The long-awaited Baz Luhrmann film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel has brought a resurgence of all things Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s novel is undoubtedly a literary classic, with the Modern Library naming it the second best English language novel of the 20th Century, behind only Ulysses. Arguably more accessible than Joyce’s masterpiece, it is no wonder that The Great Gatsby remains an integral part of popular literary culture.
Although The Great Gatsby is often considered to be Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, Jesse Kornbluth recently coined the ‘anti-Gatsby’ in an attempt to defy the “media storm” surrounding the film release.
Kornbluth argues that the anti-Gatsby takes its form in another of Fitzgerald’s novels, The Last Tycoon. Fitzgerald’s last novel was unfinished and published posthumously in 1941 after extensive editing by literary critic and Fitzgerald’s close friend Edmund Wilson.
Kornbluth argues that although The Last Tycoon is “almost equal” to Gatsby, its triumph comes in the form of the main protagonist, Monroe Stahr, who stands as the anti-Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is a romantic; Stahr, based on Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the 1920s and 1930s, is a realist. Whilst Gatsby is the personification of Hollywood, from his life to his death in all its melodrama and extravagance, Stahr is the anti-glamour of Hollywood, the working genius consumed by his dedication to work.
The Last Tycoon, it seems, is Gatsby grown up. The issues Stahr is faced with parallel those of Gatsby but override them in severity. Both protagonists lose women but Stahr’s is his wife who dies. Similarly, both meet new women but whilst Gatsby becomes obsessed, Stahr recognises the importance of persevering with other challenges in his life.
Kornbluth’s argument of The Last Tycoon as the anti-Gatsby does work. However, where he goes as far to say that Stahr is “a more satisfying creation than Jay Gatsby”, I feel satisfaction is a difficult concept. A better way to approach the Gatsby hype is to accept that it is a fantastic novel but also to recognise Fitzgerald’s other equally great works.