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.
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…
By: David N. Scott on March 18, 2008
at 10:35 am
I would like to see that quote in full if you can locate it, David.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 10:40 am
“Common wisdom is usually neither” has some hits. Still doesn’t quite ring right.
By: David N. Scott on March 18, 2008
at 12:43 pm
Close enough.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 12:45 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.
By: John Shannon on March 18, 2008
at 1:41 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.)
By: Julie Scott on March 18, 2008
at 1:53 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.
By: Julie Scott on March 18, 2008
at 1:54 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.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 2:03 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.
By: joseph on March 18, 2008
at 2:51 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.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 4:48 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.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 4:59 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…
By: joseph on March 18, 2008
at 8:24 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.
By: Rodger Jacobs on March 18, 2008
at 8:37 pm
I think FSF was referring to the “well-made” play of his day, which had three acts. And, given the trajectory of his own career, he was saying that one goes from the promising first act of a career to the last, with no middle.
Don’t think I made this up, rather read it somewhere, but don’t know where.
By: Leonard Harris on December 16, 2008
at 6:22 am
In many respects he was correct, Leonard. Look at the trajectory of Scott’s life: best selling author in the 1920s, part of the European ex-pat crowd, darling of newspapers and magazines, and then 1929 arrives … the stock market crashes, the nation plunges into an economic depression, and no one wants to read about the monied class in America any longer. Scott is effectively out of business. So, cut to the third act of his life: broken-down, self-pitying, wife in a sanitarium and daughter in college, the writer trying to pay bills for the latter expenses by writing for Hollywood … eventually dies in Hollywood believing he has been an utter failure.
The problem with the above scenario is that it is a second act, not a third. The third act of FSF’s life played out after his death with his emergence in American arts and letters as an important figure. I think Scott had it wrong: for many, there is no third act, at least not while one is still above ground.
By: Rodger Jacobs on December 16, 2008
at 10:57 am