Let’s Beat Fitzgerald To Death
At the depths of his despair, convinced that he would be relegated to the dust bin of literary history, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the now-famous line “There are no second acts in American lives.” This was a personal notion of Fitzgerald’s, of course, a reflection of his self-pity and remorse over his inability to kick-start his once-glorious career back into gear.
Today, decades after Fitzgerald penned that phrase, it’s hard to think of a literary quote that’s become as shopworn. It’s maddening actually. A quick run of “There are no second acts in American lives” in Google News, for instance, unveils the following:
In the March 16 edition of the U.K. Guardian, Tim Rich begins his profile of soccer great David Beckham with the following:
After taking a Beckham-sized salary to decamp to Los Angeles to recreate the glories of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night for Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald remarked sadly that “there are no second acts in American lives”. Fitzgerald conclusively proved his point by drinking himself to death while producing unusable scripts that had no chance of ending up as a film.
Fitzgerald was relatively clean and sober at the time of his death on December 21, 1940. It was the second of two heart attacks that laid him low. But that’s another matter.
Moving on. On March 16, Noelle Crombie writes in the Sunday Oregonian:
And here’s the Seattle Times’ take on the spectacular fall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. If you think Spitzer’s career is all washed up, think again. Bottom line: F. Scott Fitzgerald may have been all wrong when he famously said, “There are no second acts in American lives. Says one American history prof, “In fact, F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. It happens all the time.”
Well, I’m glad the Prof set the record straight. On the same day as the Guardian and Oregonian nods, Augusta Chronicle columnist Bill Kirby remarks:
F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous for saying “There are no second acts in American lives,” implying that you get one chance to get it right.
Of course, that’s not true.
There are second chances all around us
I suppose if Fitzgerald had struck the words “American lives” from his reflection — again, a personal reflection — lazy journalists the world over would be forced to defend or deconstruct some other literary phrase that snuck into our cultural anthropology by accident.
Get some new material, people.
March 18, 2008 at 10:35 am
Um, yeah. Life is full of come back kings and queens. Especially in the fabled realm of Celebrity.
Whats is it they say? Commom wisdom is nothing of the sort? Something like that. The phrase is on the tip of my fingers…
March 18, 2008 at 10:40 am
I would like to see that quote in full if you can locate it, David.
March 18, 2008 at 12:43 pm
“Common wisdom is usually neither” has some hits. Still doesn’t quite ring right.
March 18, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Close enough.
March 18, 2008 at 1:41 pm
But there is a grain of truth in the old F. Scott saw. Just think of all the American writers who collapsed after a fine beginning: Salinger, Heller, Hemingway (almost straight downhill–just about every book worse than the preceding one), Fitz himself, and laterly Robert Stone, Richard Ford, Don DeLillo. Then think of the Brits who each wrote scores of books on an even par at worst, Graham Greene, Waugh, etc. I think there’s something in our celebrity-worshipping culture that rewards some people (the next big thing) far too soon and tempts them into some kind of inner collapse. Of course there are exceptions, plenty of them, but it’s worth thinking about. I have a discerning anthropologist friend who says American artists should be rewarded slowly and late. So there’s hope for all of us.
March 18, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I’ve noticed this development most with writers and musicians. I’ve often wondered if it isn’t because the first works of an artist are usually those over which they have labored many many years, without the public witnessing all of the coals they went through to produce that one diamond, but everything they do afterwards is in the public eye. (Or, particularly to writers and musicians, to produce work that is equal to that diamond in half to a tenth the time.)
March 18, 2008 at 1:54 pm
That last sentence should have read that they are pressured to produce the same level of work in half to a tenth the time.
March 18, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Well, then you get idiots like Stephen King who recycle old material (the Bachman stories, for instance) after popular success just to throw another log onto the bank account.
John’s friend has it right: Slowly and late.
March 18, 2008 at 2:51 pm
To me, the most shopworn statement in all of lit is Tolstoy’s “All happy families are happy in the same way, but every unhappy family is unhappy in a different way.” It’s nearly insane, and worse, it’s very nearly meaningless.
As for Fitz, I admire the drama of the sentiment, and the key word is American. I actually think it’s a more optimistic sentence than it’s given credit for being, a nod to the existential, to the need for the shock of the new.
John, for me DeLillo never started anywhere high enough from which to fall.
But American authors who evolved might include William Gibson, Nicholson Baker, and Joyce Carol Oates. Maybe they’re easier to find in non-fiction. Similarly, I’ll also submit that Bill Buford’s most recent book Heat on Mario Batali is his best. Even so, our emphasis on celebrity rather than intellect and market-driven consumerism rather than philosophy-driven living makes for lots of caricaturing of any early successful self.
March 18, 2008 at 4:48 pm
a nod to the existential, to the need for the shock of the new
I never thought about it that way before, Joseph, and I think it’s an observation well worth pondering.
March 18, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Also, Joseph, I believe Don DeLillo set the bar pretty high for postmodern (there’s that word again, Julie) fiction with White Noise but a great deal of his other material is a bit much. I know I’ll never read Underworld except on a dare.
March 18, 2008 at 8:24 pm
White Noise is satire, first and foremost. In fact, it’s a satire of a potboiler. I don’t like the way it riffed off of both the Hitler’s Diaries (hoax, 83) and Bhopal (real, 84). If it was postmodern, it was kitchen sink postmodern.
I think Flaubert’s Parrot is far more interesting, as far as faux-academics go.
There are lots of suburban angst moments and marketing stuff in White Noise that are redolent of the Updike Rabbit series—I’d have to check but I think even Rabbit is Rich, the third of the quartet, is written before White Noise.
Of note, if anyone missed it: White Noise was DeLillo’s EIGHTH novel. He had already had his first act.
And hey, last add White Noise, if you’re inclined: check out the NYT review of it. Damn, that review must be over 2,000 words long. Them was the good old days…
March 18, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I’m reading “Rabbit is Rich” as we speak, JM, and yes DeLillo did borrow from Updike. But, still, “Whte Noise”, I think, holds its own.
It was good of you to point out that “Noise” was DeLillo’s 8th novel — that strengthens the argument against Fitzgerald’s “no second act” …
Between you and John, I’m not sure where I stand on this issue. Worth further pondering.