literary Paris in the 1920s and ballet

(Isn’t F. Scott Fitzgerald’s handwriting the most beautiful handwriting you’ve ever seen?)

I went on this tangent because of this artricle by Joan Acocella for The New Yorker—I’ve been fascinated by Zelda Fitzgerald since I read Save Me The Waltz last year, and I didn’t realise how many parallels there were between here life and Lucia Joyce’s (well, parallels meaning Swiss sanitariums and ballet lessons from Lubov Egorova, schizophrenia, Paris, want of artistic expression, and famous writer males—husband in Zelda’s case, father in Lucia’s—but that’s enough overlap to make you wonder, right?)

Also, The Great Gatsby was published eighty-eight years ago yesterday.

Two things to listen to:
James Joyce reading from Finnegan’s Wake
F. Scott Fitzgerald reading Shakespeare

“5 April: Wild spring. Scudding clouds. O life! Dark stream of swirling bogwater on which appletrees have cast down their delicate flowers. Eyes of girls among the leaves. Girls demure and romping. All fair or auburn: no dark ones. They blush better.” – James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man