687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West)"

The History of Literature
Host: Jacke Wilson
Guest: James West, Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and General Editor of the Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby
Release Date: March 17, 2025

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Introduction to The Great Gatsby Centennial

In this milestone episode, host Jacke Wilson celebrates the 100th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's seminal novel, The Great Gatsby. Despite its initial lukewarm reception—with fewer than 25,000 copies sold within 15 years of its publication—the novel has burgeoned into a cornerstone of American literature, now boasting over 25 million purchases and sustained annual sales of half a million copies. Wilson reflects on the enduring optimism and sense of community depicted in the novel, drawing parallels to contemporary societal challenges.

“Happy birthday to the Great Gatsby. 100 years old and still going strong and happy.”
— Jack Wilson [01:28]

The Legacy of Maxwell Perkins

James West delves into the pivotal role of Maxwell Perkins, the esteemed editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, in shaping The Great Gatsby. Perkins recognized the novel's potential when others did not, demonstrating a keen understanding of Fitzgerald's genius. West highlights Perkins' broader impact on American literature, noting his mentorship of literary giants like Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.

“The general brilliant quality of the book makes me ashamed to make even these criticisms.”
— Maxwell Perkins [08:15]

West recounts how Perkins employed a "praise sandwich"—balancing commendations with constructive criticism—to refine Fitzgerald's work. This editorial collaboration was instrumental in transforming The Great Gatsby from a modest success to a literary masterpiece.

“If we do have to choose four, maybe four generals for our army, we could do worse than F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
— Jack Wilson [07:40]

Evolution and Cultural Resonance of The Great Gatsby

The conversation shifts to why The Great Gatsby has achieved iconic status. West attributes its enduring appeal to its teachability, rich symbolism, and relatable themes that resonate across generations. The novel's exploration of the American Dream, youth, beauty, and the inevitable passage of time allows it to adapt seamlessly to various cultural contexts.

“The Great Gatsby seems to seize and hold their attention and carry them through.”
— James West [25:14]

West discusses specific symbols like the green light and the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, which serve as focal points for thematic analysis and classroom discussion. He emphasizes the novel's narrative drive, concise storytelling, and the enigmatic characterization of Jay Gatsby as key factors in its widespread acclaim.

Misconceptions and Literary Critique

Addressing common misconceptions, West clarifies that Fitzgerald meticulously revised The Great Gatsby, debunking the myth that it was a swiftly written masterpiece. He explains that multiple drafts reveal significant transformations, underscoring Fitzgerald's craftsmanship.

“Fitzgerald's first drafts in manuscript were often rather pedestrian... that's what it became in the final version that he published.”
— James West [35:12]

West also challenges the notion of the novel's perfection, acknowledging structural flaws and narrative choices that required "strong arm work" to finalize. Despite these imperfections, he maintains that the novel's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses.

The Cambridge Centennial Edition

James West introduces the Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby, highlighting its comprehensive features designed to enrich the reader's experience. The edition includes a new introduction by critic Sarah Churchwell, extensive annotations, illustrations, photographs, sheet music from the novel, and facsimiles of Fitzgerald's manuscripts and proofs. These additions provide valuable context, bridging the 1925 original with contemporary readers.

“It's fun to reread a favorite work in a new edition and see the new context for it and get the feel of the pages and see the new illustrations and all of those things.”
— James West [48:05]

West encourages listeners to explore this edition to gain deeper insights into Fitzgerald's creative process and the historical backdrop of the novel.

Fitzgerald's Personal Life and Literary Contributions

The discussion broadens to Fitzgerald's personal life, exploring how his experiences and lifestyle influenced his writing. West portrays Fitzgerald as a complex figure who balanced artistic ambition with commercial success, often at personal cost. His tumultuous relationship with Zelda and his penchant for the vibrant 1920s lifestyle are depicted as both a muse and a bane for his literary endeavors.

“Fitzgerald needed the parties and the lifestyle and all of that. It kind of fueled his fiction in a way.”
— James West [41:14]

West reflects on Fitzgerald's legacy, emphasizing his ubiquitous presence in American culture and the continual relevance of his work in understanding themes like societal downfall and personal ambition.

Conclusion: Enduring Impact and Future Reflections

As the episode wraps up, West reiterates the timeless nature of The Great Gatsby, noting its ability to find new audiences despite cultural and temporal shifts. The novel's exploration of timeless human experiences ensures its place in both academic settings and popular consciousness.

“The Great Gatsby is ubiquitous in American life. He's everywhere.”
— James West [43:59]

Jack Wilson concludes by praising the guest and teasing future episodes that will explore other literary giants and their contributions to literature.

“Hard to believe you were only in your 60s. The first time I read you, you already seemed like you'd been around forever even then.”
— Jack Wilson [49:30]

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Notable Quotes

• “Happy birthday to the Great Gatsby. 100 years old and still going strong and happy.”
  — Jack Wilson [01:28]

• “The general brilliant quality of the book makes me ashamed to make even these criticisms.”
  — Maxwell Perkins [08:15]

• “The Great Gatsby seems to seize and hold their attention and carry them through.”
  — James West [25:14]

• “Fitzgerald's first drafts in manuscript were often rather pedestrian... that's what it became in the final version that he published.”
  — James West [35:12]

• “Fitzgerald needed the parties and the lifestyle and all of that. It kind of fueled his fiction in a way.”
  — James West [41:14]

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The History of Literature offers an in-depth exploration of The Great Gatsby's centennial celebration, illustrating why the novel remains a pivotal work in American literature. Through insightful analysis and expert commentary from James West, listeners gain a richer understanding of Fitzgerald's masterpiece, its historical context, and its lasting influence on both readers and the literary landscape.

For more information on the centennial edition, visit historyofliterature.com and follow The History of Literature on Facebook.

Transcript

[Jack Wilson]

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[Jack Wilson]

