In a real dark night of the soul it is always three oclock in the morning 3:) Long ago, when he was young, cocksure, drunk with sudden success, F. Scott Fitzgerald told a newspaper man that no one should live beyond 30. What does Fitzgerald think of the literary situation in this country today? It has improved a lot, he said. The whole thing broke with Main Street. Ernest Hemingway, I think, is the greatest living writer of English. He took that place when Kipling died. Next comes Thomas Wolfe and then Faulkner and Dos Passos. Erskine Caldwell and a few others have come up just a bit after our generation, and they havent done quite so well. We were products of prosperity. The best art is produced in times of riches. The men who came some years after us didnt have the chance we had. Has he changed his mind on questions of economics? Amory Blaine, the hero of This Side of Paradise, predicted the success of the Bolshevik experiment in Russia, foresaw eventual government ownership of all industries in this country. Oh, but I made an awful boner, said Fitzgerald. Do you remember I said publicity would destroy Lenin? That was a fine prophecy. He became a saint. My views? Well, in a pinch theyd still be pretty much towards the left. Then the reporter asked him how he felt now about the jazz-mad, gin-mad generation whose feverish doings he chronicled in This Side of Paradise. How had they done? How did they stand up in the world? Why should I bother myself about them? he asked. Havent I enough worries of my own? You know as well as I do what has happened to them. Some became brokers and threw themselves out of windows. Others became bankers and shot themselves. Still others became newspaper reporters. And a few became successful authors. His face twitched. Successful authors! he cried. Oh, my God, successful authors! He stumbled over to the highboy and poured himself another drink.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 07:04:20 +0000
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