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The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/Angst, Authorship, Critics: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Crack-Up,” Advertisements for Myself (view source)
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We realize that such self-disclosure was rare in the 1930s, especially from a man. The language appeared antithetical to contemporary expectations of masculinity—expectations shaped by the hard-boiled novels of Raymond Chandler, the film persona of Humphrey Bogart, and the celebrity legends of Hemingway himself. In such a ''macho'' culture, it is not surprising that many were embarrassed by Fitzgerald’s revelations. After all, Fitzgerald had not hidden behind a fictional voice such as Harry’s; he had not used Joseph Conrad’s complex double framing device found in ''Heart of Darkness'' (1912); he had not written under a ''nom de plume'' as George Eliot had done.{{efn|“For George Eliot, the act of novelistic good faith is contained in the seventeenth chapter [of Adam Bede], where she moves ahead in “time” to tell the reader of a recent discussion she has had with Adam Bede, long after the events of the novel. Thus she brings Adam out of the story, making him less totally defined by the frame of the plot, even while she also recalls to us her own role in the creation and articulation of the novel’s elements, not as Mary Ann Evans but as ‘George Eliot,’ the novelist.”{{sfn|Braudy|1981|p=628}} }} Yet, despite the suspicion and derision of contemporaries and critics, Fitzgerald was creating something new. | We realize that such self-disclosure was rare in the 1930s, especially from a man. The language appeared antithetical to contemporary expectations of masculinity—expectations shaped by the hard-boiled novels of Raymond Chandler, the film persona of Humphrey Bogart, and the celebrity legends of Hemingway himself. In such a ''macho'' culture, it is not surprising that many were embarrassed by Fitzgerald’s revelations. After all, Fitzgerald had not hidden behind a fictional voice such as Harry’s; he had not used Joseph Conrad’s complex double framing device found in ''Heart of Darkness'' (1912); he had not written under a ''nom de plume'' as George Eliot had done.{{efn|“For George Eliot, the act of novelistic good faith is contained in the seventeenth chapter [of Adam Bede], where she moves ahead in “time” to tell the reader of a recent discussion she has had with Adam Bede, long after the events of the novel. Thus she brings Adam out of the story, making him less totally defined by the frame of the plot, even while she also recalls to us her own role in the creation and articulation of the novel’s elements, not as Mary Ann Evans but as ‘George Eliot,’ the novelist.”{{sfn|Braudy|1981|p=628}} }} Yet, despite the suspicion and derision of contemporaries and critics, Fitzgerald was creating something new. | ||
We can also recognize that this new confessional voice is as much evasion as revelation. In Fitzgerald’s self-disclosure, there was much literary art, and a heavy dose of self-deception. At times, as writers or readers, are we all not guilty of such self-deception? As T.S. Eliot reminds us, “our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”{{sfn|Eliot|1933|p=155}}“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”{{sfn|Eliot|1933|p=155}} | We can also recognize that this new confessional voice is as much evasion as revelation. In Fitzgerald’s self-disclosure, there was much literary art, and a heavy dose of self-deception. At times, as writers or readers, are we all not guilty of such self-deception? As T.S. Eliot reminds us, “our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”{{sfn|Eliot|1933|p=155}}{{efn|“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”{{sfn|Eliot|1933|p=155}} }} It is interesting, therefore, that the opening sentences of the first essay are actually in second-person, not the supposed “greater authenticity provided by the first-person voice with all its limitations.”{{sfn|Hampl|2012|p=108}}{{efn|“Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work—the big, sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside—the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another kind of blow that comes from within—that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again.”{{Sfn|Fitzgerald|1993|p=69}} }} Fitzgerald begins with the provocative claim, “Of course all life is a process of breaking down . . .”{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1993|p=69}} Following these introductory sentences, there comes the oft-quoted aphorism of Fitzgerald, “[T]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1993|p=69}} There are, of course, many precedents for a first-person voice—confessional or otherwise.{{efn|As first-person precedents to Fitzgerald voice in “The Crack-Up,” Hampl mentions Whitman’s “Song of Myself” (1855), Nick Carraway in ''The Great Gatsby'' (1925), Hemingway’s Nick Adams, and “before that the narrators of ''Huckleberry Finn'' and ''Moby-Dick''.”