The Letters of F Scott Fitzgerald

The Fitzgeralds

F Scott Fitzgerald is one of those writers that can really right. You might think him flowery but somehow gets away with it. It’s too enjoyable! Fitzgerald’s novels have really stood the test of time – The Great Gatsby being his most famous. What have also appeared across the years, however, are his fantastic letters – both those written by and to him.

Some fantastic snippets that are available include praise from the likes of Edith Wharton:

“Meanwhile, let me say at once how much I like Gatsby, or rather His Book, & how great a leap I think you have taken this time—in advance upon your previous work.”

TS Eliot:

“I have, however, now read [The Great Gatsby] three times. I am not in the least influenced by your remark about myself when I say that it has interested and excited me more than any new novel I have seen, either English or American, for a number of years.”

…and Gertrude Stein:

“Here we are and have read your book and it is a good book. I like the melody of your dedication and it shows that you have a background of beauty and tenderness and that is a comfort. The next good thing is that you write naturally in sentences and that too is a comfort.”

His own letters range from complaints, “I am embroiled with the stupidest tax-collector since Louis XV”, to fantastic literary history:

“This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemingway who lives in Paris (an American), writes for the Transatlantic Review and has a brilliant future… I’d look him up right away. He’s the real thing”

My favourite, however, is probably this adorable letter written to his daughter, Frances:

Dear Pie,  I feel very strongly about you doing duty. Would you give me a little more documentation about your reading in French? I am glad you are happy—but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the printed page, they never really happen to you in life.

All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (according to your talents) and the punishments for not fulfilling your duties, which are doubly costly. If there is such a volume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a sonnet of Shakespeare’s in which the line occurs Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Have had no thoughts today, life seems composed of getting up a Saturday Evening Post story. I think of you, and always pleasantly; but if you call me “Pappy” again I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bottomhard, six times for every time you are impertinent. Do you react to that?

I will arrange the camp bill.

Half-wit, I will conclude. Things to worry about:

Worry about courage

Worry about cleanliness 

Worry about efficiency 

Worry about horsemanship…

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion

Don’t worry about dolls 

Don’t worry about the past

Don’t worry about the future 

Don’t worry about growing up 

Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you 

Don’t worry about triumph 

Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault 

Don’t worry about mosquitoes 

Don’t worry about flies 

Don’t worry about insects in general 

Don’t worry about parents 

Don’t worry about boys 

Don’t worry about disappointments 

Don’t worry about pleasures 

Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at? 

How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to: 

(a) Scholarship 

(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them? 

(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,
…

I hope you agree that his letters really are worth reading and if you do, you should pick up one of these fantastic compilations:

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters: A New Collection

Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F.Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald 

Dreams of Youth: The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald