Project 4: English Through Literature: Babylon Revisited

SCOTT FITZGERALD

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, an author well known for his short stories and novels, was born on September 24th, 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota to an upper middle class family. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers American soil produced in the 20th century.

Being from a practising Catholic family, Scott started his education at Catholic schools in 1903. From an early age Scott developed a reputation of being a boy with unusual ability and keen interest in literature. Young Scott’s first publication The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage was a detective story issued in his school’s newspaper when he was 13. In 1913 Scott was enrolled at Princeton University where his love for theater and writing really came to the forefront. He wrote many short stories for Princeton Tiger, a college humorous magazine published by Princeton University and scripts for Princeton Triangle Club, a musical comedy society. His association with Triangle Club provided him with an opportunity to publish his first novel, The Romantic Egoist to Charles Scribner’s sons with a renowned publisher and editor of his time. Charle omit though praised the writing yet rejected the book. However, it proved to be a great success when finally published after three revisions as This Side of Paradise. In 1917 Fitzgerald left university to join the army during World War I. However; the war ended soon after his acceptance into the army. In 1919 Scott moved to New York City after his discharge from the army.

The 1920’s were the most influential decade of Scott’s life. He got married to his fiancée Zelda in 1920. They went on a daughter Frances Scott in 1922. His masterpiece novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ was published in 1925. Scott had a number of trips to Paris and developed close relations with many members of the American community there. He also established acquaintance with Ernest Hemingway, an American author and journalist. However, this friendship remained shadowed mostly secret. The sore point of this friendship was that Hemingway never approved the sale of Scott’s stories and novels to Hollywood studios.

Many of Scott’s short stories are autobiographical reflection with referentes to his relationship with Zelda. His first collection of short stories ‘Flappers and Philosophers’ was published in 1920 followed by his second collection, ‘Tales of the Jazz Age’ in 1922. His second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, also adapted to the screen, was published the same year. By the end of the 20’s Scott had published three novels and had already begun his fourth one but was sidetracked by financial difficulties courtesy of his lavish life style. These crises necessitated his writing commercial short stories. This book was finally published in 1934 as Tender is the Night. Critics had mixed opinion about the novel.

In the mid 1930s, forced by his financial condition, Scott found himself working on commercial short stories and scripts for Hollywood. This gave him the basis for his fifth and final novel which was published posthumously. Scott died before he could complete this novel and left behind extensive notes for the unwritten part. This manuscript was edited by his friend Edmund Wilson and in 1941 the book which begam us The love of the Last Tycoon was published as The Last Tycoon.

REVIEW

Babylon Revisited begins with Charlie Wales, an American expatriate who has returned in 1930 to Paris, the site of much drinking and partying on his part during the 1920s. Since the stock market crash of 1929, Charlie has sobered up and now looks at the extravagant lifestyle he lived with a combination of amazement and disgust.

Charlie's first visit in Paris is to the Ritz bar he used to frequent in his wild days. He asks after many of his former party-friends but finds that Paris is largely empty compared to several years earlier. He leaves an address with the barman to give to a friend named Duncan Schaeffer. Since Charlie hasn't settled on a hotel yet, he leaves the address of his brother-in-law's house. He then wanders through Paris and sees all the hotspots he used to frequent during the extravagant days of the twenties. Everything looks different to him now that he's sober and doesn't have the money he used to.

As the story progresses, we learn that Charlie is back in town to try to regain custody of his daughter Honoria, who is currently staying with his sister-in-law and her husband. Charlie's deceased wife Helen died a little over a year ago from heart trouble. At the time, Charlie was in a sanatorium having suffered a collapse. Though we don't get all the details, we see that Charlie was, perhaps among other things, recovering from alcoholism. Now he only has one drink per day, so that the idea of alcohol doesn't get too big in his mind.

We learn that Charlie has a pretty bad relationship with his sister-in-law, Marion Peters, who blames him for her sister Helen's death. She is resistant to the idea of allowing him to take Honoria home with him, but Charlie eventually wins her over with his patience and insistence that he has reformed. They make plans for him to leave shortly with Honoria.

Meanwhile, two of Charlie's old party friends, Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarrles, who are still living the drunken lifestyle, have been trying to get him to go out drinking with them. Charlie resists, as he's left behind the wild days of running around Paris drunk. On the night when Charlie is at the Peters' finalizing plans to take Honoria home, Lorraine and Duncan show up, drunk, begging him to come out with them. Marion sees that Charlie is still associating with the party crowd, and so she goes back on her offer to let him take his daughter back. Charlie is baffled as to how Duncan and Lorraine found him, and either doesn't remember or refuses to acknowledge that he left the Peters' address for Duncan at the Ritz bar.

Charlie leaves the Peters' house and returns to the Ritz bar, where he has his one drink for the day and refuses to have a second one. He plans to try and get Honoria back again, perhaps six months from now when Marion has calmed down. He wonders how long he'll have to pay for the destructive lifestyle he used to live.