Carol's Reviews > Zelda

Many years ago, I read nearly all, or maybe all of F.Scott Fitzgerald's books, and so was aware of the mentally unstable Zelda. I'd had this book on my shelves for years and just recently got around to reading it. Lest anyone feel that her madness was caused by the alcohol, FSF, fame, etc., there is abundant material about her rather idiosyncratic up-bringing and her amazing levels of self-involvement, insensitivity to others, narcissism, etc., from her early years. The alcohol consumption didn't help, clearly. Several friends of the Fitzgeralds found Zelda to be unbalanced, but her husband simply would not hear of it, until her condition (schizophrenia) became undeniable.
What is strange to me is to read that this book has been used by feminists (some) as a kind of rallying cry about creative women who are held back by their men. Zelda, as a younger person, showed no particular interest in creative pursuits----in my opinion, her need to write, dance, paint, etc., came about as a reaction to the creative process she witnessed in her husband. She had an enormous need to be the center of attention, and became pouty when someone else was center stage. She was a "madcap" because it suited her to attract attention. The childishness and egotism on display do not make her a likely model for feminists. She seemed only to become interested in her daughter, Scotty, later in life, and ironically, the periods of stability between her schizophrenic episodes show her to becoming more aware of and caring for her only child.
My main complaint about this book is the unending samples of Zelda's irrational writing. It was real work to plod through it and I feel that her descending course of her illness could have been shown just as graphically without the pages and pages of her painful-to-read writings.
A very sad story.