Remembering the Great Fitzgerald
Having sat on a boat for the last five weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect, and reflect I did. Getting old tends to make one look back, nostaligize for that green light of the dock, and, of course, the great F.Scott Fitzgerald himself. Yes, he was the master of evoking the grand old days, when Gatsby boys wore white ducks and ran around in open cars, their gals flighty, their hair not yet up, all giggly in their summer dresses. But he also showed the tragic dimension of American life, the damage inherited money can inflict, the waste of youth, the carelessness of the very rich with other peoples’ lives.
He was America’s first celebrity writer, as famous as any modern pop star with his fair hair, luminous eyes and almost angelic countenance. He was perhaps the greatest novelist of the 20th century, a man whose short life symbolized both the American dream and the American nightmare. He died on December 21, 1940, broke, unhappy and unknown. As he himself said, there are no second acts in American lives. But he was wrong. The Great Gatsby, a tale of prohibition era gangsters and obsession--as relevant today in our celebrity and sensation hungry times--is considered the greatest American novel, a perfectly constructed gem in the first person. Tender is the Night is my favorite. I first read it age 14. I had spent the summer on the French Riviera with my parents and had stayed at the Hotel du Cap, Hotel Josse in the book. Having been thrown out of Lawrenceville and Salisbury, I was reading it in study hall at Blair Academy, a jewel of a small prep school in Blairstown N.J. Mr Koth, a math teacher, saw me holding something underneath the desk and approached. “I bet you’ve got a dirty book down there,” he said, and asked me to show him what I was holding. Once I did, he said three words: “Keep reading it.”
In no time I had become obsessed with Dick Diver, Tommy Barban, Rosemary Hoyt and the beautiful Nicole. When Dick takes a last look down the beach of his golden youth and makes a sign of blessing it, Nicole tells Tommy, “I must go to him.” He holds her back as Diver disappears. I thought I would die of grief. No sooner had I gotten out of school for good I went looking for those Fitzgerald characters. On the Riviera. I can’t in all honesty say I found them, but in some cases I got close. There were plenty of types back then whose emotional bankruptcy had come about from possessing too much beauty, charm and privilege. They drew me like the proverbial moth to their flame. Most of them ended up badly, just like the Fitzgerald heroes did. It was, after all, only normal.
Fitzgerald was wild and spendthrift and an alcoholic from early days, and was even more self-destructive than his friend and arch competitor Ernest Hemingway. Scott, like Papa, was a Midwesterner, but unlike the latter, he was no prude. Towards the end, with Zelda suffering from acute schizophrenia, broke and desperate, he was dining in Baltimore with Papa Hemingway and his then-wife Pauline. Every time the black maid would come into the room to serve, Scott would ask her to tell “Mr Hemingway that Mr Fitzgerald was the greatest f--k she ever had.” Hemingway was furious. “Now just stop it, Scott, a gentleman doesn’t brag about such matters…”
Yet Fitzgerald was a terrific gent. No man could write the things he wrote without being one. Fitzgerald’s life has been chronicled almost as much as Hemingway’s. Princeton, army during World War I, stationed in Alabama where he was smitten by the belle Zelda Sayre, as magnetic as Scarlett O’Hara but very tortured. His first book, This Side of Paradise was published in 1920 and became an instant bestseller. Overnight he became the spokesman of the post-war generation of mad-cap gaiety, wild syncopated rhythm and short skirted flappers. He coined the phrase “The Jazz Age.”
Zelda was to Scott what Daisy was to Gatsby, the dream girl which would prove his nemesis. The irony is that today her illness would be controllable with medication but back then condemned her to frequent, costly stays at clinics and painful treatment. Zelda was jealous of his success, and when she had an affair with a French aviation officer, it proved to be the muse for Tender is the Night. Tommy Barban was the Frenchman, although Scott made him an American in the novel. Living it up with the Murphys on the Riviera did not help Scott’s finances, and the lack of success of Tender is the Night, published in 1934 while America was in the grip of the depression, broke his heart. Papa Hemingway was said to have likened him to a pitcher with a dead arm.
This was cruel and horrible coming from a man Fitzgerald had helped and encouraged. But such are the joys of writers’ egos. After Zelda was permanently committed, Scott went to Hollywood in order to make some money for his beloved daughter Scottie. He began an affair with Sheila Graham, an English gossip columnist who helped him until the end. He died aged 44, a few days after asking for a book of his in a bookstore whose salesman told him Fitzgerald was dead and his books out of print. The year he died his publishers sold seven copies of Gatsby and nine of Tender. Now both books sell more than 100,000 ever year, and he enjoys acclaim beyond Hemingway, especially in Europe where people rank him alongside Chekhov and Pushkin. His heartbreaking Babylon Revisited, Crazy Sunday, and The Diamond as Big as the Ritz are masterpieces and along with The Sun Also Rises of Papa’s formed my real education. That of life.
All this is old stuff, needless to say, but it’s fun to write when one’s feeling nostalgic.
Comments
Fitzgerald made the harsh judgment that Hollywood was a holiday for Jews and a tragedy for Gentiles. Of course, he was and is correct.
