The Love Of The Last Tycoon (1995) - Plot & Excerpts
I have now read all of Fitzgerald's major published works. After finishing The Love of The Last Tycoon, the incomplete manuscript on his desk when he died, I ask immediately wonder how this novel differs from his other works. Did he know he had this one last chance to voice his ideas? Did he compile the breadth of his lifelong learning into his final literary hero? Unfortunately, we can only speculate on these questions. But I find comfort in the idea that we would not have these questions had not Fitzgerald left The Love of The Last Tycoon as his final stamp on American literary art.Fitzgerald's protagonist, Monroe Stahr, stands apart from the other heroes of his novels. Amory Blaine endures a sort of intellectual maturation which coincides with his struggle with humility. Anthony Patch, born to privilege, would rather spend his time thinking about his future instead of pursuing it. Jay Gatsby put a human face on the iconic rich and influential socialite image of the 1920s. And the autobiographical sketch of Dick Diver portrays a man burdened with a sick love. Only with Monroe Stahr do we meet a hero who seems to have it all, a self-sustaining character who does not need a feminine Virgil to guide him, a successful businessman who nobly soars above a town of flared egos and disingenuous fakes. We might think of Gatsby, but Stahr differs by bearing his full persona to everyone, even by mixing an arrogant sense of savior ethics into his professional career as a producer. He also seems to embrace any self-inflicted personal detriment and defends his methods like a Hollywood mystic who confidently awaits others to naturally arrive at his conclusions. I wanted to appreciate Cecelia's first-person narrative more than I did. Nick Carraway remains the heavy-weight champion in this arena. But I did appreciate her overall tone. For a young woman, writing about something which happened in her childhood, I liked the contrast of her tired and seemingly cynical tone with her proximity to the glamorous bustle of Hollywood life. Fitzgerald positions her as a Hollywood insider but with no personal credits in movies - the privileged fly on a wall in a town which hasn't wrapped her in its spider silk. Fitzgerald presents her with a keen sense of simile which cleverly meets the demands of the situation while cultivating her consistently disenchanted tone. At least half of the novel, however, happens away from her presence. So how much do we believe about a story which takes place in Hollywood about the most successful and revered contemporary Hollywood producer from someone who was absent from much of the story? I don't believe Fitzgerald made a mistake. I think he wants us to ask this question - a scripted silver screen drama based on real life. And he developed her tone to draw us in just enough to consider how these people relate to us.Unfortunately, Fitzgerald did not have the chance to finish this book, and though I commend Matthew Bruccoli for producing a publication enhanced with editing notes and outlines from Fitzgerald himself, readers can only contemplate open-ended themes doomed to resolution purgatory. Nonetheless, I think Fitzgerald did reach an important stage of the story as Stahr vulnerably enters the center of the hero's labyrinth and faces himself. And, again, as opposed to Fitzgerald's other heroes, I don't think Stahr felt familiar with himself when coupled with some of the people who enter his life. His brief love affair with Kathleen tests his conviction for his Hollywood work by presenting an escape into a more traditional American life. The last episodes with the visiting communist force him to acknowledge his personal ethics particularly regarding relations with writers. Stahr strikes me with his honesty as he faces himself. While many heroes wage bloody battle against the beast representing their other half, I imagine Stahr finding the beast, introducing himself with one hand in his pocket, his head tipped to one side, slightly squinting as he assesses his adversary. The beast says nothing to disarm him. Stahr listens. Understands. Responds inquisitively. Perhaps he defends his choices and his noble intentions. Perhaps he even describes what he sacrifices for a growing town which transforms the imagination into a reality of sensory overload.But we don't see Stahr come out of the labyrinth. And we don't know who "survives" the interaction in the center. But we do meet a very different Fitzgerald vision - a confident man, a brilliant and intuitive Hollywood producer, a loveable persona and the last of the traditional Americana icons.
Reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s penultimate novel, “Tender is the Night,” saddened me, because it showed a once-great man struggling—and failing—to write a novel worthy of his prodigious talent and storied past.Reading “The Last Tycoon” saddens me, because he found that novel, then suddenly died before he could finish it. “The Last Tycoon” tells the story of Hollywood golden boy Monroe Stahr. He’s a good guy, pays his people well, and works hard to make good, profitable films—he’s not even afraid to green-light a film that will lose, $250,000 dollars, simply because it will be brilliant. Monroe is a widower, his work now his mistress. One night, a water main breaks during an earthquake, and two young women are being swept away in the deluge. He manages to rescue them. One of the girls looks like his late wife. Monroe is intrigued, and searches her out. Her name is Kathleen Moore, and she’s probably the only young woman in Hollywood not looking for movie stardom. Monroe finds himself smitten, but Kathleen has a secret. Monroe himself is the object of Cecilia Brady, twenty-year-old daughter of Stahr’s business partner. Cecilia wants Stahr in a most grown-up way, even though he looks at her rather like a niece. Naturally, she becomes jealous of the mysterious woman who captures Monroe Stahr’s heart. The three wrangle through their odd love triangle, and Stahr has studio business to run, and then--That’s where Fitzgerald’s manuscript ends, after a bombshell revelation. I literally swore. I mean, I knew it was incomplete, but why couldn’t he have written another chapter? Or two? His writing was strong, beautiful, and sharp again, so why couldn’t he have just skipped over “Tender is the Night,” and written this one to completion? Why, literary gods, why? I think the reason is Hollywood. The author had, of course, spent his final years working in Hollywood, miserably writing miserable screenplays just for the big paychecks he needed. The downside is that he wasn’t especially happy with this new world. The upside is that it pulled his head out of the whole creatively stifling “Scott & Zelda, Jazz Age Royalty” rut he’d been stuck in. Fitzgerald’s four previous novels were either thinly veiled autobiography, or featured characters based on himself and Zelda, thrust into some fictional realm or another. “Tycoon” features characters either completely fictional, or based on various Hollywood personae (Stahr is supposedly Irving Thalberg). I found a couple of snippets that were probably from Fitzgerald’s perspective—when Stahr explains to a whiny novelist the difference between novel-writing and screenwriting. After Fitzgerald’s narrative ends, there are various materials explaining where he intended the book to go. There’s a summary, cobbled from letters, conversations with his friends and editors, et al. There are the author’s own notes from the manuscript, explaining changes he was planning to make to his manuscript, plus his own outline and character sketches. Based on these posthumous additions, it’s hard to know how good “Tycoon” could have been. If Fitzgerald had continued along the narrative’s natural arc, I think “The Last Tycoon” could have been his masterpiece. If he followed-through on his notes and outlines, I think it could have fizzled in unnecessary melodrama. It would be interesting to see his notes and outlines on “The Great Gatsby” at the same point of evolution, just to see how faithfully he normally adhered to his original plans.The sad part is, we’ll never know, unless we can check it out from The Afterlife Public Library, if such a thing exists. For now, “The Last Tycoon” is three novels. It’s the novel that follows where we as readers imagine it will go. It’s the novel that closely adheres to the author’s outline and notes. Mostly—sadly—it’s the novel that ends entirely too damned soon. Highly Recommended
What do You think about The Love Of The Last Tycoon (1995)?
with an unfinished manuscript, the story is bound to be a bit muddled, which The Last Tycoon absolutely was. However, the read poignancy of the book lies in the last 40 or so pages where the editors have included all of Fitzgerald's notes about where the novel would take him and how he would handle certain characterization. He evens writes in a letter that he hopes this novel is similar to The Great Gatsby in sentiment, but ends in a more hopeful way. For some reason it never dawned on me that someone like Fitzgerald would have to write himself notes or make decisions such as the ones he was making - I think I tend to think, and maybe we all tend to think, that all of the great novelists of the past just willed their work into being and it appeared perfectly edited, wrapped up with a little bow. A nice reality check for any aspiring writer.
—Casey
I'm not precisely sure why this book effected me the way it did, but it certainly did. Fitzgerald finished writing the fifth chapter of this book before he had a heart attack and died. When you get to the end of this unfinished novel, you find the last word one of the greatest American writers ever wrote. Something about this is chilling. And despite the fact that one can not make any substantial investment in characters who we know in advance we'll never know completely or whose stories we won't ever realize; there is something in the simplistic and honest quality of this novel that pits it amongst Fitzgerald's greats. He himself said in his notes and letters to friends that he had no fear in writing this novel and that it was to most resemble Gatsby, but in a new way. He wanted to expose things to people in nuanced ways. My version came with the author's original outline and plot synopsis so you can piece together the original intention; but what is really important is what you get: a concise look at the small chances of love in big people. Calamity in the real world. What you get is Fitzgerald's last hurrah; his final statement. What you get, is a novel that could have been, and is enough.
—Jeff
A mish-mash of a book, it is largely interesting as a "work in progress", which it was upon Fitzgerald's death of a heart attack in December, 1940. A good edition is the version with Matthew Bruccoli's notes, showing the author's outline for the book and including notes by Fitzgerald and close friends who prepared the novel for publication in 1941."The Love of the Last Tycoon, A Western" is Fitzgerald's full title because he believed that Hollywood included the last American pioneers and immigrants who defined the American dream. Of course he died before the emergence of California in aerospace and the creation of generations of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley -- and even Hollywood, with companies like Pixar.Fitzgerald's narrator in this book shifts between opening pages, and its 8th chapter -- and then back-and-forth at least one other time. Initially it is narrated by Cecilia Brady, the daughter of a nefarious studio executive and competitor to Monroe Stahr, the hero. Then, suddenly the narration picks up from the point-of-view of Stahr.Early narration is also hampered by stilted conversations: it makes the reader understand why Fitzgerald had problems as a Hollywood screenwriter.But the sections focusing on Stahr provide a fine and nuanced view into the life of a major producer. Stahr is based on Irving Thalberg, the "boy wonder" of the movie industry during the period when it moved from silent films to talkies. Both the fictional character and Thalberg would die young, Thalberg at age 37 from pneumonia, and the novel's Stahr in an airline crash.
—Andrew
