkins said in his Harvard article:
« There wasn't a single cut that Tom didn't agree with. He knew pruning was necessary. His whole impulse was the desire to express his feeling, and he did not have time to redo something and compress».
But it wasn't just the large number of completed scenes that made it difficult to shorten the book. Another problem was what the author himself described as attempts “to reproduce in the scene the flow of life’s canvas in all its immensity”. In one part of the book, for example, four people talk to each other for four hours straight. Nonstop.
“Everyone was a good storyteller; most often they either spoke or tried to speak at the same time.”, wrote Wolfe. The expression of all their thoughts took the author eighty thousand words - two hundred printed pages for a tiny scene in a truly gigantic book. Perkins made Tom understand that, "no matter how good this scene is, it is wrong and should go". Tom, as always, argued, but in the end agreed.
Hemingway invited Perkins to Key West, but Max did not want to leave New York.
"I am still engaged in a life-or-death battle with Mr. Thomas Wolfe, he explained. – And it will most likely last until the summer.”
Max also wrote to Florida to another of his authors, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings:
“If we work at this pace for the next six weeks, the book will be almost ready. At least I will know for sure whether at least a third can be sent to print. But Tom keeps threatening to return to the beginning, to the first part, and if he does this, I don’t know what will happen as a result. Perhaps we will start the whole struggle again. It became an obsession for me when you know that something needs to be done, even at a cost own life».
Now Tom and Max even worked on Sunday evenings. Sometimes Wolfe would move his chair to the corner of Max's desk and frantically write down all the lines needed to connect the passages. The editor sat at his side of the table, facing Tom, and slowly read the main text of the manuscript. He made notes in his own, very battered notebook. Every time Perkins crossed out a whole page from corner to corner, he noticed Tom's eyes following his hand. Wolfe winced as if Max was crossing out not the paper, but his own skin. Perkins would look at his notes, cough, and then say:
– I think this part can be crossed out.
After a long, sullen pause, Wolfe answered:
– I think she’s good.
“I also think she’s good, but you already expressed this thought earlier.”
- It's not the same thought.
One summer night, Tom, after an argument about one big stage, which needed to be removed, took a close look at the rattlesnake skin hanging from under Max's hat and coat on the hanger and said:
- Aha, here it is - a portrait of the publisher!
Having laughed at this, Tom and Max called it a night and went to Chatham Walk, the outdoor bar area of the Chatham Hotel, and chatted under the stars for about an hour. Convincing Tom of the need for cuts was just one of Perkins' tasks. Wolfe highlighted the empty spaces left by the removal of passages and now tried to compensate for these early losses by covering them up with verbosity. For example, when they came to the episode where the main character's father dies, Max said that we need to write about it. Since Eugene had been at Harvard all this time, the editor said, Tom need only mention the shock of the news, and then describe the hero's return home for the funeral. Perkins decided that all this could be contained in five thousand words. Tom agreed with him.
The next evening Wolfe brought back several thousand more words describing the life of the doctor who visited old Gant.
“That's pretty good, Tom,” said Perkins. – But what does this have to do with the book? You describe Eugene's story, what he saw, his experience. We can't waste time on everything that lies outside of this story. Tom agreed again, and the next evening brought another long passage about Eugene's sister, Helen, telling of the girl's thoughts while she was shopping in the Altamont stores, and then how she, lying in bed that evening, heard the train whistle.
Hemingway and Fitzgerald became friends in Paris in 1925. Creative ambitions and alcohol were their common points of contact. Otherwise they were complete opposites.
They were as different as two people can be from each other. But they had common points of contact: alcohol and creative ambitions. This brought them closer, forcing them to think and feel the same way, although they expressed it differently.
They first met in 1925 in Paris, at the Dingo Bar in the Montparnasse quarter. Scott was at the height of his early fame. He ordered a bottle of champagne and exuded delight about latest works your new friend. But Hemingway did not like this meeting very much, since he was experiencing hellish torments while publishing his first short stories, and considered himself still incapable of writing at least some decent novel. This premature admiration seemed inappropriate to him.
In contrast, Scott Fitzgerald was already an established writer, with a halo of fame from his novel "This Side of Paradise" and besides, he was actively working on "The Great Gatsby." By the way, Scott read this manuscript of his to Ernest a few days later on the terrace of the Closerie de Lilas after a couple of glasses of whiskey and soda.
Parisian "Dingo Bar" in the Montparnasse quarter. Today, in its place is the Italian restaurant Auberge de Venise.
Francis Scott Kay Fitzgerald was born in 1896 into a petty bourgeois family from St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota. He received his triple name in honor of a distant relative who wrote the words of the American National Anthem.
Fitzgerald was smug and proud, but socially he could be pleasant, charming and humorous. He became unbearable when he drank, and he drank constantly. Along with whiskey, Fitzgerald was especially fond of Gin Rickeys (sparkling water, gin and lime), thinking that the mixture would stop him smelling like alcohol.
