Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald: a book club review

Oh Zelda. Poor dear confused Zelda. Throughout the entire reading of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Theresa Anne Fowler I had to keep reminding myself that this book was a novel - a well-researched novel no doubt, but still a novel. It is not a biography. The author is clear on that. It's right there in the subtitle.

And yet, Z reads as much like a biography as any novel can. These are not made up names and unrecognizable characters. F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom we read only the month before, is the most obvious big name. But there's also the villainous Ernest Hemingway, the delightful bit player Cole Porter, and other notables of the jazz age. They are producing works of art we know - songs and short stories and novels.

In the author's afterword she says there are two camps on the Fitzgeralds - one that says Zelda ruined Scott's life, and one that says Scott ruined Zelda's life. My reading of it was that they were some sort of terrible chemical reaction in which two elements are reduced to their worst parts, in this case madness and addiction. Although, how mad Zelda actually was is also up for debate, and addiction seemed to be the oeuvre of their circle.

That Fowler manages to write her take on a possible life of the Fitzgeralds with wit and power while maintaining a relatively neutral tone (although she is very clear that she's camp Zelda, this Zelda is not without her flaws) is impressive. The story has the pacing, character development, and detailing of any great novel, with the biographical details that keep you having to remember - this is not reportage.

Bits of the Fitzgerald's lives made it, apparently, into The Great Gatsby, and likewise bits of The Great Gatsby make it into Z which was really fun to experience back to back. I loved reading about creative people living creative (if often messy) lives. To have a community of artists, writers, musicians, and theatre/movie people all running in the same circles must have been extraordinary. I would love that kind of circle for myself.

I found Z fascinating reading - whatever is real or unreal, it's a great story well told.

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It was bound to happen eventually. After 14 months this was the first book club meeting that I missed. I was in Ottawa doing training for my volunteer trip to Jamaica. Even sadder, the fabulous and hilarious hostess was hostess for the first time, and I missed it. As I read the novel on the plane I did imagined what the ladies would have thought - I bet the conversation was stimulating and fun and revealing. It always is. 

While I didn't get to attend the August meeting, the lovely ladies of book club did throw me the perfect going away dinner at a local Caribbean restaurant. Over rum punch and jerk meats we laughed, we consoled, we teased, and we generally made me realise how hard it would be to be out of that circle for five months.

Super grainy photo of super awesome women

 

I'm sailing away

Okay, now that I have yet again begun a post by giving you the most horrendous of ear worms, let me get serious(ish) for a moment.

I am not sailing away. I am, however, flying away, and, in fact, taking the (apparently wrongly attributed) advice of Mark Twain and casting off the bowlines, exploring, dreaming and discovering.

After a year of feeling stuck I am now bounding forward. In exactly one month I leave my safe harbour of Victoria BC for a new harbour of Kingston, Jamaica where I will be volunteering for six months. It's a startling adventure. There are moment when I think I may want to reconsider. And, as I promised my ladies at our book club retreat, I am Daring Greatly.

It's something I have dreamt of doing for a lifetime. And something I'll be sharing about more fully elsewhere.

This blog will continue to limp along, weighed down by navel gazing & book reviews, while my adventures with CUSO International will soon be shared on a new site.

For now, let me share this from my CUSO fundraising page:

As a teenager in northern British Columbia I saw television ads for international aid agencies and was intrigued. In my family overseas service meant missions work, and I was fascinated to learn that people could share things beyond their faith – their knowledge, skill, ability and compassion – in the world. When I was 17 years old I traveled to southern Africa; that trip began my life-long yearning to travel, my interest in global justice, and my earliest development of cultural competency. That trip also birthed a dream that has grown as the years rolled by - the dream to make a real and lasting difference in the developing world.

I studied. Raised my children. Gained experience, compassion and - I hope - wisdom. In all of that, the goal of using my skills and knowledge internationally called me forward. At this point in my life, with my sons grown and stable and a clear sense of myself and my abilities, it’s time to make that thirty year old dream come true. CUSO International is helping me do that. 

I have followed and supported CUSO for years, biding my time until my life aligned with their volunteer opportunities. The placement for a 6 month Marketing, Communication & Branding Advisor for a national organization in Kingston, Jamaica had that just right feel – not too far, not too long, a great introduction to international development. 

I can’t wait to go, to learn, to grow, to teach and to serve. 

In spite of the obstacles facing them, people in every corner of the developing world are building better futures for their communities, and thanks to CUSO I get to work with them! I will work side-by-side with these committed citizens to make positive change happen. Lasting change requires not just a financial investment, but also a human investment. That’s why Cuso International shares skills, and changes lives. 

While there are many volunteer-sending agencies, one of Cuso International’s unique attributes is its role as the North American strategic alliance partner of VSO, a worldwide partnership of Voluntary Service Overseas organizations. This is the world's largest non-governmental development network that works through volunteers. It allows them to recruit from all over the world, and to transfer the expertise, experience and ‘best practices’ of one country to another. 

Not everyone can work overseas, but everyone can support that work. Thank you for whatever you can give to support my work and to help me pay it forward to future CUSO volunteers.

Wild: a review

"Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, 

and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. 

I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave."

Cheryl Strayed.

That I read Cheryl Strayed's book Wild while going through the selection process for my own grand adventure is a timely coincidence. There is nothing about her solo journey along the Sierra mountain trails from southern California to Salem Oregon that appeals to me, except that she did it, and that she grew along the way. Adventure, for me, takes a different shape, but I completely respect her commitment to the experience, and I envy her incredible gift for telling her story. 

