Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“I’m writing a satire on ’em now, calling it ‘Boston Bards and Hearst Reviewers.’”

“Let’s hear it,” said Amory eagerly.

“I’ve only got the last few lines done.”

“That’s very modern. Let’s hear ’em, if they’re funny.”

Tom produced a folded paper from his pocket and read aloud, pausing at intervals so that Amory could see that it was free verse:

“So

Walter Arensberg,

Alfred Kreymborg,

Carl Sandburg,

Louis Untermeyer,

Eunice Tietjens,

Clara Shanafelt,

James Oppenheim,

Maxwell Bodenheim,

Richard Glaenzer,

Scharmel Iris,

Conrad Aiken,

I place your names here

So that you may live

If only as names,

Sinuous, mauve-colored names,

In the Juvenalia

Of my collected editions.”

Amory roared.

“You win the iron pansy. I’ll buy you a meal on the arrogance of the last two lines.”

Amory did not entirely agree with Tom’s sweeping damnation of American novelists and poets. He enjoyed both Vachel Lindsay and Booth Tarkington, and admired the conscientious, if slender, artistry of Edgar Lee Masters.

“What I hate is this idiotic drivel about ‘I am God—I am man—I ride the winds—I look through the smoke—I am the life sense.’”