04 May 2013

Z : A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald ~ Therese Anne Fowler

** OK **

ZZZZzzzzzz Yawn
"Golden Couple" more like pale yellow


For a story that could have, that should have, buzzed with the vibrancy of the Jazz Age, it was a bland and colourless.  What I thought was going to be a fictionalised study, based on biographical materials, could have been constructed from Wikipedia research.  The characters and the locations needed life breathed into them.  Historical facts and faces were there but they stayed on the page.

At times I thought it came across as a sanitised version of Zelda, portraying her as the champion of the feminist movement.  There was little emotional involvement with her breakdown.  Zelda just came across as a victim, controlled but not complicit.  The only "outrageous" thing I can remember her doing was taking off her panties and throwing them, and usually she was presented as a mother who would rather be at home playing with Scottie.  There was little sign of the bi-polar extremes of her personality.