What a lot of people do not know about F. Scott Fitzgerald is that he was viewed as a rather mediocre writer at the time when most of his works were published. When the Great Gatsby first surfaced in 1925, it only sold 21,000 copies, less than half the amount of sales of his previous work, “This Side of Paradise.” Gatsby wasn’t even officially considered a classic until the late 1950s, more than 30 years after it was published.
What I find more interesting regarding Fitzgerald’s writing career though, is that Gatsby was never intended to be his most famous work. What even less people know about F. Scott is that he planned the much lengthier “Tender is the Night” to serve as his greatest success. He manically slaved away for 9 years working on the piece, and his mind, regarded it as the greatest thing he had ever written.
However, the novel unfortunately opened up to lukewarm reviews, and throughout the course of history, has been scattered all over the literary spectrum regarding how great it is. From a pure popularity standpoint, Gatsby is unarguably a more successful book than “Tender is the Night”. From a literary standpoint, the general consensus among scholarly critics is that while “Tender is the Night” is still very good, Gatsby is a much more well written book, and holds the crown on literature’s throne.
Strictly from a literary perspective, Gatsby and Tender is the Night couldn’t be more different; where Gatsby is simple, airy, and astonishingly short in length, “Tender is the Night” is dense, overpowered by strong language, and a towering read for readers of all levels.
And that’s what makes the comparison between the two works so interesting, both from a literal standpoint and from a societal standpoint: “Tender is the Night” was carefully, exhaustingly constructed by Fitzgerald to be his lasting stroke of genius, while Gatsby, his true golden piece, was written much more organically, barely tops 120 pages, and was intended to be merely another quality piece of work in his backpack of novels.
This opens the door for several conversations: Was Gatsby truly a better piece of work? What does this say about greatness from a personal standpoint? What does this say about greatness from a societal standpoint?
To answer the first question, my opinion is that Gatsby is a better piece of work. I loved “Tender is the Night”, but from a personal standpoint, I will take Gatsby as the better novel any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But that’s not to slight “Tender is the Night”. Many literary critics actually believe and have written on why it is a better novel that Gatsby, and I see the merit in these analyses. The truth of the matter is that there is more genius in “Tender is the Night” than there is in Gatsby. But the book is towering; sentences run on for seemingly forever, and sometimes the ranting gets so bad you have to reread a page just to know where the paragraphs are heading. Gatsby comes together much better. Everything moves whimsically from word to word, and by the end of the novel everything seemed to happen so quickly and organically you have to go back and reread parts just to recognize the complexity of it all.
Pound for pound, there is more genius and greatness in “Tender is the Night”, but when we look strictly at how the pieces of genius come together as a whole, Gatsby is more…great.
So what does this say about greatness within a personal context? First and foremost, I believe it demonstrates that effort does not always equate to greatness.
That’s a difficult concept for people to grasp, especially given how much rhetoric we are fed at a young age; that in life we have to work hard, and if we work hard, we are guaranteed success or some spot on the top of Mount Rushmore. And unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Every piece of research points to how much effort was poured into “Tender is the Night”. Fitzgerald – perhaps the most obsessive writer in American history – slaved away at every word. Tales have surfaced about how many times Fitzgerald reworked sentences in “Tender is the Night”, moving a comma here, changing a word there, all relying on the premise that more effort will unequivocally lead to more success. Unfortunately, when the novel was published, many thought that the book insisted too much upon itself, and Fitzgerald was devastated with its reception.
It’s a scary realization to make that we can try our absolute hardest and still fail. It goes against a lot of principles in life that we are taught as children. Unfortunately, that realization is true. While effort is necessary, it does not make people entitled to success or greatness. Some people just do not have the capacity to obtain greatness or exhibit genius in whatever field they are in. While this idea manifested itself in Fitzgerald’s life through a novel that is still considered by nearly every literary standard very good, it manifests in everyone’s life in a variety of ways: perhaps the realization that no matter how many times you work on your shot, you’re not making the NBA, or regardless of the amount of pages you read in a textbook, you’re not going to become a doctor.
What “Tender is the Night” also represents is that personal greatness and genius often results from things that come natural to us. Gatsby came to Fitzgerald much more naturally than did “Tender is the Night”. It’s difficult to chisel away at the idea, especially because the two works are both written by the same author, but it more or less equates to the idea that Michael Jordan is better at basketball than I ever will be, regardless of how many more hours I spend practicing my game more than Jordan does. It’s important in life to find not only what you think you should be, but what you truly excel at, what comes natural to you, and how you can capitalize on that. Forcing something – like Fitzgerald forced “Tender is the Night” – will result in some hardships down the road.
Finally, I want to examine what this all means in terms of how society perceives and appreciates greatness. Like I said before, many literary critics will go to the grave testifying that “Tender is the Night” is a better novel than Gatsby from an objective standpoint. And they may be right. But what we must realize is that greatness and genius are often validated by how it is perceived by the audience, and how applicable it is to reality.
To be less abstract: “Tender is the Night” may in fact be the better written book, but unfortunately, because we do not operate at the same level of genius that Fitzgerald does, we may not be able to appreciate that literary greatness the way he, along with a select number of critics do. People don’t like to feel inadequate, but another harsh reality may be that perhaps not everyone is intelligent enough to appreciate someone’s genius. Perhaps I am not smart enough, not advanced enough within the world of literature, to truly appreciate just how great “Tender is the Night” is. And that sucks for Fitzgerald, that it may be very possible that the world just isn’t smart enough to truly understand “Tender is The Night” and all its greatness.
But what that says is that for greatness and perfection and genius to be truly considered great and perfection and genius, they need to be sculpted in a way that society can appreciate them. Gatsby is considered great largely because people can relate to it and understand it. It’s short, easy to read, and the complexity manifests in a way that is recognizable by nearly anyone.
A perfect analogy for this concept is comparing Lebron James to Michael Jordan. Bill Simmons said it best: Five Lebron James could beat five of any other guy, even five Jordans. What many sports analysts are realizing is that Lebron’s genius in basketball extends much further than Jordan’s genius ever did, but because not every player in the league operates on the same level as Lebron, his genius is limited by perception. Jordan was able to sculpt his greatness and genius – a lesser greatness and genius than Lebrons – in a more applicable way than Lebron has been able to.
Just as Fitzgerald was able to sculpt the greatness of Gatsby in a much more applicable way than he was able to sculpt the greatness of “Tender is the Night”. The lump sum of greatness, however that is defined or measured, is perhaps larger in “Tender is the Night”, but because the rest of society is not able to recognize and appreciate that upper extremity where the most advanced greatness lies, where only a select few literary minds can operate, we point towards Gatsby as being the better piece of literature.
So the ultimate question is: As a society, are we missing out on appreciating greatness and genius simply because we are not advanced enough to understand it?
Terrier.Woof. 