Blog #4: Artist’s Profile: F.Scott Fitzgerald

My favorite writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is often credited for authoring “the most perfect novel,” The Great Gatsby. Before Gatsby, however, he wrote This Side of Paradise— a work that, while responsible for catapulting its author to literary stardom, is often said to be so egregiously far from perfect in terms of story development and grammar that it has attracted the ridicule of many literary critics when it was first published. Nonetheless, it is worthy of study for it shows most honestly Fitzgerald’s process as an artist.

The Warrior. Fitzgerald was, first and foremost, a warrior. While still an undergraduate at Princeton, he immediately knew that he was determined to make his mark in the literary world. He wanted to do it quickly, too, for it was the time of war and death could come any moment. And so, we often hear stories about how young Fitzgerald sneaked to write paragraphs and paragraphs of prose amidst his military duties. When he fell in love with Zelda Sayre, he knew that what was at stake now was more than just literary fame, and so he made even more haste.

The Judge. What resulted was a novel of massive proportions. The Romantic Egotist, the novel’s first title, contained all the stories and poems Fitzgerald wrote in Princeton. There was no time for editing—he was in a hurry to make his name and win Sayre. Publishing house Scribner’s was ready to reject his manuscript, but junior editor Maxwell Perkins, who was eventually to become his longtime publisher and friend, saw in The Romantic Egotist immense promise. It had to be rejected for a second time before Fitzgerald finally sat down and proceeded with a full-scale revision. He changed virtually every scene, scrapped some, and added several to fortify the protagonist Amory Blaine’s character development. He changed the characters’ names and the book’s title. When the revised manuscript reached Scribner’s, they found it was ready for publication.

This was not entirely true. While the finished book was undoubtedly a work of art, it contained an alarming amount of spelling and grammatical errors, which literary critics were quick to point out. Fitzgerald would learn from this (although he would be known in history as- like his friend Hemingway- a perennially bad speller), and would edit his future stories viciously—sometimes even when they were already at the printers, all ready for publication.

The Explorer and Artist. This Side of Paradise, despite its multitude of errors, was an astounding success. Fitzgerald, then twenty-three years old, arrogantly predicted that the novel would sell twenty thousand copies that year, but it went on to sell forty thousand. This Side of Paradise was a work of art because it was new and relevant. No other novel was able to capture more realistically and profoundly the thoughts and actions of the youth not just of the 1920s but also of all generations. Fitzgerald was a masterly chronicler of the life of the youth because he was an astute observer. He drew from his own life experiences and from his memories of Princeton, and manipulated them so imaginatively that no one was able to transpose the zeitgeist onto paper more truthfully. And so, This Side of Paradise, for all its shortcomings, quickly established its author as an important novelist and ushered the literary world into a new genre—the Jazz Age. I wonder if the young Fitzgerald, feverishly jotting down verses and paragraphs after lights-out in military camp, even for all his arrogance and idealism, was able to foresee the magnitude of his success.

Perhaps a way to more accurately describe Fitzgerald’ journey as an artist is to compare him with his first protagonist, Amory Blaine. Like Blaine’s tortuous path of self-discovery, Fitzgerald found that being a good writer was not as simple as being a warrior, as fearlessly putting one’s self out there. He cultivated the virtue of editing, and with his unparalleled imagination and knack for observation, made for himself a niche that was entirely his own. And so, perhaps with incisive existential poignancy, Fitzgerald’s Blaine exclaims to himself, “I know myself, but that is all.” Always true to himself and to his passion, Fitzgerald’s odyssey began with a voracious desire to become a famous writer and ended with writings, indeed betraying his passion–stylized musings of an ageless myth-weaver of a generation, exploiting its weaknesses, exaggerating its wants and exploring its possibilities.

*Works consulted:

Introduction to The Price Was High: Fifty Uncollected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Introduction to the Enriched Classic edition of This Side of Paradise

Introduction to Scribner’s edition of Pat Hobby Stories

Blog #3: Craps Against Humanity

Writing Prompt: Five Sniglets

Click picture to enlarge.

Blog #2: People of the Intersection

Writing prompt: Reflect on “The iPod Revolution” and “The Medici Effect.”