Hello? When American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at age 44, his novel the Great Gatsby had fallen out of the public eye, having sold fewer than 25,000 copies in its 15 years of existence. Today the book has been purchased more than 25 million times and continues to sell a half a million copies a year. This year marks the centenary of the book, often viewed as one of the great American novels, perhaps the greatest. Gatsby turns 100 with James west, the editor of a special new edition of the book today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. Happy birthday to the Great Gatsby. 100 years old and still going strong and happy. Welcome, if that's the right phrase, to all you listeners. I'm glad you're here today. We're making it through, aren't we? We're hanging on to hope and optimism and community and empathy, even as all these values are under attack. It's our act of resistance. Fitzgerald was a hopeful person. I think it's that spark of youth in him that never died, even as life aged him incredibly quickly and he went through his famous crackup. He'd be pleased to know how successful this book the Great Gatsby wound up being I think he believed in its power and even its perfection. It's a magical book. And now we have some help understanding the Magician's Secrets. An annotated version brought to us by Cambridge and our guest today, James west, who edited it. Here's a one word review by the Irish Independent. Sumptuous, end quote. I think there might have been more to that review. There might be just an excerpt from it, but it's the perfect review. I kind of hope that's the whole thing. One word almost as good as the two word review that Spinal Tap got for their album Shark Sandwich. If you recall that scene, the whole review was shit sandwich. These guys are national treasures, by the way. All four of them in that scene. Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Michael McKeon and Rob Reiner. Someone with a cliff should make a Mount Rushmore with those four on it. And we could do a Mount Rushmore of American writers, couldn't we? I suppose we'd have Herman Melville and Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald up there. Unless we have Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James and Edith Wharton and James Baldwin. Or maybe I should have said Langston Hughes and William Faulkner and Jack Kerouac and Toni Morrison. But that's to forget about Ralph Ellison and Saul Bello and John Steinbeck and Joyce Carol Oates. And suddenly my Mount Rushmore starts to look more like the terracotta warrior army in Xi'an. We can't just choose four, can we? We need hundreds. But if we do have to choose four, maybe four generals for our army, we could do worse than F. Scott Fitzgerald. What can we say about Gatsby that hasn't been said before by others and by us in previous episodes. Well, James west will help us out in a moment. He presided over this new deluxe edition, which has a new introduction and helpful annotations and illustrations and a history of the book's composition. Lots of good extras, including some correspondence between Fitzgerald and Gatsby's star editor, Maxwell Perkins. Let's talk about Maxwell Perkins to give you a taste of how the book was received. Not by everyone, but by at least one person. Now, Maxwell Perkins, star editor, is not an exaggeration. He was the editor of a certain kind of literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Fiction writers in particular adored him. He was thoughtful, intelligent, helpful, canny, born in 1884, which put him 10 to 15 years older than Hemingway and Fitzgerald, two of his most famous authors. He was born in New York. He went to a fancy prep school in New Hampshire and then Harvard College. Where he majored in economics, but also enjoyed his literature courses. He worked as a reporter for the New York Times, then landed a job with the famed publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons, also called Scribner's, first as an advertising manager and then an editor. Scribners in those days published John Galsworthy and Henry James and Edith Wharton. Literary lions, of course, but a bit of an older generation. Perkins made a splash when he signed a younger writer in 1919. This was when Perkins was 33. He signed F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was then about 23, for his novel this side of Paradise. The book at first had a worse title. Just one of the things you can you quickly realize about Fitzgerald if you dig into him. One is that he couldn't spell at all. All of his letters are full of misspellings. And another, kind of unusually so. Not that you have to be a good speller to be intelligent, but one would think a writer, someone who reads as much as Fitzgerald, who had as much facility with words as Fitzgerald, would have been a better speller. Another thing you realize is that his working titles of his books are often terrible. That's how they start out. And somehow they wind up with titles that are pretty good. This side of Paradise, I think, is a great title, but at the time when it was going around the halls of Scribners, it was called the Romantic Egotist. Maybe not such a good title. Anyway, the book flopped with everyone at the publishing house except Perkins, who believed in it, pushed it through, and in the end he proved to have his finger on the pulse of a younger generation. And the book was a smash hit and Fitzgerald was a made man. Fitzgerald recommended Perkins to Hemingway, and an editor's place in the editorial firmament was confirmed firmly. Perkins is also famous for the work that he did with Thomas Wolfe, maybe most famous for this work because of the heavy hand and heavy handedness that might not be the right word. The deep involvement of the editor in the composition of Look Homeward Angel. Woolf is also known for books like you Can't Go Home Again. Woolf wrote huge, big, sprawling books, but he also loved every sentence in them. It was painful for him to cut even a single word. And yet Perkins managed to find 90,000 of them to cross out. And Wolf realized that he needed Perkins as much or more than Perkins needed him. But news got out of the all those crossouts that Perkins had kind of shaped the book into what it was. And Wolf, who became a successful author, he kind of resented the credit that was being given to his editor, as if he. As if the editor were responsible for more. You see this a lot, right? This is like the Raymond Carver Gordon Lish story. It's. It's like songs, musicians who leave their producers or who break apart from their. Like a duo that breaks apart. They sort of resent the success of the other or resent the idea that the other is contributing to their success. And yet Wolf, to his dying day, considered Maxwell Perkins to be his best friend in the world. And when he died, he. He had Perkins named as his literary executor. Perkins went on to publish books like From Here to Eternity and Cry, the Beloved country and the Yearling. He died just before the publication of the Old man and the Sea, which Hemingway dedicated to Perkins. Memory. That's getting ahead of our story. Let's travel back to 1924 or so when the Great Gatsby is still traveling under the title of the various titles of Trimalchio in West Egg and Gold Headed Gatsby and the High Bouncing Lover. Young, still incredibly young Fitzgerald, not even 30, but successful. And also already knowing he's kind of doomed, living a doomed life, believing in his art even as his fast paced life and whirlwind marital relationship threatened to crash the zeppelin, so to speak. He sends off his book to Perkins. First he writes, I want to write something new, something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned. And then he sends the manuscript and he says, well, I don't know, it is like nothing I've ever read before. Which is kind of a humble way of saying, I think this is innovative. I think this is an advance in the history of the novel. Perkins, he does the classic praise sandwich in response. This is November now of 1924. We've talked about the criticism before, I think, so we'll skip over that quickly. Praise sandwich. You know what I mean by that, right? He praises him, then he criticizes the book, then he praises him again. A smart way to deliver advice for any teachers out there or managers. So he praises the book, then. The criticism he offered is that he thought Gatsby was as a character was too vague, too undefined, too foggy. But I think literary posterity has come to agree with Fitzgerald on this one, that the vagueness, the mystery as Gatsby is seen through the narrator, Nick Carraway's eyes does a lot for the book and maybe does more for the book than any additional precision could have done. It's a choice and a justifiable one. So we've talked about that before. Let's skip over that and give you some of the praise. This is how quickly I'll give you this praise, not just because it shows how good at nurturing young talent Perkins could be, but how quickly he grasped the strength of the book and its author. We hear this over and over with musicians and painters and writers, especially ones that are breaking new ground. Not everyone gets it, but all it takes is one person who does get it, and in this instance, Fitzgerald was lucky to have his one. Here's Max Perkins Quote the general brilliant quality of the book makes me ashamed to make even these criticisms. The amount of meaning you get into a sentence, the dimensions and intensity of the expression you make a paragraph carry, are most extraordinary. The manuscript is full of phrases which make a scene blaze with life. If one enjoyed a rapid railroad journey, I would compare the number of vividness of pictures your living words suggest to the living scenes disclosed in that way. It seems in reading a much shorter book than it is, but it carries the mind through a series of experiences that one would think would require a book of three times its length. You once told me that you were not a natural writer. My God, you have plainly mastered the craft, of course, but you needed far more craftsmanship for this end quote. That's Maxwell Perkins anticipating, perhaps, the joy that this book would provide readers for the next hundred years. We'll talk more about that book, the Great Gatsby, and a new edition celebrating it after this.

