A Life in Letters
Page 19
June 1929
AL, 9 pp. John F. Kennedy Library
Paris
114–121 is slow + needs cutting—2 it hasn’t the incisiveness of other short portraits in this book or in yr. other books. The characters too numerous + too much nailed down by gags. Please cut! There’s absolutely no psycholical justification in introducing those singers—its not even bizarre—if he got stewed with them + in consequence thrown from hospital it would be O.K. At least reduce it to a sharp + self sufficient vignette. It’s just rather gassy as it is, I think.
For example—your Englishman on the fishing trip in T.S.A.R. contributes to the tautness of waiting for Brett. You seem to have written this to try to “round out the picture of Milan during the war” during a less inspired moment.
(Arn’t the Croats Orthodox Greeks?1 or some Byzantine Christian Sect—Surely they’re not predominantly Mohamedens + you can’t say their not Christans
122ect2
In “Cat in the rain” + in the story about “That’s all we do isn’t it, go + try new drinks ect,”3 you were really listening to women—here you re only listening to yourself, to your own mind beating out facily a sort of sense that isn’t really interesting, Ernest, nor really much except a sort of literary exercise—it seems to me that this ought to be thoroughly cut, even rewritten.
(Our poor old friendship probably won’t survive this but there you are—better me than some nobody in the Literary Review that doesn’t care about you + your future.)
P. 124 et sequitur4
This is definately dull—it’s all right to say it was meant all the time + that a novel can’t have the finesse of a short story but this has got to. This scene as it is seems to me a shame.
Later I was astonished to find it was only about 750 wds. which only goes to show the pace you set yourself up to that point. Its dull because the war goes further + further out of sight every minute. “That’s the way it was” is no answer—this triumphant proof that races were fixed!
—I should put it as 400 word beginning to Chap XXI
Still later Read by itself it has points, but coming on it in the novel I still believe its dull + slow
Seems to me a last echo of the war very faint when Catherine is dying and he’s drinking beer in the Café.
Look over Switzerland stuff for cutting
(ie. 2nd page numbered 129)1
129 (NW) Now here’s a great scene—your comedy used as part of you + not as mere roll-up-my-sleeves- + pull-off a-tour-de-force as on pages 114–121
P. 130—2
This is a comedy scene that really becomes offensive for you’ve trained everyone to read every word—now you make them read the word cooked (+ fucked would be as bad) one dozen times. It has ceased to become amusing by the 5th, for they’re too packed, + yet the scene has possibilities. Reduced to five or six cooked it might have rythm like the word “wops” in one of your early sketches. You’re a little hypnotized by yourself here.
133–1383
This could stand a good cutting. Sometimes these conversations with her take on a naive quality that wouldn’t please you in anyone else’s work. Have you read Noel Coward?
Some of its wonderful—about brave man 1000 deaths ect. Couldn’t you cut a little?
1344
Remember the brave expectant illegitimmate mother is an old situation + has been exploited by all sorts of people you won’t lower yourself to read—so be sure every line rings new + has some claim to being incarnated + inspired truth or you’ll have the boys apon you with scorn.
By the way—that buying the pistol is a wonderful scene.5
Catherine is too glib, talks too much physically. In cutting their conversations cut some of her speeches rather than his. She is too glib—
I mean—you’re seeing him in a sophisticated way as now you see yourself then—but you’re still seeing her as you did in 1917 thru nineteen yr. old eyes. In consequence unless you make her a bit fatuous occasionally the contrast jars—either the writer is a simple fellow or she’s Eleanora Duse disguised as a Red Cross nurse. In one moment you expect her to prophecy the 2nd battle of the Marne—as you probably did then. Where’s that desperate, half-childish dont-make-me-think V.A.D. feeling you spoke to me about? It’s there—here—but cut to it! Don’t try to make her make sense—she probably didn’t!
