Paulette M. Drake

Senior Seminar

2/26/04

BEFORE TAKING YOU TO THE DINGO BAR IN APRIL 1925 WHERE HEMINGWAY AND FITZGERALD FIRST MET, I WOULD LIKE TO REFLECT ON THEIR LIVES AND CAREERS AT THE TIME:

PART I. BACKGROUND

Hemingway in Paris:

Hemingway was born in Illinois and grew up in a “middle-class, conservative, pious family” and after high school worked for a short time as a cub reporter before going to Italy in 1918 as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. He was wounded and “spent the rest of the war in the hospital.” When he returned to America he “unsuccessfully” tried to write fiction “before resuming journalism in Toronto, Chicago and then on to Paris in 1924.

In the spring of 1925, Hemingway was not yet 26 and lived with his wife Hadley and their son John (Bumby) on the Left Bank of Paris where his “dedication to writing was real and convincing.” He made “literary friends and benefactors” such as Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Beach.

-Although Hemingway recounts his apprenticeship in Paris (1922-1926) as

full of dedication and poverty,” the poverty was an allusion since Hadley

had an income of $3,000 a year from a trust fund.

-Hemingways did not have to rely on his “sporadic” earnings for “eating

or drinking” money.

-Per Hemingway (A Moveable Feast) “Hunger was good discipline”

however, they had a cook

-They could always afford trips to Spain for the bullfights and

vacations in Switzerland and Austria

Fitzgerald in Paris:

Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota whose family lived on his mother’s inheritance which afforded him expensive schools, such as Princeton. He college after his junior year in 1918 for an army commission but never saw combat (much to his regret). After a short stint with an New York advertising agency, he rewrote “This Side of Paradise,” a novel he had written in the army:

-published by Scribners in 1920, selling 40,000 copies in first year

-first annual income as a writer was $18,500

-he married Zelda in 1920 (she would not marry him until he

proved he could earn more money)

-they lived an “extravagant” life and in 1924 went to the French Riviera

where he wrote The Great Gatsby which was published in April 1925.

In the spring of 1925, Fitzgerald was not yet 29 and was living with his wife Zelda and their daughter Scottie on the Right Bank in Paris.

Almost one year (October 1924) prior to their meeting in the Dingo Bar Fitzgerald, while finishing The Gatsby on the Rivera, recommended him to Maxwell Perkins of Charles Scribner’s Sons

“Dear Max:

. . . This is to tell you about a young man named Ernest Hemingway,

who lives in Paris (an American) writer for the transatlantic Review

& has a brilliant future. Ezra Pound published a collection of his short

pieces in some place like the Egotist Press. I haven’t it hear now but its

remarkable & I’d look him up right away. He’s the real thing.”

The “collection of short pieces” Fitzgerald reacted with so much enthusiasm was in our time published earlier in March 1924 by The Three Mountains Press of Paris in the series “The Inquest” edited by Ezra Pound.

The initial connection between Fitzgerald and Hemingway was also probably due Fitzgerald’s Princeton friend and literary critic, Edmund Wilson, who “receptively” reviewed the collections the month Fitzgerald alerted Perkins to Hemingway.

In the fall/winter of 1924-25, Fitzgerald while revising Gatsby in Rome, reminded Perkins about Hemingway. Perkins was not able to get a copy of in our time until February 1925 when he wrote Hemingway expressing an interest in publishing him but the letter went “astray” because Perkins did not have Hemingway’s

current address.

By the time Fitzgerald and Hemingway met in late April 1925 at the Dingo Bar in the rue Delambre, Paris, Fitzgerald wrote Perkins that since Hemingway had not heard from Scribner’s, he signed with Boni & Liveright for a volume of short stories.

In April 1925, when Fitzgerald entered the Dingo Bar in Paris he was the author of This Side of Paradise, the Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age, while Hemingway was the author of two “virtually privately published volumes that totaled eighty-eight printed pages and 470 copies.”

Although Hemingway was considered the “apprentice” in comparison with Fitzgerald’s literary successes, Fitzgerald, the “famous author” was not only in awe of Hemingway’s writing talent but impressed (even intimidated) by Hemingway’s reputation as a war hero and as an athlete: For example:

-Fitzgerald did not go overseas in WWI and felt he had “missed a test of

manhood and brooded about how he would have behaved in battle.”

-Hemingway was wounded in WWI while distributing candy and

tobacco (not in combat) but did not discourage his reputation in Paris

as a “battle veteran.”

-Fitzgerald at 5’7”, 140 pounds, was cut from the Princeton football

team and disappointed, he sought “literary recognition.”