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[Jack Wilson]

Okay. Joining me now is James west, who is a professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University. He's been the general editor of the Cambridge edition of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[James West]

And he's here today to discuss the.

[Jack Wilson]

100Th birthday of the Great Gatsby, celebrated by Cambridge in a centennial edition. James west, welcome to the history of literature.

[James West]

Thanks, Jack. Happy to be here.

So you've devoted much of your career to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Can you remember when you started reading Fitzgerald?

I remember it well. I was 16 years old and I had a girlfriend. She was very literary. Her name was Diane. And she suggested to me that I read the Great Gatsby. I thought it would improve my standing in her eyes if I did so. I was not terribly literary myself back then. And in high school we had been reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel the Scarlet Letter, which was all about sin and expiation. It was very grim, and I really didn't enjoy it much. And so I did read the Great Gatsby, and I enjoyed it. I thought it was all about fast cars and champagne and jazz in the 1920s. I remember my mother. I got her to teach me how to do the Charleston, which was the dance craze. 20s.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James West]

And I'm sorry to say that this did not improve my standing with Diane. And the romance? The romance fizzled. But my romance with Fitzgerald has continued to the present day.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James West]

Maybe you and Diane were more in the beautiful and damned school of things.

I think that's very true. Yes.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. So did Fitzgerald lead you toward this career that you've had in literature? Was it that influential and important, or.

[James West]

Were you already kind of headed that way even before you read the Great Gatsby?

I was headed that way. I was becoming quite literary. But Fitzgerald gave me a boost. The second time I came to his writings. That was in graduate school. And I set myself the task of reading his entire oeuvre from beginning to end. By that time, I understood better what he was trying to do was captured by the beauty of the language. Fitzgerald has a pitch perfect ear for language and dialogue.

Right.

And his skill with narrative point of view, which we certainly see in the Great Gatsby, and then his understanding of money and status, which are concerns throughout his work, all of that impressed itself upon me. And in fact, I did my dissertation on his first novel, this side of paradise, and I've continued to read and write about him until the present day.

Yeah, a lot of people might not be as familiar with this side of paradise, but I've read it years and years ago, and I was struck by how. I mean, it is an early work and it's of his enthusiasm, but he.

[Jack Wilson]

Has so much already there at such a young age.

[James West]

He had already developed a lot of the prose style and a lot of the things that we admire for him later. Is that kind of your impression of that work as well?

