With only so many days of the Gatsby centenary to go, I thought I’d share this: Scott Fitzgerald’s first biographer, Arthur Mizener, talking to Mary Margaret McBride about his new book, The Far Side of Paradise, in January 1951. The book was a milestone in the creation of the Fitzgerald legend and was published almost…
Month: December 2025
Christmas Centenary Podcast: The Great Gatsby, Catholicism, and a Lasting American Sacrament
Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. Despite all the glitter and extravgance, Scott would always describe himself as a…
Forgotten Man — Fitzgerald’s Fascist Neighbours, American Dream in Crisis
In the 1930s, F. Scott Fitzgerald, suffering personal and professional decline, struggled for recognition as The Great Gatsby faded from memory. Amid Zelda’s worsening mental health and the rise of American fascism, Fitzgerald mingled with Marxist intellectuals and radicals in Asheville, North Carolina. Among his neighbours was the American fascist, William Dudley Pelley. But what…
The Great Gatsby, The Land of Cockaigne and Gastronomic Utopias
This article explores thematic parallels between The Great Gatsby, Joyce’s Ulysses, and myths like the Land of Cockaigne. It examines motifs of abundance, identity, and longing, reflecting on how literature reinterprets recurring myths of paradise, excess, and the sea. The essay connects Gatsby’s parties to ancient banquets and discusses how these works mirror and refract…