-Hemingway at 6”, 190 pounds, “looked” like an athlete but the only

athletic event he “distinguished” himself for in high school was a

flat distance dive. Later in Paris, Hemingway promoted himself as a

boxer. He boxed for exercise in Paris and claimed he gave boxing

lessons to Fitzgerald (no evidence of this).

PART II. EARLY SIGNS OF STRAIN IN THE RELATIONSHIP

The literary friendship between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway seemed to be strained at the onset for the following reasons:

-Hemingway’s frustration that Fitzgerald could not seem to pass Hemingway’s “tests of manhood,” such as:

- alcohol and its affects on Fitzgerald

- Zelda’s domination of Fitzgerald

and,

-There were early signs of selfish disregard for Fitzgerald by Hemingway. For example, Hemingway discredits an admiring review of The Great Gatsby.

Let’s begin with that first meeting of Hemingway and Fitzgerald at the Dingo bar in Paris. Per Bruccoli, although he considered A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s posthumous memoir of Paris in the 1920’s as “not trustworthy” because it existed in “drafts as a work in progress,” he admits that it is the “most influential [memoir] and has largely shaped reader’s impressions of their relationship.

PART III. THE FIRST MEETING AT THE DINGO BAR

PARIS, APRIL 1925

When Hemingway met Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar in the rue Delambre he stated that:

“The first time I ever met Scott Fitzgerald a very strange thing

happened. Many strange things happened with Scott but this

one I was never able to forget.”—more on the “strange things”

later.

Hemingway made very specific physical observations about Fitzgerald, while at the same time, he felt annoyed at Fitzgerald’s ongoing speech praising Hemingway’s writing talents:

“Scott was a man then who looked like a boy with a face between

handsome and pretty. He had very fair wavy hair, a high forehead,

excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth that, on a girl, would have been the mouth of a beauty” and “He was lightly built and did not look in awfully good shape, his face being faintly puffy. His Brooks Brothers clothes fitted him well and he wore a white shirt with a buttoned-down collar and a Guard’s tie.”

Hemingway considers but does not tell Fitzgerald that the tie, only to be worn by Ranks of the British Brigade of Guards might cause him e embarrassment.

and as he continued to look at him “some more” noticed:

“ . . . he had well shaped, capable-looking hands, not too small, and when

he sat down on one of the bar stools I saw that he had very short legs.

They did a lot of drinking and Hemingway felt “glad” when after almost two bottles of champagne, Fitzgerald began to “run out of the speech.” But, then after the speech, came the “question period.”

1-page 151 from Moveable

The “strange thing” that happened that day was when Fitzgerald “face became a true death’s head, or death mask, in front” of is eyes. As Fitzgerald sat there at the bar his “skin seemed to tighten over his face until all the puffiness was gone and then it drew tighter until the face was like a death’s head.” Hemingway and a friend put Fitzgerald in a taxi. Hemingway seemed irritated that Fitzgerald, two days later at a café, did not remember having a reaction to the champagne:

2-pages 152-153 from Moveable

While at the café, Hemingway became predisposed to keep a watchful eye on Fitzgerald’s reaction to alcohol and was pleased, if after “two good solid whiskies,” nothing happened and Fitzgerald’s “charm and his seeming good sense made the other night at the Dingo seem like an unpleasant dream.” Feeling reassured that Fitzgerald would not have another reaction, he agreed to accept an invitation from Fitzgerald to travel from Paris to Lyon by train to pick his car that had been abandoned by he and Zelda due to bad weather, a trip that would disclose a lot about their evolving friendship:

-Hemingway was excited about the trip since it would be a chance to

“learn much” from a “successful writer.” Also, he seemed pleased that

Fitzgerald wanted him to read his new book The Great Gatsby as soon as

he got his last and only copy back from someone he had loaned it to.’

Problems on the Trip

Missed Train:

-However, beginning with the first day of the trip, Hemingway grew

annoyed with Fitzgerald:

-Fitzgerald did not show up at the train station and Hemingway

had never heard “of a grown man missing a train,” so he went

ahead without him.

-page 157 from Movable

-the next morning when Fitzgerald arrived at the hotel he seemed

to blame Hemingway for his not being able to find him when he

tells Hemingway:

“If I had only known what hotel you were going to it would

have been so simple.” (Hemingway had left word with

Zelda)

-Hemingway noticed that Fitzgerald had already been drinking

3-page 161 from Movable

Car Top Missing

-when they went to pick up the car, it did not have a top because

Zelda did not like tops. They made ten stops between Lyon and

Paris and per Hemingway, Fitzgerald seemed pleased that they

drank wine at each stop (Hemingway bought four more to drink as

needed).

