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| F. Scott Fitzgerald |
The Great Gatsby hits theaters today, and, predictably, the paperback tie-in hit #1 on bestseller lists. But, F. Scott Fitzgerald never saw his book become a success. In fact, at his untimely death at the age of 44, he had earned a grand total of $13.13 in royalties. Read Newspaper Alum's great blog on why it took so long for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece to make it to the big time.
I might point out that a number of other "classics" - among them, The Grapes of Wrath, Brave New World, and Lord of the Flies - were hated by critics when they were published. That's not too surprising. All of these books were critical of our society. If there is one thing critics don't like, it's criticism.
"On May 10th, Baz Luhrmann's new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece ``The Great Gatsby’’ hits theaters nationwide starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke. The official premiere of the film kicked off at a star-studded event at Lincoln Center on Wednesday with a dazzling 3-D spectacle.
``The Great Gatsby’’, written by Fitzgerald while living with his wild and mentally unstable wife Zelda in France and Italy in 1924 and early 1925, tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby (born James Gatz), once a poor young man who rose to become fabulously rich (through bootlegging) embraces a corrupted form of the American Dream by worshiping the monied class of Daisy Buchanan, a former flame of his while enlisted in World War I. Gatsby finally meets her again for the first time in five years and ultimately becomes destroyed by pursuing what he naively thinks will bring him happiness and fulfillment. The theme of disillusionment with American contemporary culture and its fraudulent emphasis on wealth and power are common threads found throughout the novel. But probably ``The Great Gatsby’s’’ most enduring impact was educating succeeding generations about the roaring 20’s, namely about jazz, gambling, excess drinking, and reckless living.
Whether the film meets with upbeat praise or is scorned by critics; the film will more than likely cause film goers to dust off ``The Great Gatsby’’ from their bookshelves or dash off to the library or their Kindle’s to reread what is now considered the Great American novel.
It’s shocking how long it took ``The Great Gatsby’’ to be considered a classic. It wasn’t until April 24, 1960, for example, that The New York Times wrote: ``It is probably safe now to say that it [The Great Gatsby] is a classic of twentieth-century American fiction.
"On May 10th, Baz Luhrmann's new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary masterpiece ``The Great Gatsby’’ hits theaters nationwide starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke. The official premiere of the film kicked off at a star-studded event at Lincoln Center on Wednesday with a dazzling 3-D spectacle.
``The Great Gatsby’’, written by Fitzgerald while living with his wild and mentally unstable wife Zelda in France and Italy in 1924 and early 1925, tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby (born James Gatz), once a poor young man who rose to become fabulously rich (through bootlegging) embraces a corrupted form of the American Dream by worshiping the monied class of Daisy Buchanan, a former flame of his while enlisted in World War I. Gatsby finally meets her again for the first time in five years and ultimately becomes destroyed by pursuing what he naively thinks will bring him happiness and fulfillment. The theme of disillusionment with American contemporary culture and its fraudulent emphasis on wealth and power are common threads found throughout the novel. But probably ``The Great Gatsby’s’’ most enduring impact was educating succeeding generations about the roaring 20’s, namely about jazz, gambling, excess drinking, and reckless living.
Whether the film meets with upbeat praise or is scorned by critics; the film will more than likely cause film goers to dust off ``The Great Gatsby’’ from their bookshelves or dash off to the library or their Kindle’s to reread what is now considered the Great American novel.
It’s shocking how long it took ``The Great Gatsby’’ to be considered a classic. It wasn’t until April 24, 1960, for example, that The New York Times wrote: ``It is probably safe now to say that it [The Great Gatsby] is a classic of twentieth-century American fiction.
When it was published in 1925, Gatsby sold a disappointing 21,000 copies, less than half of sales for ``This Side of Paradise’’ and ``The Beautiful and Dammed,'' Mr. Fitzgerald's first two novels. And there were reportedly still copies from the second printing in the Scribner warehouse when Fitzgerald died in 1940.
Kirk Curnutt, author of ``Coffee with Hemingway’’, ``Key West Hemingway’’, ``The Cambridge Introduction to F Scott Fitzgerald’’, and ``The Critical Response to Gertrude Stein’’, among others, told me: ``It [Gatsby] definitely grew in stature over the years’’ ``A couple of Fitzgerald's friends’’, Curnett says, ``notably Stephen Vincent Benet, recognized that it was a breakthrough in his literary development, but nobody heralded it as a literary classic.’’
Not only did Gatsby practically go unnoticed by American readers, but Fitzgerald himself by the end of his life was rarely, if at all, mentioned as one of America’s greatest writers. Such a perception became a harsh painful reality for Fitzgerald in 1937 when he walked into a bookstore to buy copies of his books for his companion Sheilah Graham only to discover there were no books, not one, of his on the shelves.
In 1940, before dying of a massive heart attack in a Hollywood apartment at the age of 44, Fitzgerald earned a grand total of $13.13 in royalties.
According to a Scribner spokesperson, `` more than 25 million copies of ``The Great Gatsby'' have been sold worldwide since the novel’s original publication in 1925, while more than 15 million copies have been sold in North America alone.’’ Scribner typically sells more than 500,000 combined copies of ``The Great Gatsby'' every year (across print and eBook editions).
Many American literature scholars concede, if Fitzgerald were living today, he would have been rolling in cash from royalties.
When you consider that the vast majority of Fitzgerald obituaries in 1940 clearly omitted the legacy that he left behind, why, many wonder, did it take so long for the American reading public to discover the literary genius of Fitzgerald? ’’
Read the rest of this article HERE.
Read the rest of this article HERE.
Excellent article! I am happy to see that I am not the only one who has blogged about "The Great Gatsby." The novel itself is by far one of my favorite reads!
ReplyDeleteThe Great Gatsby is my favorite book. As a matter of fact, it was the very first book that made me cry (the end where there were hardly anyone attending his funeral -- how sad is that).
ReplyDelete