The Gatsby Magic [Esquire UK 2013-06]

7/28/2019 The Gatsby Magic [Esquire UK 2013-06]

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ESSAY

THEGAT BYMA Ie

HOW F SCOTT FITZGERALDCAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

By Andrew 'Hagan


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IN a Y ~ 9 2 2 , F S c o t tFitzgera ld , aged27, was ayoun g writeron th e turn. H ehad blazed into fame wit h his debutnovel two years earlier an d wa s closeto being a burnt-out case. Iffameis a mask [hat eats into {he face, t henFitzgera ld wa s quite repulsive tohimselfa s the Jazz Age reached itsheight . He'd drunk too muchchampagne an d told too ma ny lies,ruining both his co nst itution an dhi s innocence, an d before he wroteThe Great Gatsby, he thought life wasa joke at h is own expense.

At the heigh t of his fame,Fitzgerald made an d spent over$400,000. "He sa llied forth onto thestreets of New York,"wr ites ScottDonaldson, hi s latest biographer,"w it h $20, $50, $100 bill s pokingoutof hi s vest a nd coat pockets. For thebenefit of gratefu l be llh ops, he kepta plate of money on a table in his hotelroom, When at restaurams, hesometimes tipped mo re than t he bill.In France, his pockets we re alwaysfull of damp little wads ofh undredfranc notes that he dribbled o utbehind him the way so me womendo Kleenex'," More than one wim essat th e t im e sa id he was headed forcatast rophe, an d they were right.But no t before Fitzgerald turned hisin teres t in money into the greatestAmerican novel of the 20th ce ntu ry.

T e book appears soinevi table now,so co mplete, but therewas a time when he feltit was beyond his grasp.Anybodywhowri tes novels knowstha t period of secret vertigo, whenyour book seems a long way downan d your he ad sp ins and your heartraces just to think of it. But th e yearbefore Fitzgera ld began The GreatGacsby he believed he had dried up."I doubt I'll eve r write an y th ingagain worth putting in print," he sa id.However, by June 1922, Fitzgerald

ESSAYha d overcome these in sec urities an dbegun to plan the novel. He initia llythought it wou ld be set in the Midwestin 1885 and would be shor t on whathe ca lled "superlative beauties"butwith a Catholic element. That wassoon dropped when the world of richphonies engu lfed hi s imagination.Hewas livingby then in Great Neck,what would be fictionalised as thenouveau riche West Egg in Gatsby, onLong Island among the swells. Moviemogul Sa muel Goldwyn an d writ erRing Lardner were neighbours; [hes ilen t screen star Mae Murray an dcelebrated war hero General Pershingcould be found nearby walking th ei rdogs. "Th ey have no mock-modesty,"he wrote, "and al l perform theirvar ious st unt s upon the fa intestrequest like a sustained concert."

There is no birthingp lan formasterpieces. A genius book arrivesno t like a lott ery w in , out ofgoodfortun e an d [he weird mechanics ofchance, but out ofa brilliant co llisionbetween a wr iter's talent an d thepe riod in which he or she happens tobe wr it ing. Living on th e Long IslandSound , no matter how messily,Fitzgerald st ill had the creat ivereadies. When he looked around himat the se rich people in thei r vastca relessness on the brink of theDepress io n, when he looked insidehimse lf an d sa w a people-pleasingdrunk in the era of Prohibition, herealised a perfect storm had arrivedon t he coast of hi s ab ili t ies . He knew,in imaginative terms, he had adeepconn ec tion w ith hi s own ferment an dth e ferment of hi s times, an d a bookbegan to emerge th a t co uldn 't havebeen written by any other person inany oth e r time. That, I believe, is wha twe mean by a litera ry ma sterpiece.

Fitzgerald sta rted the book atGreat Neck. He was in a S[ate whilewriting it , both knowing how good itcould be an d worrying he might flunkit. "I feel I have an enormous power inme now," hewrote in one ofhis letters,"more than I've ever had in a way bu tit works so fitfully an d with so ma nybogeys because I've ta lked so muchan d no t lived enough within myself todevelop the necessary sel f rel iance .rdon't know anyone who ha s used upso much personal experience as I haveat 27 .. So in my new novel I'm throwndirectly on purely creat ive work - nottrashy imaginings as in my stories butthe susta ined imagination of a sincerean d yet radiant world. So I treadslowly a nd ca refully an d at times in

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F ScottFitzgerald, wifeZelda anddaughter Scott ieat their home inParis, 1925(above)Robert Redfordas Ja y Gatsbyin the 1974fi lm The GreatGatsby(above r ight)

considerab le distress." For Fitzgerald,wr it ing, like living, could be adelirious sickness, an d the boozingthreatened to tea r down everythingabout him. Anita Loos, author ofGentlemen Prefe r Blondes, once hadto hide under a table at Great Neck ( 0get away from his rage, Mortal wi thdrink, he threw "two enormouscandelabras with ligh tedcandles,"she said, "a water carafe, a metal winecooler an d a silver platt er."

