The guy I’ve been stalking all my life.
The most talented American writer. We’ve been talking about music because writing is dead. Fitzgerald predicted that Hollywood would kill the novel. He was right. Fiction was but a moment in the history of the written word. First, there was poetry, then philosophy and exposition, then briefly novels, and now blather.
I wanted to outdo him. I wanted to outwrite him. I was smarter and more original and more learned, but it wasn’t going to happen. He was more willing to destroy himself for his writing than I was. He died at 44. I celebrated outliving him. Seems funny now. I could out-Mailer Mailer, out-Faulkner Faulkner, out-Updike Updike, out-Cheever John Cheever, but I couldn’t do F. Scott Fitzgerald. Even though I basically lived his life.
Today is the day of death. He was an Irish Catholic. His best paragraphs are embedded in my brain. The last page of Tender Is the Night is the greatest music I’ve ever heard, bar none.
I come from a musical family, on both sides. Composers, singers, mandolin, guitar, and piano players, whatever. To me, words were always the music.
He died. He is dead today. So I am remembering him. Click on his pic and see how big he is.
P.S. I can do Hemingway too. Just never saw the need. I can do everyone, even myself. Why I say I don’t think you get it. I asked my wife if she understood the word ‘pellucid.’ Where I am now. Writing that doesn’t even seem like writing. Why you don’t notice. The ultimate compliment.
But I still can’t do Fitzgerald. That’s how good he was. I’m not complaining. You don’t get to choose your father. When it comes to writing, he’s mine. If you don’t understand him, you’ll never understand me.
P.P.S. Today is the 33rd anniversary of the dedication of The Boomer Bible: April 19, 1981. (Do the math, in Henry Elders style numerology: 4 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 1 = 33.) It falls, this year, on the one day of the year when Christ is dead. Who died, need I remind you, at the age of 33. Sometimes serendicity is a bitch. Why I’m giving myself license to be maudlin. Apologies. I am clockwork. Today is an endpoint in my equivalent of the Mayan calendar. But we start all over again tomorrow, which is Easter. See how it works? Thinking you can. See, I mean.
No nod to drama? As much as anything, great writing is meant to be expressed by the human voice. You have said so yourself. Why the Punk writings demand to be spoken. Why it’s the bands that are the origins of the Boomer Bible, which is best read aloud.
Personally, I prefer the raw energy of your writings over that of Fitzgerald. Why be him when you are original; the new voice of the 21st Century.
Would the writers you mention have loved your work but secretly scorned it for jealousy? You can do all of them AND produce something the world has never seen. The world can’t understand it, but unlike Joyce, there’s deeper meaning than just self reflection. Forget novels, you created entire Bibles. And the music of the final books of the Punk Testament are a symphony.
Mostly they were dead before I got started. I have no resentments. Of the ones I mentioned all were great but Mailer. And Updike. And Faulkner was a bit too purple for my taste. But even Mailer was no dumber than Hemingway. Joyce gives me a headache, but that’s no crime. Where were we? I forget.
Great writing…. I think the STOP on that red octagonal sign is pretty effective at communicating though I will admit that I rarely follow the implied instruction.
Great ideas or universal experiences that are accessible to everyone? Some writers can be so far ahead of their time that even though the punctuation is perfect the ideas are unapproachable.
“I’ll be back.” Great words.