Yes, you're right, Jack. This side of paradise is a Rosetta stone for Fitzgerald's later writings. You see the enthusiasm, you see the narrative drive. It's a very crowded novel. There are all kinds of things going on. Lots of romance, lots of literary business, lots of seeking for purpose. It's a young person's novel, Bildungsroman. There's really no other novel of exactly that type in American literature. I found that students in college, when I teach them this side of paradise, they have to make a few adjustments, but they understand what it's all about. Yes.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James West]

So Fitzgerald famously said that an author.

[Jack Wilson]

Ought to write for the youth of.

[James West]

His own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of Ever Afterwards. It certainly Gatsby has somewhat followed that trajectory. And he also said when he finished the Great Gatsby, he thought, well, this is the greatest American novel ever written. Maybe that was the flush of feeling good about having completed it. But I guess my question is, do you think that Fitzgerald believed that the.

[Jack Wilson]

Great Gatsby would last for 100 years?

[James West]

Did he ever let himself go down that path of feeling that strongly about the novel?

Perhaps in the evenings when he was fantasizing about his literary reputation? I think Fitzgerald hoped that the Great Gatsby would outlast him, but he probably had no idea that it would become a national scripture. That's almost what it's become over here, a kind of secular scripture. If Fitzgerald is looking down upon Us from writer's heaven, from on high. I think he would be pleased by the current status of the novel, its reputation, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have read it.

And why do you think it's become the scripture? I mean, everybody. I've read a lot of different takes on it, but I'd be interested in hearing what you thought as kind of the expert here. Why is the Great Gatsby the one that gets pointed to so often as the great American novel?

Well, I am a pedagogue and I can tell you that as a school text, it's a very teachable novel. Very teachable. The only novel that I can think of that is as teachable is the Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. And there, of course, you also have a first person narrator, Dr. Watson. Here you have Nick Carraway. And there are many lessons that you can teach to your students from the Great Gatsby. You can teach them about first person narration. You can teach them about symbols. There's a wonderful green light at the end that flashes on and off. That's worth one period, at least, where we all speculate.

And the eyes of the billboard.

Yes, yes. Dr. T.J. eckleberg. There are many moments in the novel that are teachable. But as a popular text for lay readers, I would say that the themes of the Great Gatsby are readily grasped. An obscure novel. They're wonderful characters, good narrative drive, and thoroughly American themes. The novel has come to be thought of as a quintessential American novel, not just of its time. So people who have never read the novel before are in for a real treat.

[Jack Wilson]

And it flies by.

[James West]

That's the thing.

[Jack Wilson]

I mean, you mentioned narrative drive.

[James West]

That's a nicer way of saying it, I guess. But the last time I read it, I think it was in one sitting. I mean, it's sort of. It feels like it has the heft of a novel. It doesn't feel like a short story, but it also doesn't not feel like a short story in a way. I mean, it really. It's easy to assign to students, I would imagine, because it's. It doesn't ever meander. It doesn't. There aren't long stretches that you have to kind of slog through. It's like the foot is on the accelerator pedal.

Oh, I agree. You're not going to stall out when you read the Great Gatsby. And it's a good novel for pulling students away from their cell phones. That's the way I came to think of it toward the end of my teaching, there's really a lot out there to compete with when you assign readings to them and many, many distractions. But the Great Gatsby seems to seize and hold their attention and carry them through.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James West]

So thinking about kind of the critics and the critical response, and I'm sure some things you cover when you teach the book. We often say it's about the American Dream, but what exactly does that mean?

[Jack Wilson]

What is the dream and how does.

[James West]

The book express it?

The American Dream is amorphous. The definition of the American Dream continues to change. One of the remarkable things about the Great Gatsby is that the novel seems to adapt as we move along through the decades. And it still holds out that promise that we think we know about fulfillment in American life. Of course, Fitzgerald's characters fail. Gatsby fails. And Fitzgerald knew a lot about the concept of failure when he wrote the Great Gatsby. But it was later in his career, during the crackup period of the 1930s, that he wrote most eloquently about failure. And yet still the green light flickers across the bay. And so we beat on against the current. So the book holds up as we go along and continues to adapt itself to American culture.

I feel like as I get older, I mean, I think I used to read it as the American Dream, being materialism and the great accumulation of wealth, but maybe also the problems that come along with that. I think as I get older, I.