Fitzgerald ditched a lot of theearly Gatsby manuscript he producedduring that first summer an d overthe following year an d by April 1924he ha d "a ne w angle". Heand hisfamously erra tic wife Zelda movedto the French Riviera, where,despite drink, quarrels, and otherdistractions, th e work lOok on freshmomentum. Every itch an d pulse ofhi s idealism went into the book; he


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knew he could make so mething new,something pure. "I hope I don't seea sou l for six months," he wrote."My novel grows more an d moreextraordinary; I feel abso lu telyself-sufficient an d I have a perfec thollow craving for lonel iness."

Th e name Gatsby might have beenstolen from the Gadsby that appearsin th e work of Mark Twa in, bu t itseems more likely, given Fitzgerald'simmensely echo ing style, that theauthor formed the name from theslang term for piscol, Gat. Th e house- that unforgettable house, with itslawn an d blue gardens, where "menand gi rls came and went like mothsamong the whi sperings andchampagne and the sta rs" - wasthought to be modelled on theluxurious home of Herbert BayardSwope, editor of the Ne-w York World.Gatsby, the enigma t ic bootlegger

ESSAY

IF FAME WAS AMASK THAT EATSINTO THE FACE,

THEN FITZGERALDWAS QUITE

REPULSIVE TOHIMSELF AS THE

JAZZ AGE REACHEDITS HEIGHT

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an d new-monied dreamer, beganas a version of severaIshadyTwentiesbusinessmen bu t ended up taking agreat deal from Fitzgerald himse lf. Helater acknowledged all hi s characters,the women as we ll as the men, werelittle Fitzgeralds. Someone once saida ll good novelists are hermaphroditic:Fitzgerald would have agreed. He saidthere could never be a good biographyof a novelist because a novelist, ifhe is any good, is too many people."We ll , I sha ll writea novel bener thanany novel ever written in Americaan d become, pa r excellence, the bestsecond-rater in th e world," he said.

In November 1924, he fini shed th enovel in a flurry of revisions, bu t hest ill wasn't happy wit h the title. It wascalled Trimalchioin WescEgg.(Tr imalchio, mentioned in the novel,is the party-giving rich cha racter inTh e Satyricon by Petronius. ) But


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Fitzgera ld had a lternative t itl es, eachofwhich was worse than th e other:On the Road to West Egg, Gold-HattedGatsby, The High-Bouncing Lover,Gatsby, Trimalchio. For Fitzgerald ,writing a novel was like trying tograb the breeze or steal a halo: everybeautiful attempt was bound to belaced with imposs ibility. He wroteabout failure and he lived with it,too. "That's thewhole burden of thisnovel," he wrote to an old Princetonclassmate, "the loss of hose illusionsthat give such colour to the worldso that you don't care whether thingsare true or false as long as they partakeof he magical glory."

Th e story is told by Nick Carraway,one oflife's undecided bit-pan players,a model narrator, a Yale man andformer soldier who moves to a houseon Long Island next door to amysterious mi ll ionaire called JayGatsby. Carraway is a bondsman,impressionable, likablean d lightlyromantic, an d his second cousinDaisy lives on the other side of theSound with her husband Tom, arich, two-timing Ivy Leaguer witha heavydose of brutality. Dressed inwhite flannels, Nickgoes to one ofGatsby's extraord inary partieson thatextraordinary lawn. Although he isdistant and somewhat untouchable,Gatsby befr iends Nick and soon draftshim into his plan to win the heart ofDaisy. We find that his wholeexistence, the house , the money, theshins, an d the giant parties, too, ar eall an attempt to gain the love of therich girl who once rejected him. Iwon'tsay more. It all unwinds in ways thatread as if he tragic muse had gotdrunk on Chateau d'Yquem and sunga sublime an d moving aria from theornate balconyofa priceless house.

Writing th e book - orwriting thebook an d boozing an d trying to livewit h Zelda - blew Fitzgerald's lamps.He was never the sa me ma n again an dthe novel's poor sales on ly fuelled hisnative feeling that failure was h isdestiny. Not long ago, I was in Parisan d I went one evening to 14 rue deTiisitt, just off he Champs-Elysees,where the beamiful orange sky abovethe buildings gave me that feeling(common to Paris) that life might beas good as it's going to get. Fitzgeraldcame to live in the rue du Tilsitt whenhe finished Gatsby. He was out gettingdrunk one night with the boys fromthe Paris bureau of an Americannewspaper, an d he returned he re,totally sozzled, to find Zelda

ESSAYaddressing him from the balcony atnumber 14. "You're drunk again, youbastard," she shouted.

"Not at a ll , darling," he replied,staggering up to push at the samedoor I was looking at. "I'm as soberasapolarbear."

