"Their lips brushed like young wild flowers in the wind"
"Their lips brushed like wild flowers in the wind." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
This quote, suggested by Kerri of @myoutfitmatchesmybook, comes from Fitzgerald’s early novel This Side of Paradise.
The line serves as a great summary of the novel which is the coming of age story of a young romantic idealist. In addition to a typical third person narrative, Fitzgerald also uses second person, free verse, stream-of-consciousness, epistolary letters, poetry, a play-within-a-novel, and a manuscript of another story he had written to create This Side of Paradise. The experiment pays off, giving the narrative an un-manicured, disorienting beauty that reminds us of a field of wildflowers.
The story is partly autobiographical, and was Fitzgerald’s attempt to win back Zelda Sayre. She had broken off with him due to his lack of prospects, and at 22 Fitzgerald resolved to become a famous novelist so that he could win her back. In just a few months, he had his first novel, and Zelda’s hand.
The imagery of this line is so fantastic, we didn’t want to stray too far afield in the illustration. In it, the wind sways two wild flowers into a kiss. In the background a field full of other flowers jostle for their place, compete for sunlight and collectively create a kind of order and beauty out of chaos.
Our first Fitzgerald illustration is almost a decade old (!) and was also inspired by This Side of Paradise.
The roaring twenties, when booze was illegal and dresses were flappy. We love this quotation; it reminds us of the headlong intoxicated rush into mutual obsession - the kind of love that usually ends badly. Here, the flapper dress transforms into a martini glass as it is unzipped.
