"One Trip Abroad"

from: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Scribners, 1989) Pages 577-597

French Riviera -- View of the Mediterranean

Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post (11 October 1930) "One Trip Abroad" follows an American couple as they jaunt across Europe. They begin in the Sahara and end up in Switzerland over the course of several years.

Apparently F. Scott decided NOT to include this story in any of his collections of stories because it has a lot of Tender in it. It does. I noticed it right away and I'm not a scholar (yet).

There are at least four "stripped" passages--I got read them side by side after looking them up in my Tender "reader's companion" (that came in the mail today). I waited until after I read the short story though, I didn't want to ruin it!

What I recognized as similar though was more obvious. The names: Nelson and Nicole Kelly are very much like Dick and Nicole Diver. There is even a "Rosemary" in the form of "Noel"...which was probably my favorite scene in the story.

The story is divided into three sections--each ending with something that builds about the next--until the surprising end.

I like how F. Scott picked specific moments in the lives of the Kellys to write about--they are ordinary, but become something more.

The decision to move to Monte Carlo instead of Paris seems to be made hastily and then it is in Monte Carlo where Nelson is caught having an affair with Noel--"Nelson's girl" as Nicole calls her before she KNOWS what is actually going on between the two.

The revelation of the affair may be my favorite section:

"Ah, but kiss me again," it said, stopped; Nicole stopped, too, rigid in the silence, now broken only by the voice on the porch.

"Be careful." Nicole recognized the faint French accent of Noel Delauney.

"I'm tired of being careful. Anyhow, they're on the veranda."

Then we have Nicole's reaction as she confronts the pair and she throws the vase of flowers she had been carrying:

"With blind horror rather than anger, Nicole threw, or rather pushed away from her, the glass vase which she carried. If at anyone, it was at Nelson she threw it, but the force of her feeling had entered the inanimate thing; it flew past him, and Noel Delauney, just turning about, was struck full on the side of her head and face."

The rest of the story is very anti-climactic for me. I am not sure why exactly though--the ending is interesting and uses the "Doppelganger device" according to the remarks before the story. We studied the "unconscious" and the "doppelganger" extensively in my Gothic Literature class.

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Personal Reflection: I love reading about affairs--I don't know what that says about me and so I'm perplexed by it. I remember a professor saying once that we get to go on journeys when we read--without any consequence. I hope that's all it is.

Sidenote: I like how F. Scott uses commas in the middle of sentence--just to let the reader take a break. They are everywhere, his commas.

I liked "The Bridal Party" better.

~~J

"The Bridal Party"

from: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Scribners, 1989) Pages 561-576

(awesome example of a Bridal Party circa 1930, not related to this story whatsoever, but I think they are beautiful and lovely just the same)

Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post (9 August, 1930) this story follows Michael Curly as he gets a combination engagement/wedding announcement at his hotel desk in Paris from his former gal, Caroline.

"I wanted you to be the first to know." Uh-oh.

Michael not only feels "afraid" but his stomach is "hollow" from the news, so he goes for a walk around the city, trying to get rid of his feelings but "...the fear stayed with him, and after a while he recognized it as the fear that now he would never be happy."

We get to read a very brief history of their relationship, but it is all "telling" (to use a modern term)--there is no "showing" or no "flashback"--the story remains in the present and is told in a linear fashion.

Michael did lose "her, slowly, tragically, uselessly, because he had no money and could make no money..." At least this is what Michael thinks, it all had to do with money--but we find out that may not have been the case as the story goes on.

My favorite passage may be the description of HOW Michael felt as he left New York for Paris when the two broke up:

"Since his only support was that she loved him, he leaned weakly on that; the support broke, but still he held on to it and was carried out to sea and washed up on the French coast with its broken pieces still in his hand."

I love the metaphor and the imagery here--my own little heart floated out while I was reading along.

As luck would have it, we meet the happy couple on the street--as Michael is wandering around trying to cope with his emotions--I wanted to run away as it happened, knowing it was an awkward scene. F. Scott wrote this so well!

"This agony. Previews of Hamilton Rutherfold flashed before his eyes--a quick series of pictures, sentences." As his name suggests, of course Michael's rival is a wealthy, successful man and Michael feels that he pales in comparison.

The story goes along in three distinct sections--Michael comes up with a plan to stop the impending wedding. There are a couple confrontations--nothing violent, but the tension drips from the page.

There is drinking: "they drunk cocktails before meals like Americans, wines and brandies like Frenchmen, beer like Germans, whisky-and-soda like the English...this preposterous melange, that was like some gigantic cocktail in a nightmare, served only to make them temporarily less conscious of the mistakes of the night before."

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Personal Reflection: As reading, I started thinking about my ex-fiance' and the constant fantasy of HOW I'd react when I found out he was going to marry another. The "fantasy" never happened, because I found out years later than he had indeed married.

In the first year or so after the break-up though, it was constantly on my mind. The last time I really thought about it was during various episodes of Sex and the City--or over the summer when I saw 500 Days of Summer. The theme is universal--always glad to know you're not the only one, so to speak!

~~J

The "Tender" Cluster:

According to the forward in the collection of stories I have from 1989 (written by an honest to goodness Fitzgerald scholar--who sadly passed last year), F. Scott may have published both novels and short stories, but his works were not seperate from one another.

"He routinely 'stripped' passages from a story for reuse in a novel."
-- Bruccoli

I was having a hard time trying to figure out HOW I was going to organize this blog (my reading)--short of chronologically--I am going to start with my first cluster of stories that belong to the "gestation" of Tender is the Night:

"One Trip Abroad" Read 12/30/09
"Babylon Revisited"
"The Bridal Party" Read 12/29/09
"The Swimmers" Read 01/01/10
"Jacob's Ladder"
"The Hotel Child" 01/01/10

So with my highlighter, dictionary, and very large book I am going to get to it.

~~J

Because Tender was my first novel and therefore it will always be my favorite!

He is reading--

Copies:

These were all previously owned copies
I was lucky enough to grab at the local
library's second hand store.

You see a lot of Gatsby, I see an opportunity to transcribe

the marginal notes written by previous readers (students).

I did use some of my graduation gift card money to order
two more books (on sale) today too!

~~J

In the Beginning:

The project:
(courtesy of Ms. Tara Mae)

Pick one author and read everything he or she has ever written, even the crappy children’s book he or she wrote to get him or herself through the death of his or her favorite pet, and the New Yorker essay about his or her loss of the ability to wiggle his or her big toe.

Step one: Pick an author.
12/27/09: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Step two: Get a list of all of the books, essays, etc. he or she has ever written.

Novels
This Side of Paradise (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920)
The Beautiful and Damned (New York: Scribner, 1922)
The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1925)
Tender Is the Night (New York: Scribner, 1934)
The Last Tycoon – (New York: Scribners, 1942)

Short Story Collections
Flappers and Philosophers (1920)
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
All the Sad Young Men (1926)
Taps at Reveille (1935)
Babylon Revisited and Other Stories (1960)
The Pat Hobby Stories (1962)
The Basil and Josephine Stories (1973)
The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1989)

Essays
"The Crack-Up" (Esquire magazine, February 1936)
"Pasting It Together" (Esquire magazine, March 1936)
"Handle with Care" (Esquire magazine, April 1936)

Step three: Pick a timeline
A year? Two? SIX MONTHS?

Step four: Start reading. Start blogging.