The book, by the way is between 80,000 + 100,000 wds—not 160,000 as you thought
P. 241 1 is one of the best pages you’ve ever written, I think
P 209– + 2192 I think if you use the word cocksuckers here the book will be suppressed + confiscated within two days of publication.
All this retreat is marvellous the confusion ect.
The scene from 2183 on is the best in recent fiction
I think 293–2944 need cutting but perhaps not to be cut altogether.
Why not end the book with that wonderful paragraph on P. 241.5 It is the most eloquent in the book + could end it rather gently + well.
A beautiful book it is!
Kiss my ass
EH6
TO: Harold Ober
Received June 26, 1929
ALS, 2 pp. Lilly Library
Cannes
Dear Harold: Did the B. + Damned Talkie come thru? Have asked for money as if it had.
I’m calling on you heavily this month (Insurance, income tax, child’s adenoid + tonsil operation car, Cannes villa in advance to pay) + last American bills but am sending another story in three days which I hope will more than square us. Adress after 30th June [for emergencies]
Excuse this scrawl but its four + I’ve been correcting since ten + have grown hazy with exactitude—I’d like to write this upside down. With 2nd story will have more than 2 clear mos. on Rivierra where we will have a really inexpensive menage, for I’m damn tired of this delay about novel. for novel + if end is in sight in Sept. won’t hesitate to borrow from Perkins.
My wife’s 4th sketch along shortly. No news. Sorry you didn’t get over
Scott Fitzg—
TO: Harold Ober
Received July 15, 1929
ALS, 1 p. Lilly Library
Cannes
Dear Harold:
Of course I was delighted with the news about the raise—which makes actually 900% in 10 yrs., you’ve made for me.1 Probably in this case by your own entheusiasm for the story. For that I thank you also. For the enormous loans you’ve made me I don’t even dare begin.
About the Lit. Digest. I’m enclosing Outside the Cabinet Makers with the proof sent me too late for correction but which I’d like to be followed if they use the story. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether they use
(1) This enclosed (Outside the ect)
(2) Southern Girl
(3) At Your Age (since you seem to like it so much)
Let me know which you decide to use.
Ever Yrs.
Scott
If you don’t use this please return.
TO: Ernest Hemingway
ALS, 2 pp. John F. Kennedy Library
Villa Fleur des Bois
Cannes. Sept 9th 1929
Dear Ernest:
I’m glad you decided my letter wasn’t snooty—it was merely hurried (incidently I thought you wanted a word said to Ruth G.2 if it came about naturally—I merely remarked that you’d be disappointed if you lost your appartment—never a word that you’d been exasperated.) But enough of pretty dismal matters—let us proceed to the really dismal ones. First tho let me say that from Perkins last your book like Pickwick has become a classic while still in serial form. Everything looks bright as day for it and I envy you like hell but would rather have it happen to you than to anyone else.
Just taken another chapter to typists + its left me in a terrible mood of depression as to whether its any good or not. In 2 1/2 mos. I’ve been here I’ve written 20,000 words on it + one short story, which is suberb for me of late years. I’ve paid for it with the usual nervous depressions and such drinking manners as the lowest bistrop (bist
rot?) boy would scorn. My latest tendency is to collapse about 11.00 and with the tears flowing from my eyes or the gin rising to their level and leaking over, + tell interested friends or acquaintances that I havn’t a friend in the world and likewise care for nobody, generally including Zelda and often implying current company—after which the current company tend to become less current and I wake up in strange rooms in strange palaces. The rest of the time I stay alone working or trying to work or brooding or reading detective stories—and realizing that anyone in my state of mind who has in addition never been able to hold his tongue is pretty poor company. But when drunk I make them all pay and pay and pay.
Among them has been Dotty Parker.1 Naturally she having been in an equivalent state lacks patience—(this isn’t snooty—no one likes to see people in moods of despair they themselves have survived.) incidently the Murphys have given their whole performance for her this summer and I think, tho she would be the last to admit it, she’s had the time of her life.
We’re coming to Paris for 2 mos the 1st of October.
