As part of my Keatsian late summer I have been listening to this book on Audible. I really like anything Jonathan Bates writes, he is an amazing scholar and communicator…. I am not either, just an interested reader… so take my review as just an uneducated opinion

But this book fell a little flat for me. His premise is that the two writers had interwoven lives. While I agree that they followed the same creative journeys and that both died younger than they should have, I couldn’t quite see the connection as being as close as Bates writes here.

Fitzgerald clearly admired Keats, that is seen in his stories and book titles (e.g Tender is the Night is a line from Keats). Fitzgerald themes were often Keats obsessions and he championed Keats all through his life. But as to souls joined in creativity… I sort of disagree.

The book switched between a bit of Keats life then a bit of Fitzgeralds life. It was like watching tennis.
All in all, maybe it would have been better being a biography of Fitzgerald showing how Keats influenced him rather than a Keats/Fitzgerald back and forth. This may be my opinion because I had just read the Andrew Motion biography of Keats. That book was more detailed, it was a different book. But I just struggled to see the connections between the writers as Bates does.

But not saying I didn’t like Bright Star Green Light…It was a good book to read and enjoyable.. just I didn’t quite agree with the thesis put forward and that is always perfectly OK. But I think a full biography of Fitzgerald drawing on Keats life would have worked better for me.