F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates
- February 8, 2012
- In Proust in the News
Maxine P. Fisher published an interesting article, “F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates,” in the October 2011 issue of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. Here is an abstract of the article.
This essay examines a variety of parallelisms in the lives and works of two authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust. They were a generation apart, lived in different countries, read and wrote in different languages and had vastly different writing styles. The thesis here is not that Fitzgerald came under the influence of the older writer, whom he read and re-read and greatly admired, but that because the two shared many life experiences and a particular sensibility, certain themes echo in each other’s works. These include the importance for their key male characters of recapturing a part of their past in order to reestablish their sense of self; obsessive, but non-reciprocated love; the power of the imagination to transform reality; and the refusal of their characters to submit to disillusionment.
Read the full article, "F. Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel Proust: Literary Soul Mates," here on the Wiley Online Library website.
