Musings on inspiration and context in literature

[missroserose]

I just finished reading This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really wasn't sure what I thought of it while I was reading it; it was well-written, but I strongly dislike stories about passive characters (see my review of Grossman's The Magicians; even the beginning of Anansi Boys rubbed me the wrong way when I first read it, despite it now being one of my favorite books). However, it was also only a couple hundred pages long, and when I finished it, I realized that while Amory Blaine's story on its own seemed frankly banal, it worked much better on a representative level, painting a remarkably realistic and detailed picture of the experiences of the Lost Generation in their youth.

Another point that struck me was how similar Amory's characterization was to Quentin's. While I can't say it made me like The Magicians any more, it did give me a better appreciation for what Grossman was trying to do with him as a character, and where his inspiration came from. Unfortunately, I still maintain that Quentin simply doesn't work as a stand-in for present-day young people; whether this is because Grossman's perception of "youth culture" is inaccurate or because my personal experience differed from the norm is something history will have to decide. But really, the biggest reason Quentin's self-absorption was so jarring was because his story was supposed to be about the discovery of magical worlds. The whole point of telling such a story is to help the reader experience (or rediscover) a sense of wonder, so telling a fantasy story through the eyes of someone perennially unable to experience wonder, no matter how fantastic his surroundings, sort of kills the entire point. Amory's experiences, on the other hand, rather vividly illustrate the aimlessness and nihilism of the generation that came back from World War I, and therefore I find it to be a far superior story.

Incidentally, this was the first book I read completely on my nook. I will likely have some thoughts about the e-book reading experience later, but for now I'll simply say that I'm finding the nook to be far cooler than I thought it would be, and I hope it doesn't seem less so when the novelty wears off.

Comments

The Lost Generation

[faith-rose08.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered if the shock of "modern war" caused a huge loss of honor in the generation following WWI. They all seemed quite literally "shell shocked" in their loss of meaning. The generations before WWI fought terrible wars but there was still some sense of self-image with honor both personally and nationally. WWI was really the first war to use weapons of massive long-distance death, chemical warfare and to have the telegraph and photograph which brought the horror and de-humanizing aspects of war right to the breakfast table. I can remember what it was like in 1990 watching Dessert Storm unfold in the tiny TV in the lunch room of the law firm where I was working. Seeing war "up close and personal" if vicariously can make one apathetic. F Scott and his gang had money, youth, talent and power - but they lacked hope. What do you think?

Re: The Lost Generation

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I think that's probably part of it. Another theory favored by many of my English teachers was "the encroachment of the modern world" - essentially, that the combination of shell-shock from the war and the sudden exponential rate at which technology was advancing (remember Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption talking about how everyone seemed to have gotten in an awful hurry while he was in prison?) meant that many of them felt caught in between - too old to have been born into this new fast-paced world, but too young to live in their parents' world. Frankly, while neither's a bad theory, I find them both a bit oversimplified. In any generation, there's going to be people who adjust and people who don't - I'm sure there were people as hopeful and optimistic as you even right after WWI. :)