{{sfn|Hampl|2012|p=118}} }} It is also true that while ''something'' is being revealed, “often in a wry, self-deprecating style,”{{sfn|Hampl|2012|p=104}} much more is being concealed. Fitzgerald makes no mention of his own alcoholism, his affair with a married woman, or of Zelda’s schizophrenia.{{efn|“Though he describes his psychological and spiritual breakdown, his utter collapse, often in a wry, self-deprecating style, he doesn’t spill many autobiographical beans. We don’t learn of his despair over his wife’s mental illness. He doesn’t divulge his bouts with drinking, his imprudent affair with a married woman, his money worries, his literary woes. Mother, father, those stock figures of personal narrative—never mentioned.”{{sfn|Hampl|2012|p=104}} }} Rather telling omissions, one might say. In his 1980 article, Donaldson says, “As it stands, ‘The Crack-Up’ tells its truth only between the lines.”{{sfn|Donaldson|1980|p=182}} Indeed it does. But that is true of much of Modernist fiction and poetry, is it not? | ||
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, contested border. In an interesting 2013 article in ''The Mailer Review'', comparing Fitzgerald, Mailer, and Dylan, Bob Batchelor writes, | 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, contested border. In an interesting 2013 article in ''The Mailer Review'', comparing Fitzgerald, Mailer, and Dylan, Bob Batchelor writes, | ||
{{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 1920s contemporaries and writers ever since. . . . 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. {{sfn|Batchelor|2013|pp=76–77}} }} | {{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 1920s contemporaries and writers ever since. . . . 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.{{sfn|Batchelor|2013|pp=76–77}} }} | ||
Scott Donaldson agrees with this general point. “It is true of Fitzgerald,” he writes, “not only that his characters are modeled on himself but that he sometimes becomes his characters after the fact.”{{sfn|Donaldson|1980|p=185}}{{efn|“Thus his retreat to Ashville, Tyron, Hendersonville in North Carolina during the two years of his personal depression virtually repeat Dick Diver’s drifting among the small towns of upstate New York. . . . He will now be ‘ a writer only,’ he announces in the last of the ‘Crack-Up’ articles, just as Dick Diver finally became only a doctor, no longer a scientist or entertainer or bon vivant.”{{sfn|Donaldson|1980|p=185}} }} Batchelor cites other critics who agree that Fitzgerald “virtually invented the confessional mode” of writing and that his own life seems to mirror his greatest artistic creations, characters such as Jay Gatsby.{{sfn|Batchelor|2013|p=78}}{{efn|Morris Dickstein discusses the author’s transformation from literary and celebrity prince to “representative man,” which led to him producing more “introspective” work. The result, Dickstein explains, was that the great novelist “virtually invented the confessional mode in American writing.”{{Sfn|Dickstein|2005|p=82}} Because of the “Crack-Up” essays in ''Esquire'', later writers felt free to explore the genre, including Norman Mailer in ''Advertisements for Myself''. Writing about Fitzgerald in late 1963, critic Malcolm Cowley assesses the author’s life as similar to one of his artistic creations, even greater than that perpetuated by Jay Gatsby. There is a certain duality, he concludes, between the study of Gatsby in high schools all over the nation and the author’s life becoming “a legend like that of Poe or even that of Davy Crockett.”{{sfn|Batchelor|2013|p=78}} }} | Scott Donaldson agrees with this general point. “It is true of Fitzgerald,” he writes, “not only that his characters are modeled on himself but that he sometimes becomes his characters after the fact.”{{sfn|Donaldson|1980|p=185}}{{efn|“Thus his retreat to Ashville, Tyron, Hendersonville in North Carolina during the two years of his personal depression virtually repeat Dick Diver’s drifting among the small towns of upstate New York. . . . He will now be ‘ a writer only,’ he announces in the last of the ‘Crack-Up’ articles, just as Dick Diver finally became only a doctor, no longer a scientist or entertainer or bon vivant.”{{sfn|Donaldson|1980|p=185}} }} Batchelor cites other critics who agree that Fitzgerald “virtually invented the confessional mode” of writing and that his own life seems to mirror his greatest artistic creations, characters such as Jay Gatsby.{{sfn|Batchelor|2013|p=78}}{{efn|Morris Dickstein discusses the author’s transformation from literary and celebrity prince to “representative man,” which led to him producing more “introspective” work. The result, Dickstein explains, was that the great novelist “virtually invented the confessional mode in American writing.”{{Sfn|Dickstein|2005|p=82}} Because of the “Crack-Up” essays in ''Esquire'', later writers felt free to explore the genre, including Norman Mailer in ''Advertisements for Myself''. Writing about Fitzgerald in late 1963, critic Malcolm Cowley assesses the author’s life as similar to one of his artistic creations, even greater than that perpetuated by Jay Gatsby. There is a certain duality, he concludes, between the study of Gatsby in high schools all over the nation and the author’s life becoming “a legend like that of Poe or even that of Davy Crockett.”{{sfn|Batchelor|2013|p=78}} }} | ||