In fact, despite all the Gin Rickeys and whiskey and sodas, Scott Fitzgerald spent his entire life feeling like an alien who had no place among ordinary people. While studying at the prestigious Princeton University, quickly falling out with other students, he began to dream of a life full of fame and success. He has been writing since childhood, in particular, composing poetry. His novel "This Side of Paradise" published in 1919, put him at the forefront of new American writers. Ironically, his first novel turned out to be his last great success.
As a young man, Scott was poor but had a lot of promise, which helped him marry Zelda Sayre, who was called "America's first Bachelorette." But 1919 was also the year of the introduction of Prohibition in the United States, so Scott Fitzgerald hastened to leave the country in which he could not celebrate his success either with dignity or legally. So, together with Zelda, he sailed to Europe, where his friendship with Hem began at the Dingo Bar in Paris.
Scott and Zelda
SCOTT and ZELDA: RIVAL LOVERS
The relationship between Scott and Zelda has always been strange. A relationship marked by alcohol, literature and madness. Zelda alternated between becoming a ballerina and a novelist until it became clear that she suffered from schizophrenia. When Zelda finally published her novel "Save me, waltz" Scott was outraged to see episodes from his own life in it, but forgot that he did the same thing in the novel "Night is tender". So, with a great deal of rivalry, this couple existed, reconciling with the help of alcohol. However, Hemingway, who hated Zelda, said that she was happy when Fitzgerald drank, because she knew that the next morning he would not sit down to write.
The legendary couple, Scott and Zelda, were present at all the celebrations: from New York to the Italian Riviera, including Paris and the Cote d'Azur.
Early success hit their fragile minds like champagne overflowing a glass and spilling onto the tablecloth.
Everyone experiences an age in their life when everything seems easily accessible and eternal. Champagne helps prolong such moments. But this only makes the aftertaste harsher.
ERNEST AND SCOTT: A BITTER FRIENDSHIP
The friendship of Ernest and Scott was as real as the friendship of two men who are opposite in every way can be. Scott emphasized how significant Ernest's friendship was to him. And Hem appreciated Scott's help, in particular when he advised him to rewrite the beginning of his first novel "And the sun rises."
But it was a friendship saturated with cynicism and bitterness. Each of them envied the other what he lacked. One - strength, the other - special sensitivity. Hemingway loved boxing because it allowed him to settle scores with (former) friends. Fitzgerald saw him only as possible way suicide. Being rising star, Hemingway accumulated successes, establishing himself as outstanding writer XX century. Scott wrote novels that remained incomprehensible to the public, sales of which were falling, which inexorably led him from failure to failure, but, at the same time, from masterpiece to masterpiece. From "The Great Gatsby" before "Night is tender", he left us outstanding literary heritage, where disappointment coexists with childish naivety, and expectations from life coexist with broken hopes.
“Life is a collection of accidents,” Fitzgerald once said, which was fully justified in his future fate.
LIFE AS A NOVEL
Zelda's madness manifested itself in 1926. Scott died due to a heart attack caused by his mistress at the age of 44. The following phrase is attributed to him: “Life is a collection of accidents.” It cannot be said that he was wrong, especially in relation to his own fate. Zelda survived him by eight years and died in a fire in a mental hospital.
“Ernest has all the possibilities that lead to success, and I have all those that lead to failure,”- Fitzgerald said shortly before his death. However, his works remain surprisingly modern and lively.
Magazines of the time liked to compare the fate of these two literary giants to a boxing match. A fight in which Hemingway constantly knocked Scott down, but he stubbornly got up. But for those who love literature, there is no winner between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, since there was no duel. They were both great because their lives were like their novels. Why do both Hemingway and Fitzgerald continue to fascinate us? Because they didn't lie. They themselves were the heroes of their lives. They lived just like their heroes. They suffered, drank and loved in exactly the same way as their characters lived, loved and suffered. And, of course, each of them died like the hero of his own novel.
Rob Roy (scotch, red vermouth and bitters) is both authentic and sophisticated. Sturdy and refined. You could say Hem and Fitzgerald in one glass. By the way, according to Gregorio Fuentos (captain, cook and bartender of Hema on his boat “Pilar”), Dewar’s was one of the writer’s favorite whiskeys.
DRINKING WHISKEY LIKE HEMINGWAY DID
Hem, like Fitzgerald, drank whiskey in many ways to vary his enjoyment. Whiskey and soda was one of their favorite drinks. It was while drinking whiskey and soda that Fitzgerald read the manuscript to Hem. "The Great Gatsby" on the terrace of the cafe "Closerie de Lila".
Recipe: Stir in a highball glass filled with ice. scotch whiskey Dewar's and soda to taste.