Health Problems

-as they continued to drink and drive, Fitzgerald began to worry about his

health (congestion) so they spent the night at a hotel

4-page 163-166 from Moveable

Zelda’s Affair/Dinner

-as Fitzgerald continues to drink “whiskey sours,” he would not stay

in bed but insisted on calling Zelda since this was their first night

away from each other. It was at this moment that Fitzgerald shared

with Hemingway the story of his life with Zelda and how she and a

French aviator had fallen in love and Hemingway thought it was truly

a sad story and a true story and he wondered how Fitzgerald could have

slept each night in the same bed with Zelda.

-by the time they went downstairs for dinner, Fitzgerald was unsteady

and looked at people “with a certain belligerency” and after one more

glass of wine he “passed out at the table with his head on his hands.”

Hemingway and the waiter took him up to bed.

-Hemingway thought about Scott and realized:

5-page 174 from Moveable

-two days after the trip, Fitzgerald brought his book over:

6-page176 from Moveable

As we can see from that first meeting at the Dingo Bar and the car trip to Lyon, Hemingway shared in the drinking with Fitzgerald but he did not like the affects alcohol had on Fitzgerald and as the relationship progressed, he felt the drinking got in the way of Fitzgerald’s writing–per Hemingway, “his work came before all things.”

Per Bruccoli:

Hemingway had a great capacity for alcohol. He could drink

after his daily writing stint and work the next day whereas

Fitzgerald could undertake extended writing projects only when

he was on the wagon (that is, drinking beer).

He went on to say that:

“American literature was crowded with bad drinkers and

Fitzgerald was among the worst . . . it turned him foolish,

destructive, truculent, childish . . . and it exhausted the

patience of friends . . . especially Hemingway who had

developed drinking conduct as a test of manhood.”

(Note that Fitzgerald had a “low capacity for alcohol–medical opinion

now holds that he had hypoglycemia (glucose deficiency) or hyper-

insulinism)

Per Bruccoli, another Hemingway test of manhood that Fitzgerald

“failed” was Fitzgerald’s inability:

“ . . . to control women. Distrusting the castrating power

of women, Hemingway was appalled by what he regarded as

Zelda Fitzgerald’s domination of her husband [and he was]. . .

disgusted by her interference with Fitzgerald’s work.”

PART IV. ZELDA

Hemingway devoted a chapter to Zelda in The Moveable Feast entitled “Hawks Do Not Share”– per Hemingway she had “hawk’s eyes” and was jealous of Fitzgerald’s work:

7-page180-l81 from Moveable

Per Bruccoli, Zelda did not think much of Hemingway:

“She blamed Hemingway for encouraging the drinking bouts that

interrupted Fitzgerald’s work and was repelled by [his] morbid

preoccupation with sex and the sadism and necrophilia that go

with it . . . Zelda and Hemingway made the same charges against

each other’s influence on Fitzgerald’s working habits.”

page 50-51 from Scott and Earnest

Bruccoli goes on to say that:

Zelda Fitzgerald may not have regarded Hemingway as a threat to

her dominion, but she was immune to his charm [and described

him as] “bogus,” [a] “materialistic mystic, [a]“phony he-man” and

[a] pansy with hair on his chest.

page 21 from Moveable

PART V. THE GREAT GATSBY

A third but more subtle strain on the Hemingway/Fitzgerald relationship began to surface in August 1925 shortly after Fitzgerald’s successful publication of The Great Gatsby (which Hemingway had earlier acknowledged in The Moveable Feast was a “fine” book). However, without regard for Fitzgerald, he undercut Fitzgerald’s achievement by belittling a glowing review by Gilbert Seldes of the Dial when he mimicked the review in a scene of The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway had a grudge against Seldes who was on his “shit list” for declining some of his work.

page 10 from Scott and Earnest

PART V. CONCLUSION

I believe Bruccoli summed up the tension of the early dynamics of the Hemingway/ Fitzgerald relationship when he stated:

“Hemingway was ruthless in his judgment of people. As a man

who lived by a strict code of conduct, he had no empathy for

weaknesses . . . [and] for five or six years [he] made allowances

for Fitzgerald, forgiving his alcoholic misconduct [but] after

Hemingway became in his thirties the most famous living

American author, Fitzgerald’s friendship became a nuisance.”

Mike King will report on the Hemingway/Fitzgerald later friendship.

Bibliography

Bruccoli, Matthew. Scott and Earnest. New York: Random House. 1978.

Bruccoli, Matthew J. Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship.

New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 1995.

Donaldson, Scott. Hemingway v. Fitzgerald; The Rise and Fall of a Literary

Friendship. New York: Overlook Press. 1999.

Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner. 1964.