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It is also true that Fitzgerald is dealing with a profound sense of loss in “The Crack-Up” essays—whether we describe it as the loss of youth, innocence, naiveté or whatever. Moreover, that element of loss is characteristic of his best fiction: it is ''not'' restricted to the personal revelations of “The Crack-Up.” In a foreword to an anthology of Fitzgerald’s early short stories, Roxana Robinson writes: | It is also true that Fitzgerald is dealing with a profound sense of loss in “The Crack-Up” essays—whether we describe it as the loss of youth, innocence, naiveté or whatever. Moreover, that element of loss is characteristic of his best fiction: it is ''not'' restricted to the personal revelations of “The Crack-Up.” In a foreword to an anthology of Fitzgerald’s early short stories, Roxana Robinson writes: | ||
{{quote|What is more beautiful than the landscape of loss? What is more heartbreaking, more haunting, more romantic? F. Scott Fitzgerald saw the world as a place of unbearable beauty and unlimited glamour. He saw it as illuminated by the glory of the natural landscape, by the glitter of the people, and by the perilous, irresistible pull of love. He was a romantic, and the greatest of his writing is charged with feeling and haunted by a longing for something irretrievable.{{sfn|Robinson|2005|p=xi}}}} | {{quote|What is more beautiful than the landscape of loss? What is more heartbreaking, more haunting, more romantic? F. Scott Fitzgerald saw the world as a place of unbearable beauty and unlimited glamour. He saw it as illuminated by the glory of the natural landscape, by the glitter of the people, and by the perilous, irresistible pull of love. He was a romantic, and the greatest of his writing is charged with feeling and haunted by a longing for something irretrievable.{{sfn|Robinson|2005|p=xi}} }} | ||
Fitzgerald could write convincingly of such loss because he was such a perceptive ''chronicler'' of his age—in this respect, superior to Hemingway and certainly comparable to Mailer. His clear-sighted perspective is illuminated by his 1931 essay, “Echoes of the Jazz Age,” where—looking back from the sobering vantage point of the Great Depression—he writes what could be the definitive ''post-mortem'' of the 1920s. | Fitzgerald could write convincingly of such loss because he was such a perceptive ''chronicler'' of his age—in this respect, superior to Hemingway and certainly comparable to Mailer. His clear-sighted perspective is illuminated by his 1931 essay, “Echoes of the Jazz Age,” where—looking back from the sobering vantage point of the Great Depression—he writes what could be the definitive ''post-mortem'' of the 1920s. | ||
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===The Cultural Context of the 1930s=== | ===The Cultural Context of the 1930s=== | ||
What is the cultural context for Hemingway and Fitzgerald in the 1930s? Do | What is the cultural context for Hemingway and Fitzgerald in the 1930s? Do authors reflect the struggles of their age or simply their own struggles? We would answer both, surely. The economic and social ''angst'' of the 1930s—considerable on any metric—cannot easily be divorced from one person’s psychological angst. We remember that this was the middle of the Great Depression, and although the Great War was two decades previous, another greater War seemed increasingly inevitable. | ||
authors reflect the struggles of their age or simply their own struggles? We | <!--Checked through here.--> | ||
would answer both, surely. The economic and social angst of the | |||
psychological angst. We remember that this was the middle of the Great Depression, and although the Great War was two decades previous, another | |||
greater War seemed increasingly inevitable. | |||
On a different level, the 18th Amendment had been repealed in December 1933, so alcohol was once more legal in America. Ironically, Hampl points out that, just as Fitzgerald’s “Crack-Up” articles were appearing, the first Alcoholics Anonymous groups were beginning to meet. There was no causal relationship, but as Hampl suggests, “no cultural change happens in a vacuum”, at the very least, there was “a shared landscape.” {{sfn|Hampl|2012|pp=108}} Through these AA groups, America was introduced to a new kind of secular confessional, a different kind of personal storytelling—one that nearly a century later is still very much with us.<sup>19</sup> | On a different level, the 18th Amendment had been repealed in December 1933, so alcohol was once more legal in America. Ironically, Hampl points out that, just as Fitzgerald’s “Crack-Up” articles were appearing, the first Alcoholics Anonymous groups were beginning to meet. There was no causal relationship, but as Hampl suggests, “no cultural change happens in a vacuum”, at the very least, there was “a shared landscape.” {{sfn|Hampl|2012|pp=108}} Through these AA groups, America was introduced to a new kind of secular confessional, a different kind of personal storytelling—one that nearly a century later is still very much with us.<sup>19</sup> | ||