[Jack Wilson]

Read Fitzgerald more as being about youth.

[James West]

And I just reread his story Winter Dreams, which has a lot of these themes as well. And it seems like Fitzgerald was really even at a young age, maybe because youth and beauty and the excitement of youth were so important to him. He seems to have really tapped into this feeling that we all age and that the pleasures of youth can be fleeting and that the boat that beats against the current could also be, I guess, seen as us all rowing against the progress of time and the inevitable aging and decline process that he seems to have foreseen in such a deep way.

Yes, he did understand youth and age quite well and captured it as he went along in his writings. The Great Gatsby is from his middle period. This side of paradise we were talking about a minute ago is truly a young person's book. But in the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald seems to see some inklings of what is to come. And like you, I get different things out of the novel as I have, as I read it and re read it. I'm now in my 70s, and I think perhaps I understand it better now than I ever did.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James West]

Okay, let's take a quick break and then come back with more from Jim West.

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[James West]

So, Jim, you mentioned that the appeal of the Great Gatsby was. Was amorphous and that it's had this way of adapting itself to different eras and kind of renew itself. Would you say that there are any particular decades as you look back over the years, and is the popularity just kind of on a steady upswing, or would you say there are particular decades or eras where it seems like it kind of fits the American cultural mood better than others?

Yes, there are particular decades that I associate with the book, of course, the 1920s, when the book was published. It was published first in 1925, but the great Gatsby made its first big comeback in the 1960s. And this was a period of great confidence in American life, but also of great conflict. Social conflict, the Vietnam War, the Civil rights movement, all of that put society in turmoil in a way that it had been in the 1920s. So the novel had its first resurrection then. I remember the 1980s as a period when the Great Gatsby was very much in the public eye. And there was a lot of discussion of the book and of Fitzgerald's life and career. And then more recently, we've also been in great turmoil over here. And it seems perhaps with the Baz Luhrmann movie or the stage version, which is called Gats, in which the novel is simply recited by actors on a stage. It's really a remarkable way of presenting the beauty of the language comes through. All of those times seem to have been appropriate for the Great Gatsby. Its demise has been anticipated many times, but it always seems to find new readers and new life.

Yeah, and sometimes that might not even be easy to predict. I mean, when you mentioned the 60s, one of the things that occurred to me is, is that's kind of when the boomers were. The demographic group was reaching their teen years and so on. And maybe there was something in them that. Something in the Great Gatsby that appealed to them because of its focus on youth and love and something like that. Then in the 80s, we had all the bond traders and all the Wall street and all of that. There's something there that. That might appeal to people looking at the accumulation of wealth and the hubris that comes with it. And it seems like the Gatsby is there to meet the moment, so to speak.

No, you're right. When you talk about the boomers in the 1960s, Jack, that's me you're talking about.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James West]

And I remember very well that kind of idealism and that youthful drive that I had and other members of my generation. We're much older now, but I can certainly still read the novel and find each time new lessons in what Fitzgerald has given us.

It's like the, you know, I'm imagining the feeling among you and your peers as being. Well, the grownups want us to listen to, I don't know, Glenn Miller or something, and we want to listen to the Beatles, and the grownups want us.

[Jack Wilson]

To read the Scarlet Letter, but we'd.

[James West]

Rather read the Great Gatsby.

Amen. Amen. You're right.

Okay. So sometimes what happens to books like the Great Gatsby that are so famous is people even who haven't read them have an idea of what it's about, or maybe they don't remember it that well, and they kind of, you know, think of it in a certain way. Are there any misunderstandings that have come up that you think we should correct? Anything people tend to believe about the book that maybe isn't quite accurate or quite fair?