Often adventure memoirs are written by athletes/outdoors people who have a good story but not necessarily the means to tell that story well. Strayed has both the story and the tools to tell it.

This is a book I will re-read. That is not something I do often, as there are so many stories out there waiting to be read. I feel as though on first reading I took in the story of Strayed's journey, and that a re-reading will foreground the lessons.  As an author, Strayed is witty and self-aware. In contrast to my trouble remembering that Z was a novel, with Wild I had trouble remembering it was a memoir because the plot, characters and setting all move so well in the narrative. 

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The Great Gatsby: a book club review

One page in I find myself re-reading Fitzgerald's sentences, not because they are arcane or overly complex but because I so enjoy the feel and sound of them. After resisting reading the 'American Classic' The Great Gatsby I was immediately captured by Fitzgerald's elegant style: 'If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life ...' The writing is refined but not precious; captivating without being ornate - a pretty cocktail dress that makes you stand at full height and want to dance, not a corseted gown that forces you into pretending you are someone else. Quotable without cliché. 

Fitzgerald is flawless at translating into text the breathless reclining ennui we (I) associate with youthful wealth and the excess of the Roaring Twenties - wealth that has been granted rather than gained; excess that attempts to feed the gaping maw of meaninglessness. Yawns, whispers & mumbles seem to be the main methods of communication for the inhabitants of West Egg, the creatures of East Egg exerting themselves only far enough further to add sneering to the repertoire.

It's easy to be seduced by both the richness of the scenes & the beauty of Fitzgerald's language. It's easy to overlook the sneering that is exercised by both the inhabitants of East Egg & Fitzgerald himself. It's easy to be sucked into the glamour, right up until you are slapped in the face with the violent, amoral seediness of it all. The adultery. The scheming. The abuse of self and others. It's an ugly world in an alluring wrapping, scene after scene of beautiful decay. It's a short short novel and so beautifully constructed in plot and language that nothing is missing.  

I loved this book. I really did. I should really learn not to judge things by their 'American Classic' or 'Oprah Book Club Selection' status. ;-)

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I may have mentioned this every month for the past year, but I LOVE MY BOOK CLUB. And it was such a treat to get to host this month for such a fun, theme-party-friendly meeting. Themes make planning so much easier, and as much as I made fun last year of people having Gatsby themed parties with no apparent awareness of Fitzgerald's message of condemnation for the excess. And yet ... Gatsby patio party it is! 

Of course, I don't have Gatsby's budget. Let's face it, right now I don't even have Nick Carraway's budget, so we settled for food, dressing the patio up, download a free font for a bit of home-made signage and find recipes for a signature drink or two, et voila - suddenly the back yard is East Egg.

Toasting our amazing group

Of course, all the sparklers and deviled eggs in the world wouldn't matter without the fabulous ladies, great conversation, and laughter. When you move from 'ejaculate' to 'evocative' in a matter of seconds, you know you're at book club. 

Happy Hostess

The Menu

Gin Rickey (Welcome Cocktail)
"the well-disciplined child held to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice."

Hors d’Oeuvre:
Angels on Horseback (oyster & shrimp), Classic Meatballs, Deviled Eggs, Mixed Olives, Waldorf Salad, Spinach Dip & Crudités, Mixed Nuts 

"On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre ..."

Lemon Bundt Cake
"Together we scrutinized the twelve lemon cakes from the delicatessen

shop. "Will they do?" I asked. "Of course, of course! They're fine!" and he added hollowly, ". . .old sport."

Lemon Tea
"I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray."

French 75
"I had taken two finger bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound."

Beautiful flowers perfect the scene

PS - I apologize for not getting this posted sooner as I know Little E likes to look for her mention. It was a bit of a crazy week. 

the semantic lion

The other day my counselor, who is absolutely fantastic and a certified Yoda (if there isn't a certificate in that, there ought to be) asked me, "Do you know how courageous you are? Do you ever really think about that?" I answered no, and no, and said I'd ponder on it.

It's not that I think I'm not courageous; it's just not on my mind a lot. I don't consider myself fearful, so being courageous doesn't have the same zing for me as it might for someone who has a lot of fear to overcome. The trendy definition of courage that has been drilled into me is 'feeling the fear and doing it anyway,' but according to the dictionary a more accurate definition is 'fearlessness' so ... that fits a bit better.  

As per usual, I'm being clever with words to get around the issue. His point was really that - in his observation - I am missing some central awareness that who I am is kinda kick ass. Apparently he's of the opinion that I do things in a way that's kinda ... ballsy. At least, I think that's what he was saying, but in more counsel-ory words.

"Bold" is a word I would describe myself with before "courageous," but bold also has a slight brassy tinge to it that I don't find particularly attractive. It's right up there with being a 'broad.' I know I've got a fair degree of 'bounce-back' and my fair share of 'keeping on,' and perhaps at some point that becomes courageous. But is the blow-up clown courageous because it bounces back every time you punch it? No. That's just what it is designed to do.

Anyway, I said I'd ponder the question. And so I'm pondering. Really, what I think of when I think of courage is the Bible verse (which was read at JJ's dedication service because when you give your kids Bible names it makes the dedication service easier for the pastor, but once again I digress):

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,
for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9