Your analysis of my inability to get my serious work done is too kind in that it leaves out dissipation, but among acts of God it is possible that the 5 yrs between my leaving the army + finishing Gatsby 1919–1924 which included 3 novels, about 50 popular stories + a play + numerous articles + movies may have taken all I had to say too early, adding that all the time we were living at top speed in the gayest worlds we could find. This aufond is what really worries me—tho the trouble may be my inability to leave anything once started—I have worked for 2 months over a popular short story that was foredoomed to being torn up when completed. Perhaps the house will burn down with this ms + preferably me in it
Always Your Stinking Old Friend
Scott
I have no possible right to send you this gloomy letter. Really if I didn’t feel rather better with one thing or another I couldn’t have written it. Here’s a last flicker of the old cheap pride:—the Post now pay the old whore $4000. a screw. But now its because she’s mastered the 40 positions—in her youth one was enough.
TO: Harold Ober
September 24, 1929
Wire. Lilly Library
Cannes
FOLLOWING YOU NATURALLY1
FITZGERALD
TO: Harold Ober
Received October 8, 1929
ALS, 1 p. Lilly Library
Cannes
Dear Harold:
It seems to me this is worth a thousand.2 Perhaps not from Swanson’s3 point of view though he’s running them pretty far forward in his issue—but from the point of view that most of them have been pretty strong draughts on Zelda’s and my common store of material. This is Mary Hay for instance + the “Girl the Prince Liked” was Josephine Ordway both of whom I had in my notebook to use. Also they’ve been coming along pretty faithfully + have a culminative value.
Mailing story of my own Monday. Adress after 1st Paris.
As Ever
Scott
If he can only pay $500 it seems to me Zelda’s name should stand alone.
TO: Harold Ober
Received October 23, 1929
ALS, 1 p. Lilly Library
Paris
Adress Guaranty Trust
Dear Harold:
Of course I was sorry to see the firm of Reynolds + Ober broken up, because it had become a part of my life. I hope it was settled + will turn out to your advantage + I’m sure it will.
About Hemmingway—he had recieved several offers from America thru Reynolds and while I have told him that I much preferred to remain with you, I don’t know what his intentions are. I think it was foolish to let him slide so long as he was so obviously a comer. I will write you at length about this later.
We are taking an appartment here for the winter + I’ve sworn not to come back without the novel which is really drawing to a close. Does Swanson’s new price include the Mary Hay sketch?
Ever Yours
Scott Fitzg
I think only the last page of the enclosed need be typed.
TO: Maxwell Perkins
c. November 15, 1929
ALS, 2 pp. Princeton University
Paris
10 Rue Pergolèse
Dear Max:
For the first time since August I see my way clear to a long stretch on the novel, so I’m writing you as I can’t bear to do when its in one of its states of postponement + seems so in the air. We are not coming home for Xmas, because of expense + because it’d be an awful interruption now. Both our families are raising hell but I can’t compromise the remains of my future for that.
I’m glad of Ring’s success tho—at least its for something new + will make him think he’s still alive + not a defunct semi-classic. Also Ernest’s press has been marvellous + I hope it sells.1 By the way, McAlmon is a bitter rat and I’m not surprised at anything he does or says. He’s failed as a writer and tries to fortify himself by tieing up to the big boys like Joyce and Stien and despising everything else. Part of his quarrel with Ernest some years ago was because he assured Ernest that I was a fairy—God knows he shows more creative imagination in his malice than in his work. Next he told Callaghan2 that Ernest was a fairy. He’s a pretty good person to avoid
Sorry Bunny’s book didn’t go—I thought it was fine, + more interesting than better or at least more achieved novels.
Congratulations to Louis.
Oh, and what the hell is this book I keep getting clippings about with me and Struthers Burt and Ernest ect.3 As I remember you refused to let The Rich Boy be published in the Modern Library in a representative collection where it would have helped me + here it is in a book obviously fordoomed to oblivion that can serve no purpose than to fatigue reviewers with the stories. I know its a small matter but I am disturbed by the fact that you didn’t see fit to discuss it with me.
