Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Geneva's Rough Crossing

Geneva
Ginevra

Geneva’s explicit description of her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald on board the ocean liner Conte Biancamano sets her 1929 travel diary apart. Authors William Loos and Victor Doyno wrote of Geneva’s resemblance to Fitzgerald’s first love, Ginevra King, in their essay “Fitzgerald’s Very ‘Rough Crossing:’”

From available photographs it is apparent that she bore a resemblance to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first love, Ginevra King. The similarity in names must have caught his attention….imagine what it must have been like for Fitzgerald-drunk or sober-suddenly to find himself on an ocean voyage with a more mature reincarnation, in face and almost in name, of his teenage sweetheart. 

The Rough Crossing

In her diary, Geneva wrote of her March 4 meeting with Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda:
Met Scott Fitzgerald and little wife with name commencing with Z- Played bridge with Williams and wife. Later talked to Fitzg and wife- both very tight. She was probably very pretty when younger and very amusing. He ended by asking Mrs. Williams something about mens private parts and Ms. Fitzgerald called him a fool- (Scott you fool you better shut up) One can never talk about anything seriously with people- Everyone was paralyzed- He turned to me and I said I am silly I can never answer you. He followed me out saying I was beautiful and he loved me but I was very silly and kissed my hand. Scott and I had been talking about literature. He maintained that Mencken was the greatest man of the age and I standing up for George Bernard Shaw, James Branch Cabell, Anatole France saying they were fun but that Mencken was silly and trivial- that greatness had to be constructive not destructive for the race. He turned from this to Mrs. W. and said Mrs. W. do women like mens private large or small? He kept at her then his wife spoke up then and he turned to me and said Geneva won’t you answer me and I said you think I’m silly how could I.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Lecture this Wednesday

Complicated, colorful, mysterious India is the presentation topic for traveler Michael Stock as part of the "Exotic Travels" Lunchtime Series at the downtown Central Library on Wednesday, May 11, from 12 noon-1 p.m. Free, presented in conjunction with current exhibit "Travelers and Cosmopolitans: The Tourist is the Other Fellow" now through May 28. Travel vicariously with us!