Fitzgerald as a Catholic seems to have been more familiar with the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible, which uses a literal translation of the Greek, “holocaust”, where the King James Version says “burnt offering”.
Rudyard Kipling, who grew up in India, may have popularized the swastika as a symbol of good luck. The official editions of his books were all published with a swastika on the spine. There was also a Swastika Laundry in Dublin with a fleet of red delivery vans that stayed in service after the war.
Nick's feelings about the midwest, about returning from school in the east for Christmas vacation, resonate with me. It sounds childish and weak if you call it home sickness. Why not call it nostalgia? When I was a kid I was given the impression that the east coast, New York and Boston (plus DC but ick) was the main important part of America and it was a special kind of victory for someone from the midwest (or west) to leave home and make a contribution.
I wonder if it's how European have felt about America since WWII?
You seem obsessed with the minor character Meyer Wolfsheim in Gatsby based on Arnold Rothstein.
But youve never mentioned the major character Nathan Detroit in Guys n Dolls based on Arnold Rothstein. Kansas born Damon Runyon actually knew Rothstein personally and Fitzgerald didn't
I have always, incorrectly, thought of Gatsby as a bumptious Irishman based upon the character of a stockbroker I once knew, and the fact that he clearly was a rumrunner.
German immigrants as shiftless and unsuccessful farmers sounds implausible from this remove. I suppose there had to be some though.
You’ve made me realize that it’s time to read Gatsby again. It was assigned in high school and I found it dreadfully boring. I read it again around age forty and found it brilliant. I’ll see now what the years have done to my impression of the book.
It’s a strange thing how my opinions of Hemingway and Fitzgerald have flip-flopped over the years. I find Hemingway to be almost ridiculous these days, where years ago I thought him far superior to Fitzgerald. One lives and learns.
Freshman year at a residential undergrad college can be a pretty big shock, at least, I assume, for most people. Eighteen-year-olds are free of Mom and Dad, and ready for whatever comes their way. I'm sure this is a big part of the success of Wokeism: these freshmen are looking for their place in the world, and along comes a charismatic, compelling Wokeist professor with a (superficially) compelling Grand Theory for why the world is the way it is.
My great grandfather was a Midwest boy who did well for himself in NYC during that time. He left his respectable Scots Irish family (father was a doctor) in Illinois to be a reporter for the NY Herald Tribune and ended up scooping the Lusitania, Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight, and Pancho Villa's escapades.
Made assistant editor before he retired. Nobody like him exists in print media these days.
What's wild to me is the other side of my family (my father's) was just down the Illinois River in Missouri, where another relative gained some notoriety as a Civil War Confederate general.
The West (including Midwest) was the crucible in which the modern American identity emerged. All those distinctions between the "cavaliers" (my dad's family), Scots Irish (my mom's), Yankees and all the Irish and Germanic immigrants blended into one American people between the Civil War and WWII.
That it happened in one lifetime is pretty incredible. Imagine being born at the end of the Civil War and living to see our victory in WWII. It inspires awe when you think about it.
It’s been a while since I had read Gatsby, I never paid much attention to the backgrounds of the characters. Who was attracted to who and why is what always interested me. Great literature has many angles.
But this notion that Gatsby was black seems to me as indicative of the seed change in the meaning of diversity, which Steve is pointing out. In the 1970s, diversity was the characters in M*A*S*H which included both geographic and more nuanced ethnic diversity. Now everything is black/POC/oppressed vs white/oppressor. Whites, for that matter anyone, that accepts this narrative are really throwing away their history. It’s a damn shame.
So old stock Anglo/Calvinist-desentant(and proto-great replacement noticer) Tom v German/Lutherans (a rather pious one in Nick) are at the center of Gatsby melodrama with a bit of an ordeal of civility for the later.
As it happens, this was approximately my father and mother's family genealogy.
