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| I said earlier that there was much literary art in Fitzgerald’s apparent self- disclosure in these essays. The “Crack-Up” confessions, while obviously related to a genuine experience of angst and breakdown at the time, possess a complex relationship to his literary creations to characters such as Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (1925) or Dick Diver in Tender is the Night (1934). As with Mailer, the line between his fiction and nonfiction is a complex, con- tested border. In an interesting article in The Mailer Review, comparing Fitzgerald, Mailer, and Dylan, Bob Batchelor writes,
| | Vladimir Nabokov’s infamous character, Humbert Humbert, suggests that we possess “only words to play with”{{sfn|Appel|1972|p=456}}.Indeed we do—mere words. Yet, using such frail and fallible words, employing flawed humanity and literary genius, these authors transformed personal angst into great art—creating works that shall abide, like Mount Kilimanjaro. In so doing, each has revealed to us genuine truth—a truth that may speak to our flawed but mutual humanity. |
| {{quote|Fitzgerald’s insight into Jay Gatsby revealed, according to critic Alfred Kazin, the author’s “tragic moodiness” and “a burst of self- understanding” that set the book apart from those of his s contemporaries and writers ever since {{sfn|Kazin|Solotaroff|p=122}} It took a special comprehension of the lives of the wealthy and the lives of ordinary people to create such a broad swath. . . . Kazin’s idea captures the strength and beauty of the novel and may actually reveal why it has such staying power. Fitzgerald, despite his claims of not really understanding Gatsby as he created him, desperately identified with the dreams the character espoused. He knew the pain of losing the girl and the joy in attaining her.
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Vladimir Nabokov’s infamous character, Humbert Humbert, suggests that we possess “only words to play with”.Indeed we do—mere words. Yet, using such frail and fallible words, employing flawed humanity and literary genius, these authors transformed personal angst into great art—creating works that shall abide, like Mount Kilimanjaro. In so doing, each has revealed to us genuine truth—a truth that may speak to our flawed but mutual humanity.