Whiskey is the most mentioned alcoholic drink in Hem's books. When the writer finally moved to America at the end of his life, and doctors forbade him to drink, he nevertheless allowed himself a glass or two Scotch with lime . He borrowed this method of drinking whiskey from the Daiquiri cocktail and from the locals of the Caribbean islands, who squeeze lime juice into it before drinking rum.
Recipe: put a few ice cubes in a rocks glass, squeeze the juice from half a lime and put the peel into the glass, add Scotch whiskey Dewar's(60 ml), stir.
Finally, a cocktail "Rob Roy" combines Hem's favorite drinks: red Italian vermouth and scotch.
Rob Roy is an authentic and at the same time sophisticated drink. In a way: Hem and Fitzgerald in one glass.
POST 5:
POST 6: "HEMINGWAY AND FITZGERALD: FRIENDSHIP, RIVALRY AND A LOT OF WHISKEY »
HAM and FITZ: A Tale of an Enduring Friendship Scott Donaldson, author of the recent English book The Rise and Fall of a Writer's Friendship, has been writing about Fitzgerald and Hemingway for fifty years. In this book, he made a key conclusion about...
HAM and FIC: a story of strong friendship
WITH Cott Donaldson, author of the recent English book The Rise and Fall of a Writer's Friendship, has been writing about Fitzgerald and Hemingway for fifty years. In this book, he made a key conclusion about the relationship between the two geniuses: “Hemingway felt the need to strike blows at his former friend to about the same extent that Fitzgerald wanted or felt the need to feel pain.”
Fitzgerald was three years older than Hemingway and gained fame before him by publishing The Great Gatsby. When the two writers first met in April 1925 at the Dingo bar in Paris, Hemingway's star had not yet risen. They instantly became friends and went to Lyon, taking five bottles of Macon with them in the car. Fitzgerald “had fun like a girl,” Hemingway recalled that day.
In friendship, as in love, one always adores, and the other allows himself to be adored. Fitzgerald was behind Hemingway in size, was not hardened by war and suffered from almost all neuroses. “Sissy” (sissy - English) - perhaps this was the most affectionate word of those rude words that Hemingway did not skimp on when speaking about his admirer.
And also - handsome, coward and butterfly.
Apparently, in response to this “affection,” Fitzgerald introduced his friend to the famous publisher Maxwell Perkins, writing: “This is real talent.”
Fitzgerald lent Hemingway money and gave him several very important advice, after reading his “The Sun Also Rises” (Hemingway subsequently carefully refuted this version).
At the same time, Fitzgerald succumbed to the “terrible onslaught” of Hemingway’s style.
Over the next five years, Hemingway's fame grew. And Fitzgerald tried in vain to create a successor to The Great Gatsby, writing short stories for magazines with glossy covers in between attempts. He and his wife Zelda made downsizing their lives their purpose. Fitzgerald did not let go of the glass and died when he was only 44 years old.
Zelda went crazy and spent many years in a mental hospital.
Unlike Hemingway (who had four wives), Fitzgerald was unable to get rid of Zelda. And Hemingway believed that this was weakness. “Poor old Scott,” Hemingway said, “he should have gotten Zelda off his hands five or six years ago, before she went crazy.”
Hemingway also pitied Fitzgerald because he couldn’t drink. Hemingway did not condemn those who drink. “A man does not exist until he is drunk,” he said. But you need to drink like a man, not like a girl on the day of your first date.
But the main thing Hemingway criticized Fitzgerald for was the lack of discipline necessary for an artist. “He wrote cheap nonsense too often,” “he was a charming golden talent wasted.”
During the latter part of their relationship, they communicated primarily through Perkins. The pendulum, after swinging for 15 years, returned to its original position. “Hemingway is the best writer in the United States today,” Fitzgerald wrote at the end of his short life. “I wanted to be the best writer in the United States and I still want to be that.” But his last fee was $13. “My God,” he stated, “I am a forgotten man.”
There is one plot that is invariably repeated in all stories about the relationship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Hemingway himself expounded it with particular pleasure in his autobiographical story “A Holiday That Is Always With You.”
Fitzgerald allegedly complained to Hemingway that Zelda was unhappy with his penis (too small). Hemingway took him to the men's room (it was in a restaurant) and “examined him.” “Not that small at all,” he said.
And then Hemingway took Fitzgerald to the Louvre. And the two greatest American writers spent several hours of our time carefully measuring penises greek statues. Donaldson considers this plot to be an invention of Hemingway himself. He liked to hang Fitzgerald on the wall as a trophy next to the other trophies of his super-potent manhood.
Both great American writers drank immoderately, using the bottle as a weapon against depression. But Hemingway had a vest of character, he led a healthier lifestyle and was less vulnerable. But he couldn’t stand the fight with alcohol either.
Fitzgerald wrote his own epitaph: “I was drunk for many years and then I died.”
"No matter who wins the title fight best writer of their generation - Hemingway or Fitzgerald, unfortunately, both lost the battle with alcohol, - Donaldson summed up his resume. “Alcohol never loses.”