I’m not sure I get the point of this article. ‘Success isn’t as interesting to writers as failure’ – is that the point? I’ve also never understood why Gatsby is considered by many as a great love story. It’s much more about self-delusion and selfishness imo.
SEVEN films actually, three for TV and four for the big screen.
Garth Buckner
3 years ago
“In the literature of the 20th century, the life of a man of business (it was invariably a man) was worthy of contemplation only if it exposed the hollowness of his capitalist world…”
What about Noble House by James Clavell? Or is Clavell not literature? Which begs the question; are books, however well written, simply not literature if they feature successful businessmen? Or soldiers who win? Or people who believe in the West? Or which address the Cold War as anything other than stupid and corrupt? Or novels where people spy for their country as anything other than needing the scales to fall from their eyes?
Which raises the question: Can there be a pro-Brexit literature?
Basil Chamberlain
3 years ago
Literary critic John Carey, having commented on the ideological diversity of English literature, argued that perhaps the only unifying trait was “antagonism to pride, grandeur, self-esteem and celebrity.” Literature tends to be sceptical of these things, as well as of “success”, because it grasps, unlike many people, that they are temporary and hollow. I often think of Trollope’s summation at the close of The Way We Live Now: “Whether her hopes were realised, or, ” as human hopes never are realised, ” how far her content was assured, these pages cannot tell.” What a breathtaking statement to make in a parenthesis! People who think literature is escapism simply don’t understand it.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
‘In the late 1930s, Fitzgerald earned $91,000 in 18 months ““ $1.6m today.’
That should be the last 1920s, not 1939s. I was about to add a comment about the excellence of the Pat Hobby stories, but I’m happy to way that the writer did the job for me.
Thanks – he was indeed successful in the 20s, but the figures I referred to were for his time in the film industry in the late 30s: he was contracted at $1,000 a week for six months, then renewed for a year at $1,250 a week: total $91,000. The point being, I suppose, that he was rolling in cash in 1937/38 but then was desperate for money a year later, just before his death.
Fitzgerald was always obsessed by wealth and his ultimate failure was founded in the envy he demonstrated for those who had wealth but, he felt, had not had to strive for it. You rightly point out that he was not poor during his life but he believed he was and, for him, diamonds had to be “as big as the Ritz.”
I think Fitzgerald was a great writer but an ordinary novelist. If you are looking for real pathos in his work forget the Gatsby fantasy and read his short stories, particularly his wonderfully comic Pat Hobby collection.
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago
Interesting that Leonardo di Caprio played both Gatsby in the most recent film version of the novel and Frank Wheeler in the film of “Revolutionary Road”. I’ve seen the first film but not the second, though I would very much like to see it. “Revolutionary Road” is not nearly as well known as “The Great Gatsby”, but it was probably Yates’s masterpiece; it was certainly the best of his books I have read. It was good of John to draw attention to Yates’s book and notice the similarities between it and “The Great Gatsby”.
I’m not sure I get the point of this article. ‘Success isn’t as interesting to writers as failure’ – is that the point?
I’ve also never understood why Gatsby is considered by many as a great love story. It’s much more about self-delusion and selfishness imo.
“I’ve also never understood why Gatsby is considered by many as a great love story.”
Because of the film.
Ah. I’ve never seen it.
SEVEN films actually, three for TV and four for the big screen.
“In the literature of the 20th century, the life of a man of business (it was invariably a man) was worthy of contemplation only if it exposed the hollowness of his capitalist world…”
What about Noble House by James Clavell? Or is Clavell not literature? Which begs the question; are books, however well written, simply not literature if they feature successful businessmen? Or soldiers who win? Or people who believe in the West? Or which address the Cold War as anything other than stupid and corrupt? Or novels where people spy for their country as anything other than needing the scales to fall from their eyes?
Which raises the question: Can there be a pro-Brexit literature?
Literary critic John Carey, having commented on the ideological diversity of English literature, argued that perhaps the only unifying trait was “antagonism to pride, grandeur, self-esteem and celebrity.” Literature tends to be sceptical of these things, as well as of “success”, because it grasps, unlike many people, that they are temporary and hollow. I often think of Trollope’s summation at the close of The Way We Live Now: “Whether her hopes were realised, or, ” as human hopes never are realised, ” how far her content was assured, these pages cannot tell.” What a breathtaking statement to make in a parenthesis! People who think literature is escapism simply don’t understand it.
‘In the late 1930s, Fitzgerald earned $91,000 in 18 months ““ $1.6m today.’
That should be the last 1920s, not 1939s. I was about to add a comment about the excellence of the Pat Hobby stories, but I’m happy to way that the writer did the job for me.
Thanks – he was indeed successful in the 20s, but the figures I referred to were for his time in the film industry in the late 30s: he was contracted at $1,000 a week for six months, then renewed for a year at $1,250 a week: total $91,000. The point being, I suppose, that he was rolling in cash in 1937/38 but then was desperate for money a year later, just before his death.
I guess he spent all the money on Sheilah Graham!
Fitzgerald was always obsessed by wealth and his ultimate failure was founded in the envy he demonstrated for those who had wealth but, he felt, had not had to strive for it. You rightly point out that he was not poor during his life but he believed he was and, for him, diamonds had to be “as big as the Ritz.”
I think Fitzgerald was a great writer but an ordinary novelist. If you are looking for real pathos in his work forget the Gatsby fantasy and read his short stories, particularly his wonderfully comic Pat Hobby collection.
Interesting that Leonardo di Caprio played both Gatsby in the most recent film version of the novel and Frank Wheeler in the film of “Revolutionary Road”. I’ve seen the first film but not the second, though I would very much like to see it. “Revolutionary Road” is not nearly as well known as “The Great Gatsby”, but it was probably Yates’s masterpiece; it was certainly the best of his books I have read. It was good of John to draw attention to Yates’s book and notice the similarities between it and “The Great Gatsby”.