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Yes I would agree with those who suggest ‘The Great Gatsby’ has to be the best
‘great American novel’ because it is both poetic and succinct as well as accurate; with
Hemingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’ a close neck & neck second. If The Great Gatsby is
a rickshaw pulled by the author with all of its treasures in tow; The Sun Also Rises
loses, since it’s more the *wheel-barrel (*spelling i’m not near a dictionary) with all of
its treasures in front--pushed by the author. I’ve read all of their books. Hemingway was
probably as Fitzgerald said more of the ‘genius’ while Fitzgerald almost right there with
him on that score. But Fitzgerald being more of the thing itself, when it came to writing;
than on the other hand having to push things along (almost like it was beneath him) as
was the case with Hemingway, the former was purer. Their works are known as the contemporary
classics I think I’ve read somewhere, and that would fit since they were artists who also
actually knew what they were talking about, to the point that they also treated it with
kid gloves in keeping some of it either very discrete or concealed. Who can forget the last line
of each novel. (if memory serves) - “And so we beat on into the past boats against the
currents borne back ceaselessly into the past.” - “Yes, isn’t it pretty to think so.” Can
you guess which was which? I’ve got to re-read after reading yours above Taki ‘Tender Is
The Night’. (oops now back to work...)
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Thank you for this column. I, too, love Tender is the Night (I am unable to italicize
the title). What comes through so clearly to me in the novel is Fitzgerald’s love for Zelda, a love
that cannot find any other way to connect Fitzgerald to her except through this love
letter. Zelda is doomed but he loves her still---
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greatest american novel: What about Huck Finn? that was certainly the judgment of Fitzgerald’s first patron, H.L. Mencken.
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pardon, The Great H.L. Mencken
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Yes, absolutely great and absolutely sad. And in the end empty handed. Perhaps one should and could better in life than that.
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pardon: one should DO better in life…
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Patrick, I agree with the Sage as well, but a case can be made that Huck is not a ‘novel’ in the sense it is widely unstood today.
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My late Pastor’s funeral was held at St Mary’s Church in Rockville MD. F. Scott, Zelda, and Scotty are buried in the old church cemetery on the side of the old church next to a busy highway. Its hard to stand at the grave and think of the world of Fitzgerald over the noise of the traffic.
His family was from Maryland and the Great H.L. was the Sage of Baltimore.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H.L. Mencken
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I was made to read The Great Gatsby at school and being somewhat narrow-minded in my tastes at the time, didn’t particularly enjoy it.
Then I re-read it in my early twenties along with Fitzgerald’s wonderful first novel, This Side of Paradise, and was hooked. It is said that This Side of Paradise is best enjoyed in one’s twenties and I can see why, tho’ I re-read it in one sitting while flying home from Washington to the UK after 21 wonderful days spent in the States in 2004.
My favourite chapter is “Young Irony”, which describes Amory’s relationship with Eleanor. Is Eleanor a self-portrait by Fitzgerald? It has a dark and strange beauty, like certain parts of America, like Beacon Hill, Boston, 7th Avenue, New York on a sultry day, Goergetown in a summer storm.
Tender is the Night, tho’ beautiful in parts, is, like its author, seriously flawed. During the courdse of the book, the socially-assured Murphy morphs into Fitzgerald in an unconvincing manner.
For a good comparative study of these two literary giants, I can recommend Scott Donaldson’s Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald.
From the book, we learn that Fitgerald could be a complete arsehole at times, whereas Hemingway was a complete and total bastard.
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It’s not easy I would venture to say being, never mind being a writer since their muse I think messes with’em. If you want to better understand Hemingway the alleged total ‘bastard’ in greater context, I recommend his first published novel The Torrents of Spring a parody or burlesque of Sherwood Anderson and the Chicago school of literature at that time. Hemingway’s muse was relentless as Sherwood gave ‘Hem’ all of his necessary introductions in Paris. Throughout ‘Torrents’ the story is often interrupted as Hemingway speaks directly to the readercommenting on the famous writers in Paris at the time as they stop in to see him for a drink or whatever. At one point Fitzgeralad shows up stays for a while and then sits directly in the fireplace and refuses to leave. Hemingway caps off this digression or ‘Author’s Note To Reader’ with - “Need I add, dear reader, that I have the utmost respectfor Mr. Fitzherald, and let anybody else attack him and I would be the first to spring to his defense.” Hemingway also burlesques the styles of D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and John Dos Passos some of whom also make their owncameo appearances in the book. I guess a muse is a terrible and glorious thing so a writer had better at least have talent to make it somewhat worthwhile? If Hem was a ‘total’ bastard he probably was so
with himself as well? Perhaps except in very rare cases it probably just goes with the terrirory.
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“the carelessness of the very rich with other peoples’ lives.”
By immigration. McCain wants wages low to clean all his homes. Men’s median wages are the same as 1973, see graph page 16 of p60-233.pdf . Women’s median wages are what men’s were in 1960. That sounds like 40 plus years of wasting our lives by immigration by Kennedy, McCain and the other rich senators.