However that’s a rather disagreeable note to close on when I am forever in your debt for countless favors and valuable advice. It is because so little has happened to me lately that it seems magnified. Will you, by the way, send me the Princeton book by Edgar1—its not available here. Did Tom Boyd elope? And what about Biggs play.
Ever Yr. Afft Friend
Scott
TO: Harold Ober
Received November 16, 1929
ALS, 2 pp. Lilly Library
Dear Harold:
Sorry this has been so delayed. I had another called The Barnaby Family that I worked on to the point of madness + may yet finish, but simply lost interest. The enclosed is heavy but, I think, good. Is it too heavy?
Now to answer questions ect
(1) As to Hemmingway. You (I speak of you personally, not the old firm) made a mistake not to help sell his stuff personally 2 yrs ago—if any success was more clearly prognosticated I don’t know it. I told him the present situation + I know from several remarks of his that he thought at first he was being approached by the same agents as mine—but he is being fought over a lot now + is confused + I think the wisest thing is to do nothing at present. If any offer for moving pictures of his book for $20,000 or more came to you however don’t hesitate to wire him as he’s not satisfied with present picture offers. Simply wire him Garritus—he knows quite well who you are, ect. Please don’t in any correspondence with him use my name—you see my relations with him are entirely friendly + not business + he’d merely lose confidence in me if he felt he was being hemmed in by any coalition. My guess is, and I’m not sure, that he is pretty much deferring definate action for the present on stories + serials but this may not be true by the time this reaches you and may not be at this moment)
(2) I note cable formula + will save $25 or $50 a year thereby.
(3) Post stories all available here—don’t send Post.
(4) World offer seems small ($300.). Will answer refusing it politely myself.
(5) Of new authors this Richard Douglass2 author of The Innocent Voyage (called High Wind in Bermuda) in England is much the best bet. Will try t
o keep you informed at the same time I usually do Scribners of anybody new I hear of, as, if he interests me I like to give him a chance for a hearing; but there’s nobody now—but may write about that later! America will from now on give about 1/2 its book-buying ear to serious people or at any rate to people who have a backing from the sophisticated minority
(6) New Yorker offers O.K. but uninteresting—as for Mrs. Angell1 (whoever she is) I will gladly modify my style and subject matter for her but she will have to give me her beautiful body first and I dare say the price is too high.
(7) Did McCalls like the article “Girls believe in Girls”?
(8) Now I have two uninterrupted months on the novel and will do my best. There is no question of my not trying for the serial right + never has been.
(9) About The Womans Home Companion, you know.
Yours Ever in Masonry and Concubinage
Scott Fitzg—
TO: Maxwell Perkins
ALS, 7 pp. Princeton University
10 Rue Pergolèse
Paris, France
Jan 21st 1930
This has run to seven long close-written pages so you better not read it when you’re in a hurry.
Dear Max: There is so much to write you—or rather so many small things that I’ll write 1st the personal things and then on another sheet a series of suggestions about books and authors that have accumulated in me in the last six months.
(1.) To begin with, because I don’t mention my novel it isn’t because it isn’t finishing up or that I’m neglecting it—but only that I’m weary of setting dates for it till the moment when it is in the Post Office Box.
(2) I was very grateful for the money—it won’t happen again but I’d managed to get horribly into debt + I hated to call on Ober, who’s just getting started, for another cent
(3.) Thank you for the documents in the Callaghan case.2 I’d rather not discuss it except to say that I don’t like him and that I wrote him a formal letter of apology. I never thought he started the rumor + never said nor implied such a thing to Ernest.
(4.) Delighted with the success of Ernest’s book. I took the responsibility of telling him that McAlmon was at his old dirty work around New York. McAlmon, by the way, didn’t have anything to do with founding Transition. He published Ernest’s first book over here + some books of his own + did found some little magazine but of no importance.