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Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise
by Sally Cline
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Arcade Publishing (2003-04-09)
ISBN: 1559706880
EAN: 9781559706889
Dewey Decimal #: 813.52
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 496 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 03787
Condition: Used: Like New
Comments: Perfect except for light wrinkle on corner of DJ, and light shelfwear.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Zelda Fitzgerald, along with her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald, is remembered above all else as a personification of the style and glamour of the roaring twenties - an age of carefree affluence such as the world has not seen since. But along with the wealth and parties came a troubled mind, at a time when a woman exploiting her freedom of expression was likely to attract accusations of insanity. After 1934 Zelda spent most of her life in a mental institution; outliving her husband by few years, she died in a fire as she was awaiting electro convulsive therapy in a sanatorium. Zelda's story has often been told by detractors, who would cast her as a parasite in the marriage - most famously, Ernest Hemingway accused her of taking pleasure in blunting her husband's genius; when she wrote her autobiographical novel, Fitzgerald himself complained she had used his material. But was this fair, when Fitzgerald's novels were based on their life together? Sally Cline's biography, first published in 2003, makes use of letters, journals, and doctor's records to detail the development of their marriage, and to show the collusion between husband and doctors in a misdirected attempt to 'cure' Zelda's illness. Their prescription - no dancing, no painting, and above all, no writing - left her creative urges with no outlet, and was bound to make matters worse for a woman who thrived on the expression of allure and wealth.
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Customer Reviews
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An accurate portrait of Zelda, and a distorted caricature of Scott
Rating  (3)
Date: 2009-05-31
This well-researched and well-written biography paints a fascinating portrait of Zelda, while totally distorting facts about Scott. Sally Cline is a talented and enthusiastic biographer, but she is hardly objective. She is a revisionist historian who colors facts with her own biases. This is as unfair as a biography of Ernest Hemingway that applauds him for cheating on his wives.
Cline clearly dislikes Ernest Hemingway almost as much as she dislikes Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda was a talented and under-appreciated artist, and Cline does give a fairly accurate picture of her. She brings Zelda to life as the talented, attractive, flawed woman who has fascinated readers for decades. But Cline also turns Scott Fitzgerald into a distorted villain.
She portrays Scott as an over-rated writer whose success largely depended on his plagiarism of Zelda. Zelda did receive less credit than she deserved, but she was not systematically plagiarized the way Cline implies.
Furthermore, this biography portays Scott as a closeted bisexual. This is also blatantly untrue. While Zelda was clearly bisexual, Scott was not. Nevertheless Cline almost gleefully heaps contempt on him for his supposed sexual tendencies.
It's impossible to blame all the Fitzgeralds' maritial problems on either one of them, and we should be suspicious of any biography that tries to. It deserves 5 stars for its portayal of Zelda, and 1 star for its portrayal of Scott. While thoughtful and well-written, too much of it is fiction and speculation that masquerades as fact. If you read only this biography you will come away with a grossly distored impression of the Fitzgeralds.
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You don't know FSF until you have read Cline's biography
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-11-30
1 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
One reviewer (Ms Kay) opines this is the best of the Zelda biographies, whereas another ("skc-33") opines that the Cline biography is not enjoyable, that it reads like a dissertation. I agree that the Cline biography is extremely well researched but I disagree with regard to the references: the footnotes are not a bit distractive. I hardly noticed them. In fact, they were much less intrusive than I've experienced in other nonfiction works. The author's information on the other characters in the lives of the Fitzgeralds (the Hemingways, the Menckens, Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, Dorothy Parker, and dozens more) adds so much more to this biography; I found it a delightful surprise to have so much additional information on these other personalities with whom I am only casually acquainted. In addition, these other people played such an important role in the lives of the Fitzgeralds, it would have been unfortunate if Cline had omitted them.
