Fitzgerald’s greatest novel: It’s not the one everyone thinks it is

Taki in Spectator:

Fitzgerald was famously obsessed with the mysteries of great wealth, but back then wealth was something new among Americans. Poor old Scott wrote more about the ruinous effects of wealth, which is a very large theme even today. I recently read a couple of articles on Fitzgerald, one claiming that he wrote Gatsby in Great Neck, Long Island, where the action takes place, the other that he wrote the greatest of American novels in Antibes. I believe both writers are correct. Fitzgerald started the novel in Long Island and finished it in Antibes. Detective Taki solves the riddle in one short declarative sentence.

Scott and Zelda’s two granddaughters, their mother being Scottie, the couple’s only issue, are very much with us and recently visited Juan-les-Pins and the hotel that was once the home of their grandparents. The cruel irony is that Scott died broke and forgotten, and his granddaughters are very rich because of his immortal work. Although The Great Gatsby is considered Scott’s greatest work, the greatest literary critic of our time, Taki, thinks otherwise. He gives the nod to Tender Is the Night. When Fitzgerald showed Papa the manuscript of Gatsby, Hemingway did not brood, he sprang into action. He came up with The Sun Also Rises, not a bad response. It was almost America versus Europe. Great stuff. Which brings me to Hollywood. The best that degenerate place has managed in filming either writer’s works was — in my not so humble opinion — The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Papa’s short story about grace under pressure.

More here.