I introduce scholarly books and Hemingway's autobiographical work that are helpful to compare Hemingway and Fitzgerald in light of their biographical backgrounds. I also explain the reason why I chose them.
- Scott Donaldson, Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald, 1999.
- Scott Donaldson, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, 2009.
- Earnest Hemingway, A Movable Feast, 1964.
Scott Donaldson, Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald, 1999.
This book deals comprehensively with the issues of friendship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway based on autobiographical facts. Hemingway’s wife Mary read a few chapters of Movable Feast and stated that the book is not autobiography at all but is about other people. This is what motivated Donaldson to write this book. This book suggests that to really understand one writer, it is necessary to understand other writers too. I chose this book because my purpose of the study is to explore the works of both writers.
Scott Donaldson, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, 2009.
Donaldson explores the elements of the affinity within the differences in the works of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. I chose this book because it is interesting to know their friendship and rivalry to investigate their works at a deeper level.
Fitzgerald introduced Hemingway to the publisher before Hemingway become famous. After Hemingway became popular and Fitzgerald got involved in a personal tragedy, their relationship went wrong. Hemingway blamed Fitzgerald in The Snow of Kilimanjaro because he didn’t like Fitzgerald’s view of life in The Crack-Up. Donaldson’s neutral stance is free from bias, which allows readers to think by themselves.
Earnest Hemingway, A Movable Feast, 1964.
As is mentioned earlier in the explanation of Donaldson's book, Hemingway's wife said that Movable Feast is not the book about Hemingway himself but others. In my opinion, however, the way he writes about others can shed light on his true figure which is not written in the text. In other words, when Hemingway writes about Fitzgerald, he reveals himself at the same time.
In this respect, Hemingway's A Movable Feast is an interesting book. The book reveals the relationship between Hemingway and Fitzgerald from Hemingway's viewpoint. We can observe not only their friendship but also Hemingway's sense of rivalry towards Fitzgerald.
In A Movable Feast, Hemingway reveals his feelings for Fitzgerald after reading The Great Gatsby.
"When I had finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could to him and try to be a good friend. (A Movable Feast, Hemingway)"
At first glance, it sounds like a good story of friendship, but we can also observe that he speaks badly of his friend.
Moreover, Hemingway also reveals that Fitzgerald is worried about the size of his penis. It's still terrible to reveal his friend's private issue to the public, even considering that it's been nearly a quarter-century since Fitzgerald's death. By publishing it as a book, it has become known throughout the world and the generations.
I was asked by the professor what I thought about this. So I answered that the inferiority of Hemingway is stronger than that of Fitzgerald, and in this respect, Hemingway is a more repressed writer and suffers from his inner conflict.
No matter what Hemingway's wife says, we have to remember that his wife is a person who knows Hemingway as a real person. What we are trying to know him as a research object is not the real Hemingway, but the Hemingway as a writer who can be observable through his works.
With that in mind, what Hemingway's wife claims about A Movable Feast cannot succeed in finding a way to express meanings of what Hemingway tried to achieve through this work. I think it is a work that expresses himself well enough by his writing about others.
