This morning I was walking the shelves with a lady, making some suggestions for her book club. A couple of my suggestions, Elizabeth Strout and Elinor Lipman were swiftly rejected on the grounds of their shite covers.
So what have you read recently? I asked.
The last book was awful, she said. Really awful, I think we all hated it.
What was that? I asked.
A book by Scott Fitzgerald, she said. She mentioned the title and then told me it was dated, sexist, racist etc and etc.
I put my fist in my mouth and chewed and distracted myself by looking at the little person sitting on the wall that somebody had left as a friend for Dorothy Parker. There was absolutely nothing I could say.
I have to say, we did it for my book group and I sort of agree with her - although it's pointless trying to be revisionist about the attitudes people had in the 1920s. They just had different attitudes. Although that Hemingway - what an arse.
Posted by: lucyfishwife | July 02, 2009 at 01:47 PM
Dorothy Parker, what a lady.
As for the PC brigade and Scott Fitzgerald, I nowadays wonder what would happen if a close relative died and bequeathed their library containing a true ist Scribner's 1925 Gatsby in decent condition d/w. Would the PC brigade throw the book into recycling - such decadent literature has no place in modern society - or would they drool over the beautiful tome's worth (upwards of £100,000, even in today's market)
Posted by: Clive Keeble | July 03, 2009 at 09:49 AM
Re Fitzgerald, I have always thought that he writes - brilliantly - about misogyny but is not a misogynist.
Posted by: Marie | July 03, 2009 at 10:04 AM
This will get me in trouble, of course. But something vaguely similar comes up in Woody Allen's Manhattan. Responding to the dismissal of Fitzgerald (and Mahler, Dinesen and others)he says:
"Where the hell does a little Radcliffe
tootsie come off rating Scott Fitzgerald?"
If there's anything at all dated (or at any rate curious) about Tender is the Night, it's the psychiatrist - of all professions! - being named Dick Diver. Discus.
Posted by: chris walker | July 03, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Can we have a pic of you with your fist in your mouth?
Posted by: liZZie | July 06, 2009 at 11:38 PM
Now how bizarre - read this post last week, thought "must bone up on Tender is the Night", have had two interesting discussions this week on 'presentism' (not to be confused with presentee-ism of course) as applied to classic literature (to which I was able to use this book as an example), and then this morning had a visit from a lady tearing her hair out, desperate to remember a book from her childhold about a psychiatrist in the south of france...et voila, I am able to make someone very happy!
Posted by: Mark Thornton | July 11, 2009 at 02:22 PM
I read "Tender is the Night" a year or so ago and the only thing that genuinely upset me in the book was the hero's gradual (and finally total) disintegration. Then I read some Edith Wharton, and Henry James. And had ENOUGH of unhappy endings for a while.
Read about the *real* Divers - Sara and Gerald Murphy - in Calvin Tomkins's fine little book, "Living Well is the Best Revenge." Great book...
This comment is too long. But it's been a while. So, I just read "Fair Shares for All" and loved it. thanks for the recommendation, Jonathan.
Posted by: sarahsbooks | July 31, 2009 at 10:53 PM