H wdoyoufilmtheromanticism that livesinside the prose of somewriters? How do youadapt such fineness intovisible cues, speeches, romines, andactions? Th e answer, in relation toScott Fitzgerald's best-known nove l,is that it probably can't be done, anymore than Joyce's most famous bookca n be filmed. There have been fourattempts at The Great Gatsby, eachworse than the last, an d the only hopefor Baz Luhrmann's new effort is thatit supplants the book's tendermystique with a rowdy energy all ofits own. Watching the early versions,the one starr ing Alan Ladd, or theSeventies one directed by JackClayton an d starring Robert Redford,you come away with a sense thatFitzgerald's perfect sentences just getin the way of what fi lm-makers ca nactually do when adapting the bookfor th e big sc reen. Sure, Fitzgeraldwrote in pictures, but it's no t th epictures we remember, it's not th eimages or even the plot of The GreatGatsby t hat sticks in the m ind. It issomething beyond paraphrase, call itsubli me grace, ca ll it existence music,bu t however we describe it, the thingthat matters is li ke the beat of ahummingbird's wings, so delicatean d so rapid that a camera strugglesto catch it.

An d that might serve as adescription of Scott Fitzgerald'stalent overall. Nothingbecame it likeits fract uring. At th e height of histrouble, no t long before his final slideinto death at the age of44, he wrote aserie s of articles for Esquire that willmean something to every ma n settingh is fee t for the first time on the terrainbeyond his youth. "Those indiscree t

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WRITING THE BOOKAND BOOZING

AND TRYINGTO LIVE WITH

ZELDA BLEWFITZGERALD'S

LAMPS. HE WASNEVER THE SAME

MAN AGAIN


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Esquire articles," as he later ca lledthem, alarmed people with howpersonal they were, speaking upabout the psyc hic trials of hisgene ration, an d perhaps ours.

"I felt like th e beady-eyed menI used to see on t he commuting tra infrom Great Neck 15 years back," hewrote. "Men who didn't care whetherth e world tumbled in to chaostomorrow ifit spared their houses."In the midst of financial and emotion a lcrisis, Fitzgerald ha d taken that samelook into his own clear Irish eyes.

"My own happiness in th e pastoften approached such an ecstasythat I could no t share it even with theperson deares t to me bu t ha d to walkit away in the quiet streets .. an dI think that my happiness, or talentfor self-delusion or what you will, wasan exception. It was no t the na tu ralthing but the unnatural- unnatural

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as th e Boom; an d my recentexperience parallels thewave ofdespair that swept the nation whenthe Boom was over." Th e Esquireessays ar e li u le masterpiecesofself-awareness, an d the book theybecame, The Crack-Up, could stillserve as a guide to what ca n happen tointelligent men at a certain time intheir lives, when all the fancy watcheshave been bought an d set, when loveis hard, when the good su its ar e in thecloset bu t life isn't what you ordered,and when all around you th e dream ofprogress is mired in lies.

Th e season of Fitzgerald is uponus. It ha s been coming for a few yearsnow: I thought of hi m the firs t timeI heard people us ing the phrase "thefinancial cr is is". Any of us who spentthe Eighties an d Nineties wa tchingthe growth of money, the rise inchampagne sales an d the ex plos ion of

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A BOOK BEGANTO EMERGE THATCOULDN'T HAVEBEEN WRITTENBY ANY OTHERPERSON IN ANYOTHER TIMETobey Maguireas Nick Carrawayand LeonardoDiCaprio asJa y Gatsby inth e new fi lmadaptation ofThe Great Gatsby ,ou t on 16 May

First edit ion ofth e novel from1925

spite, then the rapid uncoiling of th eboys in red braces, knew that the ma nwho wrote The Great Gatsby an d TheCrack-Up might come to serve as apatron saint of our credit-crunchingera. In th e last year, Gatsby has beenthe subject of a stage play, Gatz,where the whole text is read a lou d ina modern office. Neweditions of thebook ar e being prepared as we speak,Northern Ballet has just pu t flappersin pumps an d floaty skirts, the t imelypa s de deux of Gatsby an d Daisyperformed under a green light. BazLuhrmann chose his moment wel l,an d let us remember, amid the gloriesof costu me an d excess, choreographyan d stardom, (he fragile excellence ofScott Fitzgera ld 's message to theworld of grown-ups.

He wrote it years after he an dZelda an d Scott ie, their daughter,left the apartment in the ru e de Tilsitt,that place he came to after finishingthe great American novel. Thewordssang out to me the ot her day asI looked u p at the windows an d feltthe chill of he present day. "We weregoingtotheOld Wor ld to find a newrhythm for our lives," he wrote, "Witha true conviction that we had left ourold selves behind forever." For men inthe grasp of heir youth, an d for me non the cusp of their changing lives,th e current season might dis till thatmost Fitzgeraldian of essences hope. It is there in the last li nes ofh is great novel. "Gatsby bel ieved inthe green light, th e orgastic futurethat year by year recedes before us.It eluded us then, but that's no maUer- tomorrowwe will ru n faster,stretch ou t our arms farther."

We ar e all Scott Fitzgerald'schildren now. E.

The Gatsby Magic [Esquire UK 2013-06]

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