Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Romance of Montgomery, Alabama


It is where author, F.Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre, infamous southern belle, at a Country Club dance in the summer of 1918. Their fantasies were completely matched and a tempestuous marriage followed.

Long before Scott made her a legend, Zelda was already a celebrity in not only Montgomery, but Georgia! Young men paid homage to her and fought battles for her behind the Ole Ship Church on Holcombe Ave. Just being in her social circle gave them status.

Most Zelda biographers do not emphasize her deep southern roots and do not understand her romance with her home town. Youth and close proximity to death (due to the Civil War), and the coziness of the cocoon her family enveloped her in, protected her from life's travails. The effect of geography on love is featured prominently in her short story, Southern Girl and Scott understood her conflict somewhat when he wrote, The Ice Palace.

Apparently, most southerners do not like to be transported. Writer Eudora Welty continued to live in her Jackson, Mississippi childhood home at the height of her fame. She liked her postage stamp-sized world and found something fascinating in it each day of her life.

I believe that Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald did not fare too well leaving her environs for the world stage. She was a natural person, with a love of nature and a fragility that was misunderstood in the North.

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