Welcome
to the blog for the Andrew Hook Centre
for American Studies at the University of Glasgow. Yesterday, 17th
October 2013, the Centre was pleased
to welcome Professor Sarah Churchwell (Professor of American Literature at the
University of East Anglia) to the first of the Centre’s 2013-2014 seminar series. In collaboration with the School
of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow, and as part of the 'English and American Literature Lecture Series', co-sponsored by the Centre, Churchwell discussed
‘Careless People: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Inventing The Great Gatsby.’ Below is this listener’s brief summary of the
lecture.
The Great Gatsby,
Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, is a timeless American classic. Since its release in
1925, it has captivated generations, becoming one of the most widely read books
in the world. In what proved to be a highly popular event – the lecture theatre
was literally bursting at the seams – Prof. Churchwell described her attempts
to piece together the chaotic and inchoate world behind Gatsby in her new book, ‘Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the
Invention of The Great Gatsby.’ Using
diary extracts, newspaper cuttings, and letters, Prof. Churchwell sought to
examine the real-life events of 1922, including a gruesome double murder, to
show their influences on the famous novel.
According to Prof. Churchwell, 1922 was a remarkable year,
which began with the publication of ‘Ulysses’ and ended with ‘The Waste Land.’
In seeking the origins of Gatsby,
Prof. Churchwell shows how Fitzgerald reflected the stories around him. The
major news story at that time was that of the murder of Eleanor Mills, a
married woman, and her lover Edward Hall; who were shot through the head near
an abandoned farmhouse, their love letters scattered around the corpses. The
murder of the adulterous couple held America spellbound and largely dominated
the headlines whilst Fitzgerald was in New York. Prof. Churchwell points out a
number of echoes with this and the story of Tom Buchanan's affair with Myrtle
Wilson in The Great Gatsby.
In recreating the world of New York before the Great
Depression, Prof. Churchwell also set out to debunk myths of the time
perpetuated since in Hollywood films and lazy scholarly works. One such myth
was that of fashion, or more specifically, the length of a lady’s dress.
Through her research of newspapers in 1922, Prof. Churchwell demonstrated that the
dresses often depicted in adaptions (films or theatre) of Gatsby since are in fact those of the late 1920s, and not 1922. On
her PowerPoint, Prof. Churchwell showed the audience pictures of dresses in
1922 – which were a lot longer than assumed. This might seem trivial, but as
Prof. Churchwell argued, in discovering the context of Gatsby, it is imperative to recreate the world exactly as it was. For example,
with wit and insight Prof. Churchill further described the great lengths she
went to in crafting her book (she spent four years trying to pinpoint the date
that Fitzgerald returned to New York from the Midwest to begin working on Gatsby). Like finding a needle in a
haystack, Prof. Churchwell described her elation at discovering the date -
September 20th, 1922 – through a lost telegram.
Moreover,
one man who has been overlooked proved pivotal to Prof. Churchwell’s analysis
of the time. Burton Rascoe was the literary editor for the New York Tribune in 1922 and according to Prof. Churchwell his
writing offered important glimpses into the time. His ‘A Bookman’s Daybook’
column was littered with information related to various parties he and
Fitzgerald attended, which Prof. Churchwell argued provided the motif for the Gatsby parties. Through researching this
man, Prof. Churchwell uncovered a diamond in the rough – a letter from
Fitzgerald to Rascoe in which he explains his motivations behind Gatsby.
Prof.
Churchwell then described another example of how Fitzgerald’s fictional
landscape was based on reality. In his own drive to Manhattan from Great Neck (which
is called West Egg in Gatsby),
Fitzgerald, like Gatsby, would have driven west along Northern Boulevard and
Roosevelt Avenue to the Queensboro Bridge, crossing the Flushing River about
midway. There in the 1920s the road passed through a former swamp, which had
gradually filled with household garbage and coal ashes. On city maps the area
was labelled the Corona Dumps; Fitzgerald called it the valley of ashes.
Prof.
Churchwell concluded by showing that when Fitzgerald died in 1940, he largely considered himself a failure – Gatsby had sold
only seven copies in the last year of his life, and his complete works had
earned him a grand total of $13.13 in royalties. But following World War
II, with new attention the meaning of Gatsby began to emerge and the book began to
sell, and it now occupies a central place in the American canon.
In her lecture, Prof. Churchwell mixed biography, history,
literary criticism and the compelling story of a true crime murder mystery to
create a brilliantly detailed picture of the
story behind a classic. With its release still due in the US (coming early 2014), this
very carefully researched and well-crafted piece of literature by Prof. Churchwell
provides an important contribution to the scholarly discussions on Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and America in the
roaring 20s, discovering where the fiction comes from and how Fitzgerald
poetically presented modern America through his tale. Prof. Churchwell’s
lecture was informative, and as suggested by its attendance, was highly
popular.
By Joe Ryan-Hume
PGR at the University of Glasgow
The Centre’s seminar
series continues with Dr. Randall Stephens (University of Northumbria) ‘The
Devil’s Music: Religion and Rock in the 1950s South.’ This will be held on
Wednesday 23rd October in Room 208, 2 University Gardens, at 5:15pm.
All very welcome!
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