"The Paris Wife" and "Z- A novel of Zelda Fitzgerald"

As every good English major should, I love The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's astute assessment of destructive opulence, garish wealth, and where Gatsby's identity lies speaks truth to the culture of today, as well, and is just one of the reasons I love Gatsby. I re-read the novel during my finals week, and saw the new movie the night it was released; I discussed it with whoever I could. So when one of my best friends handed me a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald's firecracker wife, I had already been primed to enjoy it.
Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald have always been a sensational couple. Depicted recently in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, and often in many other mediums, they are most likely one of literature's most well-known and famous pair, though not without fault. In Z: a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, Therese Anne Fowler sifts through the gossip, infamous rumors, and endless speculation swirling around the Fitzgeralds to a Zelda who is at once fiery and sweet, believable and shocking. In short, the Zelda of myths and legends becomes a real woman, one whom you can both root for and see her faults. The novel traces Zelda's life with Scott, beginning when they meet for the first time and whirling through New York, Europe, Maryland, and Alabama. It's heartbreaking, really, to watch them play hard, party away their money, their health, and eventually, their relationship. Yet they remain married their whole lives, a highly unusual thing for the free-wheeling Parisian society they kept.

Just as in Midnight in Paris, one of my favorite movies, I love the circle of famous authors, all associating, feeding off of each other, and developing friendships together in Paris. Perhaps the most significant famous figure in Z (besides Gertrude Stein) is Ernest Hemingway. Zelda and Hemingway hated each other for varying reasons, but Hemingway's influence on Scott is a huge part of the novel, and of their time in Paris. I didn't like Hemingway from the beginning (though to be fair, I was biased: I read A Farewell to Arms years ago, and couldn't stand it): he is boorish, cocky, and rude, constantly needing to assert his manliness by boxing. Yet when I finished Z, I found myself continuing to think about those American expatriates in Paris. So I picked up The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain: a novel about Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Richardson, his first wife. From Chicago to Paris to Toronto and back to Europe, McClain follows plain, kind Hadley and the famous Ernest Hemingway through their five years of marriage, as well as Hemingway's transformation from aspiring writer to novelist with a cutthroat morality.
Both novels are beautifully written and skillfully researched- though both couples are so sensational, the authors had no need of making up anything exciting to happen to them! Interestingly, their stories are strikingly similar: the couples meeting and falling madly in love, both wives believing wholeheartedly in their husbands' career; both husbands moving to Paris and writing as though their life depended on it, all extravagant alcoholics and tireless partiers (at least at first), and eventually, both wives struggling to find their identity outside of their husbands.
Hadley especially struggles with this: she feels she was nothing special before Hemingway came along and believed in her. She finds her purpose in encouraging Hemingway's writing, centering her whole self-worth around being his support. Without her, he has his writing: in fact, his identity is solidly first a writer, sometimes a husband. But Hadley's is grounded in him; without him, she fades away, feels listless, purposeless. This inequality of their relationship cracks the very foundation of their marriage.
By contrast, Zelda feels overshadowed by Scott. A firecracker herself, Zelda paints, dances, writes, and sings by turn, making conquests and earning the admiration of their friends. She wants the spotlight for herself, and feels belittled as F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. She wants freedom and independence, not to be tied to a child or keeping house or supporting her husband. She believes in her equality with Scott, and this attitude causes jealousy, tension, and danger in their marriage.
.One of the main examples of this is an almost identical scene in both books: when the couples go to visit Gertrude Stein, both Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's mentor. After dinner, the writer and Gertrude go off and talk business, while the wife is left with Gertrude's companion, Alice. Both Zelda and Hadley feel the difference of being left out of the conversation; but while Zelda feels she should rightly be in with Gertrude, talking about her own work, Hadley wonders at the brilliance of those around her and feels she doesn't belong.
Neither portrait of marriage is an effective one; the one rent by little to no self-worth, the other by excess of such. But their love for each other, when things are going well, is touching to see. I even found myself softening towards Hemingway, seeing the way he recognized the wonderful traits about Hadley that are so subtly and beautifully written by McClain.
Sadly, both couples are an example of the detrimental effects of careless, purposeless living. Zelda and Scott are constantly seeking fulfillment throughout the novel, and sadly are unable to reach that elusive ideal of perfect happiness. And though The Paris Wife is by a different author, it conveys the same type of couple, as Hemingway, and to some extent, Hadley, search for their purpose and their own fulfillment. All four of them try so many different routes: alcohol, money, success, fame, immortality in literature, and love; yet in the end, none of these things fulfill. None. Not even love. Both novels chronicle how "in love" these couples were; and they truly were. But what Hemingway, Hadley, Zelda, and Scott fail to understand is that love is an action, not an emotion; love is a chosen, deliberate response, rather than a feeling. When things feel difficult for Scott and Zelda, they separate and have other affairs; when Hemingway has an affair with Pauline Pfieffer, he cannot continue on in his guilt married to Hadley, so he divorces her. When the going gets tough, when arguments and difficulties arise, these two couples give up because they aren't feeling it anymore. They are looking for love to fulfill them, but the truth is, they're not even practicing real love; they're practicing selfish love.
As I learned this summer, love is beyond just a feeling: love is choosing to do what is best for the other person. Love is giving a child your pillow at 3 am because they're coughing. Love is talking to a kid who's upset about something instead of taking your break. Love is listening to a girl who has no one else who will listen, even though she's difficult and overwhelming you with her problems. Love is choosing what is best for your spouse instead of yourself. Love is choosing forgiveness, even for the unforgivable. Love is honoring the promises you've made to someone. And ultimately, love is sacrificing yourself for those you love. Love is God, God is love. These are unchangeable truths, ones that all these incredibly gifted and brilliant people never discovered- but oh, how their life would have changed if they had!