I find that the individuals I most admire are those whom Frans Johansson would call intersectional thinkers, and in fact I cannot help but now consider that perhaps such thinkers are the only people truly worthy of admiration.

In class, to illustrate the intersectional thinker, we used the consummate Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci and Apple founder Steve Jobs as examples. We found that Da Vinci allowed various disciplines- science, mathematics, art, and sociology, among others- to converge through him and what came into fruition were works that exemplified dulce et utile. What he possessed was not merely a deftness of hand nor a propensity for eccentric ideas; he was an artist most of all because he created things that mattered. He was an especially keen observer—he had foresight, a sensitivity towards humanity’s needs and predilections. And then there’s Steve Jobs who, in a very real way, might as well be the 21st century’s Leonardo Da Vinci. Jobs, like the renowned artist, has remarkable insight into the masses’ pulse, and knows what the people want and need before they even know what they want and need. It is this insight that allows him to relentlessly conquer the digital music space with the ipod and turn it into a cultural icon. It is also this insight that urges him to constantly “think different” and venture beyond the boundaries of an already saturated IT industry and merge the computer with fashion. The intersectional thinker, like Da Vinci and Jobs, is someone who dares to go beyond the comforts of his specialization and find connections with the unfamiliar, and finds ideas and possibilities where we might find a formidable impasse.

I find that the congeries of people I admire, which I have always thought most diverse and amorphous, is in fact bound by an undeniable similarity: each person is a true creative, an intersectional thinker. These people come from different fields but what they have in common, and which I find particularly laudable, is their audacity in exploring the possibilities in intersections. They open the world to new fields, which otherwise would have been unfathomable.

Edie Sedgwick

Sedgwick with Warhol

Back in the 1960s, socialite Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s first superstar, dared to wear the black tights out of the dance studio and into the streets. What was formerly strictly the dancer and gymnast’s uniform fast became a staple in every woman’s wardrobe.

Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway at work in Idaho (AP photo)

The American author Ernest Hemingway enjoyed writing about other cultures. He set rather a lot of his stories in Spain and in the African wilderness, and wrote a memoir about his life as an expatriate in 1920s Paris. In his writings, one can see a marriage of cultures. Quite the adventurer, he immersed himself in cultures exotic to him and thoroughly, and when he wrote about them, he wrote with the wonderment of a non-local, thus defamiliarizing the culture and making it new again and abundant with insights only a fresh eye could perceive.

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan’s novel rereading of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis allowed for the construction of the bridge between psychoanalysis and the arts and social sciences. He created intersections ripe with possibilities, ushering scholars to new areas of study.

Orson Welles

Citizen Kane poster

Orson Welles’ first film, Citizen Kane, is often dubbed as the greatest American film of all time. Its sublimity and near-perfection are perhaps because Welles was not only an excellent writer and director—he was also masterly as an actor, producer, set designer, and casting director. Only someone who is skilled in all the aspects of filmmaking is capable of creating a movie that is simply beautiful in every way.

Gene Kelly

The classic Hollywood actor Gene Kelly’s savvy in dancing and acrobatics is evident not only in his musical performances in his movies but also in their cinematography. Drawing from his expertise in human anatomy and movement, he made the camera dance, and so his movies are especially graceful and vibrant.

Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson

Their debut film, Bottle Rocket, made Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson my beloved auteur pair. It is difficult not to notice the distinctive flavor of their movies. Indeed, their movies are something else. This they attribute to the marriage of their individual backgrounds and preferences, which results into their singular voice. They are not afraid to draw from and merge their contrasting life experiences. The Royal Tenenbaums, for example, is peppered with their individual childhood stories: the divorce of Anderson’s parents, the time when Wilson shot his own brother with a pellet gun, a brother’s childhood excavation trip, and interesting people they knew in grade school. In the same way, they are not afraid to fuse the old with the new. For instance, The Royal Tenenbaums begins with a classic movie opening credits coupled with experimental cinematography and editing techniques. Likewise, the musical score fuses The Beatles with up-and-coming artists. The movie is weaved from a strikingly diverse pool of influences- The Magnificent Ambersons, The Mixed-up Files, a 1978 tennis match, and personal anecdotes- and what results is a work of art. Wes Anderson, in his commentary on the film, said that when they began to make The Royal Tenenbaums, they began to make it as a New York film. Indeed, the movie is distinctively New York- the gypsy taxicabs, the houses on the Upper East Side, the Statue of Liberty- but in the end, what Anderson and Wilson had on their hands was more than that. What they had was something of a fable. The convergence of their individual experiences and predilections, as well as of the old and the new, cast a mythical light on the movie. The richness and variety of their influences bestowed on The Royal Tenenbaums an element of timelessness and magic.

