Americans lack dignity. On this day in 1928 Sylvia Beach hosted a dinner party in order that F. Scott Fitzgerald, who worshipped James Joyce, but was afraid to approach him, might do so. In her Shakespeare and Company Bookshop memoir Beach delicately avoids describing what happened, although she perhaps suggests an explanation... Poor Scott was earning so much from his books that he and Zelda had to drink a great deal of champagne in Montmartre in an effort to get rid of it. According to Herbert Gorman, another guest and Joyces first biographer, Fitzgerald sank down on one knee before Joyce, kissed his hand, and declared: How does it feel to be a great genius, Sir? I am so excited at seeing you, Sir, that I could weep. As the evening progressed, Fitzgerald enlarged upon Nora Joyces beauty, and, finally, darted through an open window to the stone balcony outside, jumped on to the eighteen-inch-wide parapet and threatened to fling himself to the cobbled thoroughfare below unless Nora declared that she loved him. Source & more here: ow.ly/yxebm
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:09:59 +0000
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