kinda glad this wasn't finished before he passed because oh my god the planned ending sounds so ridiculous and overdramatic

somehow, you know while reading it that this would have been the masterpiece. a truly amazing story with a hauntingly sharp drop-off right when you know fitzgerald was about to work some of his magic. unsatisfying yet wholly well put together, with some of his best characters yet.

i don’t have too much to say about this. there were parts that were beautifully written and there were parts that were lacking any substance - as to be expected from an incomplete manuscript. the skeleton of an amazing narrative is there, there are passages that gave me chills, and it all feels like a bit of a departure while still being very fitzgerald, but it’s just not complete and i can’t possibly enjoy it fully when half the book is a sparknotes summary of a plot that’s unable to include any emotional resolutions or connection.

fitzgerald died too soon - if this had been finished it would be a masterpiece; as it is it’s a good testament to his growth and to the mortality of us all.

Goodness gracious. Maybe the best

"Curiosity, sadness, and desire were behind them now; this was a true returning—to themselves and all their past and future and the encroaching presence of tomorrow" (114).

Fitzgerald's notes about The Last Tycoon are almost more fascinating than the text itself. Unique among his other novels, The Last Tycoon remains unfinished, cut off in 1940 when Fitzgerald, a recovering alcoholic, passed away from a heart attack at only 44. His final project was published posthumously the following year, and whether it is a masterpiece or a mess is still hotly debated among literary critics and scholars.

So, here we are: F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose words I love to love even as I dislike the man, the bane of my existence and the object of all my desires. (Well, not quite, but I couldn't resist that reference.) He writes that he believed this novel to be "most like" his gem of enduring fame, The Great Gatsby—not a "story of deterioration" like Tender is the Night. I hardly agree—although perhaps his vision was not realized within the first half of the novel. Perhaps the ending was vital, although a planned plane crash finale hardly seems to be a harbinger of wholeness and restoration. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald tellingly gestures to the end of Hollywood's golden age and evolving American ideals.

The novel begins in Nashville, a bizarre but promising start. Momentum lessens as one begins to realize the flatness of the feminine characters... and there's no redemption or nuance later (ex. "'You look tired,' I said, cute and motherly." Help.). Fitzgerald writes of Cecilia "evolving" and being "neither good nor bad, tremendously human," yet why is her presence reduced to shallow yearning for an older man she feels she cannot have? And it's not just the sexism sprinkled throughout; I gritted my teeth through the careless antisemitic and racist tropes. Yet just when I lean towards despair, Fitzgerald dazzles; he contemplates the core of human nature, he romantically captivates with "When they were apart, she shook her head still, but more in wonder than denial. It came like this then, it was your own fault, now far back, when was the moment? It came like this, and every instant the burden of tearing herself away from them together, from it, was heavier and more unimaginable" (105). Therein lies my enduring fascination and fury, etc.

In a work so focused on cinema, Fitzgerald muses on art and artifice and artistic creation as a kind of holy act, drawing "a crowd of the faithful" (67). He writes (related to film-making): "They had seen the host carried in procession, but this was the dream made flesh" (63). Fitzgerald sees the fruit of art but also its fickleness. He references Botticelli, Raphael, and more in his descriptions. More prominently than in any other work of his I've read, here he obsesses over light and darkness, patterns, time, memory, distance, and dreams: "Another hour passed. Dreams hung in fragments at the far end of the room, suffered analysis, passed - to be dreamed in crowds or else discarded" (70). Some argue that this is Fitzgerald's most "mature" work; I might beg to differ, but I do believe it's the work where he is most aware of his vocation as an artist.

I didn't always find the POV to be coherent, jumping between Cecilia's first person (spoken five years after the events of the novel from a sanatorium with TB, which the reader never actually realizes because Fitzgerald was going to explain this at the end—oops) and Fitzgerald's omniscient narrator.

On his final page of The Last Tycoon notes, before his death, Fitzgerald (presciently? ominously?) writes, "There are no second acts in American lives." It is perhaps fitting that his last substantial literary work could only boast its first act and that his life itself never passed middle age.

I read this book just after moving. It helped conceal my own inchoate sense of things. It bothered me, kidding myself, I thought about what the novel might had been. That wasn't the issue, then.

“credit is something that should be given to others. If you are in a position to give credit to yourself, then you do not need it.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon

I think Fitzgerald is my favourite writer; if not, definitely in the top 3. His prose is unlike any other and the ability to describe such a delicate moment (emotionally, physically, experience) so poignantly and accurately really allows the reader to be transported to his characters' situations and dilemmas. Here, Fitzgerald constructs a fictional re-telling of boy wonder Irving Thalberg (Monroe) and his griphold as a power broker in Hollywoods golden era but all while coupled with his internal struggles: loneliness, heartbreak, and an ability to control his relentless ambition. Stahr's life is pretty much nonstop with his work and his need to control all parts of the movie equation leads to physical and emotional distress, which is exacerbated by his tumultuous relationship with Kathleen. As its Fitzgeralds unfinished work before his death, we never learn the full fate of Monroe, but I think Fitz gives us a good idea in his path of falling from the sky.

Perhaps one of my favourite parts was uncovering a different side of Stahr and seeing that everyone is human--even Hollywood behemoths. Similar to Atlas, Stahr holds of the sky of the studio system, keeping the nascent picture business running and churning out pictures like a production line. He is jolted and unsettled by the unexpected Kathleen, who brings out a different side to him. Similar to B&D, we see that "men are different with women" which is also probably a reflection of Fitzgeralds own life.

Interestingly, even though this book is a observational "biography" of Monroe (Thalberg), some of it is told from a womans POV, Cecilia. However, her character still lacks dimension as her only relation to the story and driving the plot is her obsession over Monroe. There were many similarities between Stahr and Gatsy: both self made boy wonders who catapault themselves into the cosmos, only to find that their pursuits do not lead to personal or spiritual fulfillment and the haze and craze only push them to chase even harder--at the expense of themselves. Women continue to be pedestalized but also demonized as drivers of their downfalls, Kathleen & Daisy, who cause their heartbreaks and spirals into descent into darkness.

I think I have read 4 of his books now (Gatbsy, B&D, Tender, this) and there are so many consistent themes: excess, ambition, wealth, class, alcohol, women (esp in a role that brings the male protagonists fall from grace), the pursuit of a daydream that drives the characters downfall, avarice, jealousy, insecurity, loss, and heartbreak. It makes me wonder what Fitgzerald struggled with his own life (women, alc) that makes him embed these themes into all his works. I do enjoy reading about the Jazz Age--feels like he invented a genre and with this book even more so learning about the history of Hollywood, the inner workings of the studio system, and seeing a bit more of LA from the characters eyes.

Aside from the themes, I could say so much more about Fitzgeralds beautifu writing, which is really entirely enveloping and intoxicating. You can really feel the situations the characters are in and the internal tensions they face, all while visualizing the beautiful "cinematography" or hearing click into place. Fitzgerald is the real boy wonder.

At the end of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald found within himself another great novel. This is it - and what magnificent magnum opus it would be if he had ever finished it.