Jazz Age | Turn the Page Reviews

Bookish & Not So Bookish Thought

is a weekly men hosted by Christine over at Bookishly Boisterous, where we post things that are on our minds.

I am crazy busy, so I am not sure how many actual thoughts I will be able to string together.

1. With less than 2 weeks till Christmas, I am getting run down. Somehow, I am responsible for buying ALL the gifts- my extended family, his extended family, our children. Poor hubby? He has to wrack his brain to buy for me. Nevermind all the wrapping, baking and cooking. Now add to that a snow day this Tuesday, and going away this weekend and next for some skiing, and I am thinking that I am screwed. If I don’t watch out I am going to be grumpy mess for the holidays.

2. I gave in and borrowed a copy of The Bone Season from my library. I had heard many good things, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to start a new series-this is supposed to be the first of 7. Well, I read it. And loved it. Now I have to wait for the darn author to write the next 6! Hurry up already, I want to know what happens!!!

3. As I mentioned above, it snowed and there was no school for the kids. I actually sat in my chair with a lovely wool blanket as the snow started falling aground 7 am, and read as the snow fell. It was probably the best 2 hours of my week.

4. I started skiing last year, at the age of 40+. I survived. I’m supposed to go back and do it again this weekend. I know I probably won’t die, but the thought has entered my head. Often. I am afraid of breaking something or worse. This is why you should teach these sorts of things while people are really young. I have to start thinking positive. I will not fall. I will not fall. By the way, I tend to stick to the greens- the easiest slopes-with all the little kids and beginners.

5. My blogging and reviewing has slowed down a bit, but at the same time, I am read a lot and loving it. Plus, I have taken a step back from accepting ARCS for a while and I am only reading books that I am choosing. It’s all going pretty nicely. I am hoping to get back into more blogging after the holidays, but for now I am just going with the flow.

6. I am so looking forward to joining Leah at Books Speak Volumes in a few weeks for Jazz Age January! She has invited bloggers to join along in “reading books related to the Jazz Age- novels, written by Jazz Age authors, non fiction about the 20’s and contemporary fiction set during this time period.” I wrote my thesis in History in this time period, and have always loved the literature that came out of it. Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, and then all the books that have been written about them and the decade.

Stop by if you are interested and sign up!

7. Last January, I signed up for the Goodreads 2013 challenge, and I set out to read 100 books in the year. I am at 94, and I think I am going to make it (fingers crossed).

8. This is all I want for Christmas- Jane Austen’s Persuasion Scarf. Or Pride & Prejudice. I’ll take either. But I will probably get pajamas.

And maybe a sweater.

Z- A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

published by St. Martin’s Press

2013

Summary

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who isZelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it. (from Goodreads)

My Review

The “Roaring 20’s” is seriously one of my favorite topics to read about. I did my senior thesis on this time period for my degree in History. The marriage of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda has always fascinated me. This book attempts to give us an insight into one of the most misunderstood women of the era. Zelda, while a very talented woman in her right, lived under the shadow of her famous husband.

The author begins the story in Zelda’s hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda, just 18, is a southern bell with a fiery streak. She meets Scott while he is stationed nearby, waiting to ship out and fight in W.W.I. Written in Zelda’s voice, we follow this volatile couple through their courtship, wedding, and the ensuing years. Though they are viewed as the golden couple of the Jazz Age, trouble becomes apparent. Their drinking is excessive and spending lavish. Scott lashes out at Zelda, then pulls her closer. Eventually, their relationship begins to deteriorate, but they cannot live without each other.

Ever since reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, I have been fascinated with the character of Zelda Fitzgerald. She came across in some history as the original flapper, Scott’s muse and his downfall. Hemingway clearly despised her, despite being the consummate ladies man himself. Fowler’s novel attempt to give a voice to Zelda, to show that she was not who she had been made out to be. Her portrayal of this talented, misunderstood woman, was well written and engaging. The author clearly did an amazing amount of research into the times and lives of the “Lost Generation”. I would definitely recommend this book.

“SO WE BEAT ON,
BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT,
BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST”

-last line of The Great Gatsby, inscribed on the Fitzgeralds’ headstone

rating- 4 out of 5