Saturday, April 9, 2011

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Damaged Wings

Death's Head Moth
 
Ernest Hemingway describes F. Scott Fitzgerald as follows in A Moveable Feast (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964)—

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly anymore because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.