Now all roads lead to France and heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead returning lightly dance.
Edward Thomas, Roads

Thursday, May 29, 2014

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Post Mortem



Source: Brucolli Collection, University of South Carolina

7 comments:

  1. A beautiful passage. Fitzgerald himself did not get to Europe during the war. In 1917 he left Princeton (where he was on academic probation) to join the U.S. Army. Fitzgerald was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry and assigned to Camp Sheridan outside of Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Zelda. The war ended in 1918, before Fitzgerald was ever deployed. After discharge, he moved to New York to work in advertising and pursue his literary career (details courtesy Wikipedia)

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    1. Interesting. I didn't realize that. Shades of The Great Gatsby there.

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  2. F.Scott was greatly influenced by a critic from Princeton, he was his "intellectual conscience". He was Edmund Wilson Jr. For some interesting reading on a Mover & Shaker in the arts of letters, do a Google search on him.
    He served with Base Hospital #36 from Detroit for a year before using political influence to become a translater at Pershing's Headquarters.

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  3. Telling that Alistair Horne used this piece as a preface to his work on Verdun. Struck me as particularly resonant in that context.

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  4. Curious how this ended up in a collection in South Carolina? I was in Asheville NC about a year ago; seeing where Zelda tragically passed away.

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  5. Might be of interest to some readers: The University of South Carolina (USC), located in Columbia, the state Capital, was also where Woodrow Wilson spent considerable time in his youth. In fact when he was 9 years old he saw Robert E. Lee in a parade there. Brucolli was a professor of English at USC, a/the recognized Fitzgerald go to guy.

    Bruccoli graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1949, and studied at Cornell University where one of his professors was Vladimir Nabokov[4] and at Yale University where he was a founder member of the fledgling Manuscript Society, graduating in 1953. He was awarded a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1960. Bruccoli, who also taught at the University of Virginia and the Ohio State University, spent nearly four decades teaching at the University of South Carolina.[2] He lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where, according to his New York Times obituary, he "cut a dash on campus, instantly recognizable by his vintage red Mercedes convertible, Brooks Brothers suits, Groucho mustache and bristling crew cut that dated to his Yale days. His untamed Bronx accent also set him apart" ...Wikipedia

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    1. Actually Wilson was 15 years of age when Robert E Lee came to town.

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