In life, [Fitzgerald] simply wanted too much. … He wasn’t so much a walking contradiction as a quivering mass of dreams and ambitions that, depending on how he was feeling and whom he was talking to, created a dizzying array of impressions.

…But, then, Fitzgerald was not one to give up on dreams; if he had, he could not have written so beautifully, so penetratingly, about their loss.

slow fade by arthur krystal, in the new yorker, november 16, 2009.  i identify so much with his characterisation of fitzgerald’s restless practices, i feel he is damning – and redeeming – me by proxy.