WE ARE BUT FLAMES

 

Flames appear to be objects ... but they are instead a process.

   As are we ourselves.  We appear to be permanent, but we are in flux constantly.

Have you seen MIDNIGHT IN PARIS?

 

The Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, and the other lost generation in Paris lived in the moment as if the moment would never end. 

All moments do.  That is why we are a process not objects.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story collection ironically titled,Taps at Reveille, 

the last of his books to appear before his death in 1940, was published on this day in 1935.

His New York Times obituary notice used it to book-end what was described as a short, sad writing life.

Fitzgerald described himself as “a cracked plate” — emotionally and professionally deserving to be shelved, though not discarded.

Hemingway viewed Fitzgerald’s comments as sentimental, self-absorbed and in the worst style of giving up.

(Another irony that followed the Lost Generation.)

Unwilling to let his former friend have his self-images:

the cracked plate, or the Taps at Reveille soldier who would trumpet his own interment.

Hemingway published “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” a few months later. It presents Fitzgerald as the hunter-writer who has lost his talent for the kill.

Bet you didn't know that fact about Hemingway's short story, did you?

Fitzgerald and Hemingway first met in April 1925.

At the time, Hemingway, who had been working as a journalist, had only published a handful of stories and poems, a total of eighty-eight pages.

 Fitzgerald on the other hand was the author of three published novels, two short story collections and countless individual stories.

The meeting between the writers led to a tumultuous friendship often characterized by insecurity and jealousy – a friendship that would affect not only the two men, but their writing as well.

Fitzgerald and Hemingway were close during those first years of friendship. As Hemingway’s literary career continued to prosper,

he became increasingly resentful of those peers who had originally helped to propel his star:

Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and especially Fitzgerald took the brunt of Hemingway’s cutting words.

While Fitzgerald was there for Hemingway when he needed support, Hemingway did not return the favor.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.

We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

                           - Albert Schweitzer

 

What people are you thankful for in your life?

 

What places, moments, and life stage?

 

Have you taken time to give thanks to those people, to look beneath the surface to see if they stand in need?