The Istoriaphile’s Corner

The flowering dogwood is blooming.  Spring is taking time showing the rest of her sweet face but the dogwood branches are in blossom and their branches look like suspended wedding lace at twilight.  This condition will last about a week until the apple-green leaves take their place and the petals will drift to the gutters.   The temp is still nowhere near 80 but it’s warm enough in the sun.   It’s time to read Fitzgerald again. If a writer can be tied to the weather, F. Scott Fitzgerald is Summer and Spring.  There’s an exuberance and energy in his early stories match the hope and joy of Spring and the redolence of summer is the setting for Gatsby. Clothes are loose in Fitzgerald stories, smiles are warmer and many characters are on holiday.  Even sad stories, like Babylon Revisited contain memories of warm weather but since we’re talking about a Southern Spring, the the Fitzgerald du jour is “The Ice-Palace.”  Fitzgerald first saw the South in 1918, while he was serving in the Army.  First Kentucky, then Georgia and finally Alabama in summer where he met his wife, Zelda Sayre.  By the time Ice Palace is published, Scott Fitzgerald has noted…