Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Z: A Novel of Zelda FitzgeraldZ: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So I chose to read this book because of all of the hype with the new "The Great Gatsby" film, and because the cover also looked interesting....Frankly, I even stretched to imagine that Zelda may have been inspiration for the Daisy Buchanan character, but that may need to be rejected.

What I did find however was a novel that started off strongly with a whimsical love story and a Gatsby-esque feel of drinking, partying and the "high life" that we've come to associate with the 1920's. Shortly after this novel plateaued (perhaps when Zelda has her first child), the novel steeps to a repetitive examination of what feminine role Zelda is meant for.

Unfortunately, she suffers through multiple movements throughout the European continent, babbling encounters with Hemingway and Ezra Pound and stints in mental hospitals before she realizes that she is meant to play a dismal role.

Zelda was a strong character who was swept off her feet into a world of glamour, but was shortly lost to the overcoming power that exists with being a celebrity, and as a reader I felt like this journey could have been more thoroughly opened, examined and maintained for an audience's interest.

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