Gatsby as black? Preposterous. I suppose the most attractive elements of the story are that Gatsby was self made, had enormous personal charm, and achieved material success. The dark side being that his material success was achieved through bootlegging. The tragedy being that he did it for a woman who he barely knew and ended up rejecting him. And was portrayed as a superficial person and member of the idle rich.
I suppose if we have to have black Gatsby, they could turn him into a high level drug dealer. I don't see the charm element or the love story getting much traction.
While he was dying, Updike wrote “Peggy Lutz, Fred Murth,” a beautiful poem infused with nostalgia for his own hometown in Pennsylvania, and the people he grew up with. I well up every time I read it.
Yeah, Fitzgerald's pretty explicit here about his theme... Lately I find myself recalling that passage about the train station a lot, and I just realized part of why I find it haunting: my late father went to boarding school at Exeter for a couple of years in the late 1940s while his parents' marriage was disintegrating, and he hated it. And that's how you got to Exeter NH from Colorado, and how you got back home again: long train rides through the dark.
His father in turn was a contemporary of Fitzgerald's and knew him a bit: they were both born in St. Paul in 1896 and had good friends in common. I'm pretty sure one of the crowd at Gatsby's parties listed in the epic catalogue at the start of Chapter 4 is based on my grandfather's name. He's Ernest (rather than the actual Eugene), followed by my grandfather's rare surname.
Read Gatsby twice: once as required, second time for interest. Always puzzling was that Wolfsheim's import business is named Swastika Trading Co.
It’s also a little strange that Fitzgerald, in 1925, describes the deaths of Myrtle Wilson, Gatsby, and Myrtle’s husband, George, as a holocaust.
Fitzgerald as a Catholic seems to have been more familiar with the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible, which uses a literal translation of the Greek, “holocaust”, where the King James Version says “burnt offering”.
Rudyard Kipling, who grew up in India, may have popularized the swastika as a symbol of good luck. The official editions of his books were all published with a swastika on the spine. There was also a Swastika Laundry in Dublin with a fleet of red delivery vans that stayed in service after the war.
Nick's feelings about the midwest, about returning from school in the east for Christmas vacation, resonate with me. It sounds childish and weak if you call it home sickness. Why not call it nostalgia? When I was a kid I was given the impression that the east coast, New York and Boston (plus DC but ick) was the main important part of America and it was a special kind of victory for someone from the midwest (or west) to leave home and make a contribution.
I wonder if it's how European have felt about America since WWII?
You seem obsessed with the minor character Meyer Wolfsheim in Gatsby based on Arnold Rothstein.
But youve never mentioned the major character Nathan Detroit in Guys n Dolls based on Arnold Rothstein. Kansas born Damon Runyon actually knew Rothstein personally and Fitzgerald didn't
How come
In the book, there is a scene where Gatsby tells Nick that Wolfsheim was responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.
Still a minor character
Except he informs us on how Gatsby made his money, and Gatsby’s money is one of the main elements of the book.
Steve loves baseball.
I have always, incorrectly, thought of Gatsby as a bumptious Irishman based upon the character of a stockbroker I once knew, and the fact that he clearly was a rumrunner.
German immigrants as shiftless and unsuccessful farmers sounds implausible from this remove. I suppose there had to be some though.
You’ve made me realize that it’s time to read Gatsby again. It was assigned in high school and I found it dreadfully boring. I read it again around age forty and found it brilliant. I’ll see now what the years have done to my impression of the book.
It’s a strange thing how my opinions of Hemingway and Fitzgerald have flip-flopped over the years. I find Hemingway to be almost ridiculous these days, where years ago I thought him far superior to Fitzgerald. One lives and learns.
Freshman year at a residential undergrad college can be a pretty big shock, at least, I assume, for most people. Eighteen-year-olds are free of Mom and Dad, and ready for whatever comes their way. I'm sure this is a big part of the success of Wokeism: these freshmen are looking for their place in the world, and along comes a charismatic, compelling Wokeist professor with a (superficially) compelling Grand Theory for why the world is the way it is.
My great grandfather was a Midwest boy who did well for himself in NYC during that time. He left his respectable Scots Irish family (father was a doctor) in Illinois to be a reporter for the NY Herald Tribune and ended up scooping the Lusitania, Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight, and Pancho Villa's escapades.
Made assistant editor before he retired. Nobody like him exists in print media these days.
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/26/archives/wilbur-s-forrest-90-is-dead-was-herald-tribune-executive.html
I wonder whether he ever ran into these bohemian writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald in France, where he was stationed after the war. Probably did.
Interesting about your great-grandfather.
What's wild to me is the other side of my family (my father's) was just down the Illinois River in Missouri, where another relative gained some notoriety as a Civil War Confederate general.
https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/price-sterling
The West (including Midwest) was the crucible in which the modern American identity emerged. All those distinctions between the "cavaliers" (my dad's family), Scots Irish (my mom's), Yankees and all the Irish and Germanic immigrants blended into one American people between the Civil War and WWII.
That it happened in one lifetime is pretty incredible. Imagine being born at the end of the Civil War and living to see our victory in WWII. It inspires awe when you think about it.
It’s been a while since I had read Gatsby, I never paid much attention to the backgrounds of the characters. Who was attracted to who and why is what always interested me. Great literature has many angles.
But this notion that Gatsby was black seems to me as indicative of the seed change in the meaning of diversity, which Steve is pointing out. In the 1970s, diversity was the characters in M*A*S*H which included both geographic and more nuanced ethnic diversity. Now everything is black/POC/oppressed vs white/oppressor. Whites, for that matter anyone, that accepts this narrative are really throwing away their history. It’s a damn shame.
The Midwestern Wigger is not an unknown phenomenon
Yes, there are lots of German Americans, especially in the Midwest, but we’ve assimilated since 1917 and just identify as generic white people.
So old stock Anglo/Calvinist-desentant(and proto-great replacement noticer) Tom v German/Lutherans (a rather pious one in Nick) are at the center of Gatsby melodrama with a bit of an ordeal of civility for the later.
As it happens, this was approximately my father and mother's family genealogy.
Gatsby as black? Preposterous. I suppose the most attractive elements of the story are that Gatsby was self made, had enormous personal charm, and achieved material success. The dark side being that his material success was achieved through bootlegging. The tragedy being that he did it for a woman who he barely knew and ended up rejecting him. And was portrayed as a superficial person and member of the idle rich.
I suppose if we have to have black Gatsby, they could turn him into a high level drug dealer. I don't see the charm element or the love story getting much traction.
While he was dying, Updike wrote “Peggy Lutz, Fred Murth,” a beautiful poem infused with nostalgia for his own hometown in Pennsylvania, and the people he grew up with. I well up every time I read it.
"To think of you brings tears less caustic
than those the thought of death brings. Perhaps
we meet our heaven at the start and not
the end of life. Even then were tears
and fear and struggle, but the town itself
draped in plain glory the passing days."
https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/2011-05/4711/
Yeah, Fitzgerald's pretty explicit here about his theme... Lately I find myself recalling that passage about the train station a lot, and I just realized part of why I find it haunting: my late father went to boarding school at Exeter for a couple of years in the late 1940s while his parents' marriage was disintegrating, and he hated it. And that's how you got to Exeter NH from Colorado, and how you got back home again: long train rides through the dark.
His father in turn was a contemporary of Fitzgerald's and knew him a bit: they were both born in St. Paul in 1896 and had good friends in common. I'm pretty sure one of the crowd at Gatsby's parties listed in the epic catalogue at the start of Chapter 4 is based on my grandfather's name. He's Ernest (rather than the actual Eugene), followed by my grandfather's rare surname.
Obviously, Gatsby was inspired by Fitzgerald’s own Minnesota-to-Princeton (and thus WASP high society) journey.
But it’s reasonable that the Gatsby story resonates with other ethnic groups.
I recommend the biography of Hugh Hefner, Mr. Playboy. Hefner (Midwestern Methodist stock) was essentially the Great Gatsby.