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Hey Old Spot,I am not surprised that you are a fan of Fritzgerald and
Hemingway.I read almost all of your columns in the Sunday Times
and there was certainly a discernable “jazz age” bent to your style.
I prefered the Great Gatsby to Tender. I loved the unfinished Last Tycoon
also.The Great Gatsby could be ranked the best because of its colorful
devil may care characters,its money and those unforgettable words… There
was music in my neighbors house throughout the summer nights...the youthfulness
the arrogance and the energy of Tom and Daisy and the mystery of Gatsby
produced unforgettable magic in the air.As for Hemingway I liked all those
stories about,the war, bullfighting and French cafes but The Old Man and the Sea
a simple and deep story about an unlucky poor fisherman who after three futile days at
sea catches and looses a giagantic fish to sharks is the best of them all. It makes the
point that man can be destroyed but not defeated.That is what life is all about old spot.
So good that from far away Africa I can talk about these books that influenced us all
May your tribe increase.
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F’s books are elegant but empty, and his pointless existence ended in disaster. To feel nostalgic about him means probably the sadness of a rich boy knowing that soon, very soon it will be all over. So instead it might be wiser to look a bit deeper into life and eternity. Who knows, perhaps the angels make an exception and let him slip through the proverbial eye of a needle.
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Taki the so-called “man” post directly above - although he’s not worth the gasbag he stands in, puts me in mind of the Fitz v. Hem debate ‘the rich ARE different,’ says F. ‘yes, they have more money,’ says H. IMHO they’re both right. Here’s the rub. If we don’t know our limitations we have one more. With a lot
of money if had from youth and via inheritance we tend to feel the world and thus we as well have less limitations
than is the case. It makes the rich (sometimes) in that regard more ethereal less
practical in how they perceive themselves and reality. On the other hand those who from their youth find themselves harnessed by material need and constantly aware of how much a dollar is worth conversely, since we’re ALL creatures of habit sometimes imagine they have more limitations than they actually do. So in this regard the rich are apt to have one more limitation on the side of the impractical; while those in their hardship harnesses tend to have one more limitation perceiving things as less possible than they may be. Funny, right? But it proves my point, regardless if you don’t know your limitations you have one more. As for the poster named “man” above - can you say cipher? Always feel free to delete the inane, in my opinion. “man” is like the pig in the department store who goes to the complaint desk and says he’d like to be taller. Sadly no amount of money can helphim as is the case today.
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My maternal grandmother grew up a few doors down from the Sayre residence in Montgomery and said most stuff written about Zelda’s escapades was not, alas, exaggeration (my grandmother being a flapper too with a Hollywood screen test to her credit yet!). The daughter ‘Scottie’ was an occasional visitor to my author-aunt’s home in central Alabama after the publication of her—Scottie’s—book The Romantic Egoists. That world is gone with the wind but the books remain, thank God.
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Taki - I went out today to secure (i.e. buy) Tender Is The Night to re-read. $15 is the
paperback new. So I went to the used bookstore but she is closed today. Tomorrow I shall
venture back out again bombs bursting in air (for that is what it is like not to have
money in America) to the used bookstore. HOWEVER I scanned Tender in the new bookstore
while having a coffee and recalled I enjoyed it very much not as much as Gatsby because
the latter is a lodestar (for all it says in such brief space) like those objects in
outerspace the size of a quarter that weigh as much as 25 elephants, since the atoms are
so crammed together. More importantly Hemingway is quoted on the back cover as having
said about Tender Is The Night ‘it’s amazing how excellent most of it is - a remarkable
work.’ It’s very good. It’s excellent, from what I scanned and recall, & think I’ll find
once drinking it in in private. Anton Chekhov for example went into the emotional lives of
his characters because he believed that was central, and how as they each puzzled through
that, they affected one another in the group constellation, and beyond. That’s why Chekhov
remains to this day a sort of magician of plotless works that nonetheless, that not
surprisingly *feel like they have a plot. Even though they don’t and are also completely apolitical. But
shouldn’t works attempt to comment upon and include more? Even if not to the extent of
Shakespeare who put God and his creation per se at the center of his stories or as did
the Greeks, the contemporary classicists like Fitzgerald & Hemingway it seems to me
attempted some compromise in including man also, but not exclusively. Their characters all have their hidden emotional and sometimes physical scars and yet they are nonetheless people of courage
and conviction regardless of how misguided they may be. And like Shakespeare they too always
felt hard-up for plots/stories subsequently since that also was important. I would say in literature the pendulum today could start swinging back toward [God &] creation as the focus, inclusive
obviously, & inevitably of man as part of it. Chekhov was the exception to the rule
which proves it to able to pull off what he did and make it ‘seem’ so sufficeint. However when the herd then is directed to go in that direction of course all that becomes of it are the daily,
nauseatingly superfical soaps. HA-HA-HA funny. I wonder if Chekhov knows what he wrought? Albeit he was a genius at it. They should pass a law, no one is allowed to follow Chekhov. As in similar manner Christ is the exception to the rule which proves it, and it is blasphemy to imitate Him. Meanwhile back at the ranch,
a plot, a good plot - my kingdom (err make that Taki’s) for a plot. I kid.
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