Sometimes Madness is Wisdom by Kendall Taylor (2001: Ballatine Books. ISBN 0-345-44715-8)
I’m no different than most white, middle-class Americans. I am titillated and intrigued by personal train wrecks. Well, it turns out, in the literary world, there’s no bigger interpersonal calamity than the marriage of Zelda Sayres and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Trust me: If you’re looking for a story of sweetness, kindness, affection, and mature love, avoid this book. But if you, like me, are interested in what makes madness so prevalent in artists, then, by all means, buy this book. Read this book. You won’t be disappointed.
Kendall Taylor spares no detail in this engaging look at the marriage of one of the Jazz Age’s dominant literary figures to a woman of equal, if not, greater artistic talent. This, in nearly all ways, is Zelda’s story. But having said that, while it would be easy to portray F. Scott’s manipulative, downgrading and deceptive control over his wife’s talent (without any effort to impose restraint on Zelda’s personally destructive behavior) as inherently evil, the author avoids a simplistic evaluation of the psychological warfare waged between bouts of lust and affection in this tragic marriage. Zelda is not inherently good and abused. Scott is not inherently evil and the abuser. Much more subtle forces are at work in this relationship than can be reduced to such simple labels.
Still, for a man revered by Minnesota literary pundits (Garrison Keillor broadcasts his show from the “F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater” located in Fitzgerald’s hometown, St. Paul), the story told by Ms. Taylor is fascinating. Much of the material Fitzgerald included in his acclaimed fiction had its genesis in either Zelda’s personality or her writing. Author Taylor makes a convincing argument that some of the most memorable dialogue and scenes in F. Scott’s classics weren’t his at all, but purloined bits and pieces of Zelda’s diaries and journals. Taylor observes that, when Zelda (battling latent schizophrenia which Scott’s controlling personality would eventually exacerbate into full blown mental illness) was on the cusp of literary greatest in her own name, Scott intervened. What resulted, once Mr. Fitzgerald inserted his controlling fingers into the editorial pie, was an uninspired rendition of Zelda’s life and struggles with sanity. In short, the husband managed to delete the life force from his wife’s book just as he had eliminated it from her life. Her novel, Save Me the Waltz was assured a footnote in the story of Scott and Zelda. The early drafts of the book seen by trusted friends met with rave reviews. The final draft, which went into limited publication, was a mere shell of a story; disjointed and edited in such a way as to conceal any ring of truth to Zelda’s writing. Save Me the Waltz was quickly forgotten, just as F. Scott had hoped it would be.
A sad but thoroughly facinating look at a couple who embodied the ecstasy and the excesses of the Jazz Age. Now, can someone explain to me why we named a theater in honor of Scott? 5 stars out of 5.