Yes. I think so. Many people believe that Fitzgerald simply tossed the novel off. He was able to write like the birds sing, and he sat down and one day decided to write a novel and wrote it from beginning to end, changed a few words, and that was it. That's not true at all. Fitzgerald's first drafts in manuscript were often rather pedestrian. We admire his style, his skill with language, but he got most of those effects in revision, those verbal effects. Three versions of the Great Gatsby survive. There is a handwritten manuscript, and then there's an intermediate version called Trimalchio, which is one of the titles that Fitzgerald considered for this novel. And then there's the final version that he published in April 1925. So you can trace the development of the novel from version to version and see how Fitzgerald turned it from a rather good novel of manners about some unpleasant people out on Long island, from that into the masterpiece, his masterpiece. That's what it became in the final version that he published. There's another misconception about the novel, that it's perfect, that it's a perfect work of art. It's really not. There are flaws in the Great Gatsby. I sometimes suggest this to my students, and it seems as if I've uttered a blasphemy. They have been told that it's the ne plus ultra of literary work. The plot, along about the middle, doesn't make much sense. There's no real reason for all those characters to drive into New York City and take a room at the Plaza. The real reason is they have to get back in the cars, drive back across the Queensborough Bridge, and Daisy has to be at the wheel and run down Myrtle. Fitzgerald had to do some strong arm work to get his plot to come out the way it did. So I don't think it is a perfect work of art. I doubt if there is any such thing. But certainly he got most of it right. Yeah, there's much to admire.

And there was one criticism early on, even before it was published, that people were saying, which is that Gatsby is.

[Jack Wilson]

Too shadowy of a figure.

[James West]

He doesn't quite have enough detail or definition. And Fitzgerald resisted that. And I think I feel like readers and critics today have generally accepted Fitzgerald's decisions around that, that the novel works better that way. But do you consider that a flaw as well? Or do you think Fitzgerald got it right by leaving Gatsby the edges around Gatsby as such a blur?

He got it right the first time I read the novel. Back there, in the days when I was pursuing Diane, I remember being a little frustrated about Gatsby. But later I came to understand that the entire story is told to us by Nick Carraway. And Nick doesn't really know a great deal about Gatsby. He knows what Gatsby has told him about his past. But how reliable is that? And in fact, how reliable is Nick as a narrator? Some people question his view of the entire story. So I rather like Gatsby now as a shadowy figure. He's a bit of an enigma. And again, from the teacher's point of view, that gives us a lot to talk about in the classroom.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James West]

And isn't that the way life really works, that if we're really going to be fascinated by someone, there has to be some mystery. Once we really get to know someone and. And know them in and out, we lose some of that excitement of wanting to get to know them.

Oh, you're entirely correct. There are many people I don't want to know everything about, though they seem to be very insistent about telling me everything about themselves. And really I just assumed they didn't, so that effect is mimicked. A good literary character should remain a bit mysterious, I think.

Yeah, I asked you about popular misunderstandings about the book and whether we should correct any, but I'm also wondering if there are some about Fitzgerald and something you said when talking about how people tended to think he maybe dashed the book off, wrote it quickly and so on. You know, I feel like he has really come down to us as a figure of maybe being shallow, being obsessed with nice clothes and fast cars and trinkets, so to speak, big mansions. And also maybe that he was someone who squandered his youth and his talent and that alcohol kind of, you know, he kind of chose the life of parties and it kind of destroyed him. Do you think that people today have a fair version of Fitzgerald in their mind, or do you think there are things to correct?

Fitzgerald did live hard. He used himself up and he did write for money, but he wanted to be read and he wanted to be published not in obscure literary journals, but rather in mass circulation magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Red Book. He balanced on the line between art and commerce about as well as any writer of his generation. And I've always admired him for that. I don't think Fitzgerald could have lived a rational life.

He needed the parties and the lifestyle and all of that. It kind of fueled his fiction in a way.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I was trying to get around to saying something like that. I think Fitzgerald needed to party. He needed to live life hard. That's what he wrote about. He used himself up in his writings. It took a toll on him. The necessity for fresh invention each time out was difficult for him. But he was able to turn all of that into memorable fiction. And we have that that he left to us. It helps us understand him and his life. It's really fascinating. And I think the public is fascinated still by his writings and by his life, his and Zelda's lives. I had a friend once who played a game every Sunday with the New York Times. You know, the Sunday Times is a huge newspaper. It has all sorts of articles and all sorts of material in it. And my friend would play this game. How soon would it take him to find a reference to Fitzgerald? Somewhere in the New York Times. The Sunday Times.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James West]

And he said he always did, and it didn't take that long. It might be a reference to the Great Gatsby, or it might be to Scott and Zelda, or it might be a headline about the rich are different from you and me, but there was always something. Fitzgerald is ubiquitous in American life. He's everywhere.