Woody Allen

Annie Hall Poster

Woody Allen, who is possibly my singlemost favorite person in the world, is my definition of an artist. A brilliant movie and short story writer, playwright, director, actor, occasional philosopher, standup comedian, and amateur psychologist, among others, his movies and stories are rich amalgams of literature, philosophy, psychology, and the arts. The diversity of his influences renders his movies beautifully singular and multidimensional—there is really nothing quite like them. Allen’s quirky and dysfunctional characters and storylines reminiscent of Greek tragedies may at first appear too fabulous; nonetheless, I find that they are lush with universal human truths. For all his outward eccentricity, Woody Allen’s intensive immersion into the various fields of social sciences and humanities has allowed him to be in excellent touch with human society and its sensibilities.

Blog #1: Thursdays

Writing Prompt: Introduce yourself by narrating a creative experience.

After work on Thursdays when my friend takes classes at the university, I hitch a ride to the coffee shop where I go to write. When I go to the coffee shop where I go to write, the first thing I do is order myself a drink– always iced and whipped cream-covered, the flavor is of no matter, and tall. The second thing I do is place it at the corner of my table where it stays untouched for the duration of my stay. Consider it a parking ticket, my license to linger. I take a while to write, you see; words do not come easily. For the meantime, the plastic cup steadily breaks into a sweat, the ice in my drink slowly melts, diluting the whipped cream into bits of goop that rest on top of, and never blend with, the coffee. And then, as if on cue and in complete harmony, one by one, words appear and sit on the screen in front of me, where they organize themselves into coherence just as slowly and thoroughly.

The challenge, always, is producing that which Ernest Hemingway calls the true sentence. “All you have to do is write one true sentence,” he said. “Write the truest sentence you know.” I find that the true sentence, that which is most simple and pure, and has not a word more or less, is the most tedious to create. And so I console myself with the thought that good writing, as with everything else in the world, comes with much practice and discipline. I try to be patient and write. I look around. The coffee shop is fecund with things to write about, and I try to write about them all. For example, I write about the twenty-something girl in the booth at the corner who smiles and laughs at her laptop computer like she is alone. I write about the middle-aged man tables away who loudly proclaims sophistries and platitudes with a self-satisfied air while his toddler son looks on hypnotized, hanging onto his every fraudulent word. Most often, I write about the forty-something father and his preschooler daughter who, like me, are habitués of the place. They, like me, seem to have claimed a spot in the coffee shop as their own. The little girl’s schoolbooks are sprawled all over the table across mine, and she tiptoes all over the place barefoot like she is at home. Her father and I catch each other’s eyes and look at each other knowingly for we recognize each other, and I write about it. When I have written a paragraph that I think is true and satisfies me, I stop and reward myself with a pastry and a book. When I get home an hour later and look at what I have written again, most often I find that what I wrote is not true and pure and natural after all and so I try to rewrite it. Sometimes it becomes better quickly and I ecstatically post it onto a blog that I keep but which almost no one knows exists. Sometimes, too, refinement seems impossible. At times like this, I find that it is best to leave my writing alone to sit and wait until I am ready to look at it again. It takes months, sometimes.

Sometimes when I go to the coffee shop on Thursdays, I make attempts at art. There was a time when I brought my watercolors, watercolor pad, and brushes with me but, as I was immensely conscious of my dilettantism, I did not, in the end, dare take them out from their bag. And so, instead, at the coffee shop on Thursdays sometimes, I sketch plans for future art projects on a pocket notebook that is now hopelessly dog-eared and which is too small to attract other people’s notice. On Saturdays when I’m at home and all alone, I finally take out my paint and brushes and, for an hour or two, watercolor my plans into reality—of course, with varied success. It is, nonetheless, always refreshing.

Below are the watercolors from last weekend and the one before that, and another from last year: