Book notes | The Last Tycoon
The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about Hollywood, the movies, and the people who made them—the “dream factory,” as the motion picture industry came to be known.
Fitzgerald worked in Hollywood long enough to write the novel from the inside out. But The Last Tycoon is hardly a Babylon Hollywood tell-all. In fact, there is only one instance where Fitzgerald received film credit, and that was only as a minor screenplay contributor.
The Last Tycoon takes place around 1935. Fitzgerald worked on the book from the spring of 1939 to the time of his death in December 1940, a mere one and a half years. What remained was little more than half of the intended book.
Seventeen of the 30 projected episodes were in draft form. Other than that, there were hundreds of pages of notes and outlines and correspondence with the publisher.
It was a work in progress.
From this abundance of material, the well-known critic and Fitzgerald’s former college friend Edmund Wilson edited the manuscript to its 1941 published edition. A subsequent edition, The Love of the Last Tycoon published in 1993, includes Wilson’s material plus Fitzgerald’s letters to the publisher with copious outlines. A close associate, Sheilah Graham, built on these outlines to provide an ending and an epilogue.
Perhaps this sounds like a patchwork novel of uneven construction. But, even in this incomplete form, some regard it as the best of Fitzgerald. It is a compelling rendering of an archetypal American hero, a full embodiment of the American Dream.
Monroe Stahr, son of Jewish immigrants, is successful, widely respected, and, at his core, a responsible, disciplined genius in the film industry. Although the character of Stahr is loosely based on the life of Irving Thalberg, a celebrated Hollywood executive, it can be understood as autobiographical.
Fitzgerald novels were well received in his lifetime, but there were also many unhappy extended intervals of work much despised by Fitzgerald, in advertising and the Hollywood years.
In summary, the novel is a beautifully rendered story of the tension of a culture aspiring to creativity but dominated by cynicism, greed, and commercial imperatives.
The Last Tycoon was well received by UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club members and made for a congenial round of discussion.
—Dorothy Marden, Fourth Friday Book Club member
Book Club II to meet June 25
Fri, Jun 25 2021, 2pm
The Fourth Friday Book Club selection for its meeting at 2 p.m. on Friday, June 25, is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last and most acclaimed novel, The Last Tycoon.
About the author
A native of St Paul, Fitzgerald attended Princeton University, which he left in 1917 to join the Army. It is said that Fitzgerald epitomized the Jazz Age, an age inhabited by a generation he defined as “… grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” The Last Tycoon is the last of his five novels: This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and the Damned, and Tender is the Night.
To quote The New York Times in a November 9, 1941, review of The Last Tycoon: “Of all our novelists, Fitzgerald was by temperament and his gifts the best fitted to explore and reveal the inner world of the movies and of the men who made them. He had lived and worked in Hollywood long enough to write from the inside out; the material was clay in his hands.”
On the one hand, it is a novel of the moral decadence of Hollywood in its heyday. And then, again quoting the Times, “… there is the literary craftsmanship, the vitality in every line he wrote, the pleasure of watching Fitzgerald’s mind at work.”
New members are welcome!
Please contact Dorothy Marden or Margaret Catambay to learn more.
—Dorothy Marden, Fourth Friday Book Club member
Upcoming Events
We are fortunate to have UMRA member and former Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director Peter Moe to lead this approximately 3.7-mile hike at the Arboretum on Monday, May 6. Plan to have lunch together after the hike at the Eatery café inside the Oswald Visitor Center.
This session will continue the discussion begun in the May 8, 2023 session. See that article for details.
If you currently live in your own home or apartment, have you looked ahead to when you might want to consider a senior living option? Do you have any idea what those options might be? How much they cost? What they provide? UMRA’s May 14 workshop will provide an overview of the world of senior living and the basic information you need.
You’re invited to join the final Family History Interest Group meeting for 2023–24. This will be an opportunity to ask questions related to family history, share insights, talk about recent projects, and suggest topics for next year.
Stephanie Daily will lead the discussion of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by best-selling author Mary Roach when the UMRA Book Club meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 17.
The May 20 hike will start at the Historic Lift Bridge in Stillwater and go along the river to the new bridge, cross over and then back on the Wisconsin side, a total of approximately 5 miles. Most of the route is paved. We will eat lunch after at Brian's Bar and Grill in Stillwater. Car pooling will be available.
Climatologist and meteorologist Mark Seeley joined the U of M faculty in 1978 and has been a weekly commentator on Minnesota Public Radio since 1992. We are honored to welcome him as our guest speaker for UMRA’s May Luncheon Forum and 2024 Annual Meeting. He is always entertaining and informative.
UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club welcomes back, for the second time, author Julie Schumacher, U of M Regents professor of creative writing and English, for a conversation about her novel The Shakespeare Requirement.
We are in for a treat on June 3! Lynn Anderson, will lead us on trails at two parks near her Monticello home. Bring a bag lunch and we will gather in Lynn's yard along the Mississippi River for eating and socializing after the hike.
Get out to the ballpark with fellow UMRA members for the annual U of M Day at Target Field as the Minnesota Twins take on the Oakland Athletics on June 14 at 7:10 p.m.
Please join us at 9:30 on June 17, 2024 for a walk around Lake Como in St. Paul before attending the UMRA Summer Social and Picnic starting at 11 at the Como Pavilion. A perfect opportunity to get in a walk before we gather to celebrate summer.
Picnic under the covered, open-air Como pavilion, gaze at the water, spy some birds, catch up with friends and former colleagues, and meet new members. We’ll have lunch with plenty of time for visiting and then compete in teams as we are challenged by our Quiz master(s)!
Healthy aging, mindfulness, fighting ageism, and more will be the focus of the third annual Age-Friendly University Day to be held on the U of M Twin Cities campus.