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Bitch-slapping F. Scott Fitzgerald
Feb. 22nd, 2010 02:01 pm“He has been given a gift for expression without very many ideas to express,” Edmond Wilson once remarked about his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald.
For me, this remains the truest characterization of this emblematic author’s work. What’s Fitzgerald emblematic of? Oh, you know – the American cycle of Boom and Bust. Early promise and blighted aftermath The Jazz Age and the breadlines that followed. My high school English teacher taught me that The Great Gatsby is a novel about the fraudulence of money. While I’m certain that’s true, I’m also certain Fitzgerald didn’t know he was writing about that.
There are two types of emblematic writers – writers associated with a particular time and writers who are associated with a particular place. These are the writers who tend to make it into the historical pantheon, although they’re often not the best writers working during their lifetimes. Without the Jazz Age, there wouldn’t have been a Fitzgerald; just as without the Depression, there wouldn’t have been a Steinbeck. (Actually, Steinbeck medals twice on that score since whatever his structural and prose flaws, his narratives just drip Central Valley.)
No, I’m not reading Fitzgerald – I’m reading John O’Hara. Who hero worshipped Fitzgerald though this didn’t in any way inform O’Hara’s prose style which is minimalist to say the least. Minimalist but with great dialogue. O’Hara was one of those writers who was really constrained by the times in which he lived. Reading him, you kind of want to grab him out of those boring, self-Bowdlerizing 1950’s and plop him down in the present tense. He has a very contemporary ear. And come to think about it, he wrote about the same topics that obsessed Fitzgerald – money and class. But he didn’t turn class warfare into romance.
Also tried to reread Sons and Lovers last week. Tried and failed. I remember loving that book – loving all things Lawrencian – with a mad passion when I was in my early twenties. But now I just wanted to snarl, Compress it! The constant repetition thing works as emphasis in the Bible – you understand they hadn’t invented underlines and italics yet so you cut some slack. But Lawrence’s extreme fetish for naturalistic prose seems really self-indulgent to me now. Make those verbs do some work! I wanted to scream.
I like to think there’s an unbroken continuum between the me of the Now and the me of thirty-five years ago, but honestly if I met that girl in a dark alley I’d probably want to bitch-slap her.
For me, this remains the truest characterization of this emblematic author’s work. What’s Fitzgerald emblematic of? Oh, you know – the American cycle of Boom and Bust. Early promise and blighted aftermath The Jazz Age and the breadlines that followed. My high school English teacher taught me that The Great Gatsby is a novel about the fraudulence of money. While I’m certain that’s true, I’m also certain Fitzgerald didn’t know he was writing about that.
There are two types of emblematic writers – writers associated with a particular time and writers who are associated with a particular place. These are the writers who tend to make it into the historical pantheon, although they’re often not the best writers working during their lifetimes. Without the Jazz Age, there wouldn’t have been a Fitzgerald; just as without the Depression, there wouldn’t have been a Steinbeck. (Actually, Steinbeck medals twice on that score since whatever his structural and prose flaws, his narratives just drip Central Valley.)
No, I’m not reading Fitzgerald – I’m reading John O’Hara. Who hero worshipped Fitzgerald though this didn’t in any way inform O’Hara’s prose style which is minimalist to say the least. Minimalist but with great dialogue. O’Hara was one of those writers who was really constrained by the times in which he lived. Reading him, you kind of want to grab him out of those boring, self-Bowdlerizing 1950’s and plop him down in the present tense. He has a very contemporary ear. And come to think about it, he wrote about the same topics that obsessed Fitzgerald – money and class. But he didn’t turn class warfare into romance.
Also tried to reread Sons and Lovers last week. Tried and failed. I remember loving that book – loving all things Lawrencian – with a mad passion when I was in my early twenties. But now I just wanted to snarl, Compress it! The constant repetition thing works as emphasis in the Bible – you understand they hadn’t invented underlines and italics yet so you cut some slack. But Lawrence’s extreme fetish for naturalistic prose seems really self-indulgent to me now. Make those verbs do some work! I wanted to scream.
I like to think there’s an unbroken continuum between the me of the Now and the me of thirty-five years ago, but honestly if I met that girl in a dark alley I’d probably want to bitch-slap her.