Cline is English and brings a more worldly perspective in her analysis. Her only fault is trying too hard to be "fair and balanced" with regard to Mr Scott Fitzgerald. It is abundantly clear (through this biography and others) that he may have had a natural talent to write, but he was dishonest (stole his wife's journals without her knowledge, much less her blessing); plagiarized almost word for word Zelda's diaries into his own works; was an alcoholic of the worst degree; was an adulterer (I have no problems with an open marriage where both parties agree, but in this case, Zelda did not); and who did all he could to insure Zelda would not reach her potential as a writer, dancer, or painter. Despite his strong Catholic upbringing and desire to be buried in the Church, he had only a slight problem, it appears, with supporting Zelda's decision to have as many as three abortions (and he left it up to her, deferring his own judgment or strong opinion one way or the other; and giving her no emotional support after the decision was made). As one reviewer has posted, these personality faults do not matter; it is what one leaves behind. Even if one agrees with that, one will learn in all these biographies of Zelda, it was her work that was left behind and not his.
If I had only one biography of Zelda's to read, it would be Cline's. As noted above, I agree wholeheartedly with the review by Ms. Kay.
Incidentally, if you are still curious about Mr Fitzgerald's romantic side, he purposely did not wed Zelda in her home town (Montgomery, AL), but more than a thousand miles away (NYC), making it nearly impossible for any of Zelda's family or friends to attend; he limited the wedding to six people, and started the wedding early despite knowing that two of the six (Zelda's sister and her husband) would miss the ceremony.
And one more thing: Mr Fitzgerald did not allow Zelda to attend the baptism of their only child, "Scottie," for fear of what Zelda might do or say at that ceremony. The wedding story is told in all biographies; I only learned of the baptism story in Cline's biography.
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This latest bio ranks as one of the best
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-06-18
13 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
If you take the time and read every other biography out there about Zelda Fitzgerald, you will notice something strange. While every one covers the same person and materials, not every biography is exactly the same. Nancy Milford's "Zelda" reads like a Fitzgerald novel- beautiful, careless and tragic. Kendall Taylor's "Sometimes Madness is Wisdom" focuses more on Zelda as an individual with multiple flaws and multiple talents, and also destroys the mythical love story that everyone thought was "Scott and Zelda". Sally Cline's "Her Voice in Paradise" expands on Kendall Taylor's basic concept but makes it all her own with such detailed research and weaving all of the broken stories together into one beautiful mosaic.I would list this as THE best biography written about Zelda...well, actually this ties for first place with Kendall Taylor's bio, which is equally brilliant but on a totally different level. Read both and you get two separate layers of Zelda's short and complicated life. Any pity or admiration that you felt for Scott before reading either of these will most certainly vanish, for these books do not paint him as the romantic character that his legend portrays. In these he is an equally flawed human being much like Zelda, but a man whose lifelong coverup of his insecurities included alcohol abuse and adultery. So in conclusion, if you are a voracious reader with a thirst for knowledge and devouring every detail into your mind, I would recommend that you buy this book immediately.
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This is no light coverage: six years in the making
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-01-09
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Sally Cline's Zelda Fitzgerald portrays the life of mythical 20s idol who married novelist F. Scott. This is no light coverage: six years in the making, it is the first on her life to appear in over thirty years and provides a complex analysis of the Fitzgeralds' lives and achievements.
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Read for reference, not for fun
Rating (3)
Date: 2003-07-19
12 out of 16 customers found this reveiw helpful
If you prefer to read a biography like you would read a work of literature, this is not the book for you. This book is not enjoyable; it reads like a dissertation. Every few sentences are cited from some other source, mostly using direct quotes, leading me to believe that the author never learned the art of rewriting something in her own words. I respect the fact that she did a lot of research, but I don't want to be reminded of it in every paragraph. When the author actually bothers to use her own words, the prose doesn't flow and relies too much on heavy descriptive phrases. Too much time is spent giving lengthy biographies of other incidental characters like the Hemingways, the Menckens, and Dos Passos. The constant reference numbers are very distracting, as is the perpetual adoration for Zelda herself. The author makes reference to Zelda's "madness" via quotes from the Fitzgeralds' contemporaries, and then immediately discredits the source as jealous or influenced by time or some other excuse. The book would be a slightly better read if the reader was allowed to make judgments for him/herself. I might recommend this book to someone who was doing research on Zelda Fitzgerald (or other '20s-'30s personalities) for a paper, but I would not recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.
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