Still, there's also that there are no second acts in American lives, which seems to be something that writers and essayists will draw upon a lot in order to try to put today's news in some context.

[Jack Wilson]

Whenever someone has a downfall, it's true, he's very quotable.

[James West]

For instance, her voice is full of money. That line from the Great Gatsby, you know what it means? You can't really put it into words, but you know what it means. There are all sorts of passages in Fitzgerald that are memorable, quotable.

Yeah, I just read one. Like I said, I was just reading Winter Dreams, and he talks about the hot tinkle of the piano. And I thought, that is so perfect in describing. I know exactly how that piano sounds now.

Yeah, yeah. That's a wonderful story, by the way.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about this centennial edition that Cambridge University Press has come out with.

[Jack Wilson]

What would you like to highlight for.

[James West]

The readers that is special about this publication?

Well, the Cambridge Centennial Gatsby is Aladdin's cave for aficionados of the novel. There are all sorts of good things there. There's a brilliant introduction by Sarah Churchwell, who is one of the leading critics of Fitzgerald's writings and who herself has written a very good book about the American dream. But in the edition, we have numerous illustrations, photographs of celebrities, of hotels, the plaza of military leaders, sheet music for songs in the novel, and facsimiles of pages from the manuscript and the proofs with Fitzgerald's handwriting. There are also some outtakes from those three versions of the novel, that is to say, passages that Fitzgerald did not include in the final version, but still help us to understand what the book is about. For instance, there is a masquerade party at Gatsby's mansion that did not make it into the book. Everyone is in disguise. Well, it's appropriate for the novel because the characters are all wearing disguises of one sort or another. And there's the original ending of the novel in which Jay Gatsby believes in the green glimmer not the green light, but the green glimmer. It's interesting to look over Fitzgerald's shoulder as he sits at his work table and to see him revising the novel. And interesting to read what he rejected as much as it is to read what he included.

Mm. And there's. It's got the poster for the Chic, starring Rudolph Valentino, and. And it's just a lot of things that help to kind of bring the prose to life and really read it the way that a reader in 1925 might have read it, with all of these things that may have been lost a little bit to the sands of time, but which would have been prominent in their minds.

Exactly. We have to remember that the novel was published 100 years ago. And when Fitzgerald mentions Gilda Gray from the Follies, who invented the Shimmy, all of his readers in 1925 knew exactly who she was, and they knew who Rudolph Valentino was and Kaiser Bill, and they knew the sports figures, they knew the battles in World War I. But readers today don't know those things anymore. And so the annotations help a lot to give context to the reading of the novel.

Well, I can say that the Great Gatsby is one of those books. I don't mind having multiple copies of it. I think I have a copy with Robert Redford on the COVID I've got one with a facsimile of the original cover by Scribners, and this one goes right alongside them. It's kind of fun to reread a favorite work in a new edition and see the new context for it and get the feel of the pages and see the new illustrations and all of those things. And I would encourage listeners to run out and take a look at the Cambridge Centennial Version and pick it up for either themselves or someone in their life who needs a little dose of the Great Gatsby.

Yes, indeed. It's great fun to read and reread. As you yourself become older, you will understand the novel in a different way each time you read it, I think.

Okay, well, the book is the Cambridge Centennial Version of the Great Gatsby, edited by our guest today, James West. Thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.

Thank you, Jack.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, there we go. That's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature. Happy birthday to the Great Gatsby. Hard to believe you were only in your 60s. The first time I read you, you already seemed like you'd been around forever even then. My thanks to James west. For helping us out today. We will be back soon with some Emily Bronte and some Sylvia Plath. We'll travel to France for some Emile Zola. We'll figure out, oh, we'll find out what we got all wrong about John Ruskin. Listener takes us to the woodshed on that one and we'll correct the record. We'll have some Mark Twain. Soon we go to India for 10 classics from that country and its neighbors. We are also going to visit the ancient world and the Victorian age and the Elizabethans. All kinds of good stuff ahead. Traveling through space and time. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

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