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Short Stories - Some SeniorLearn Favorites - JUNE ~ JULY
(http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/shortstory/storyheading.jpg)
It is said that a good short story should include: * a strong theme, * a fascinating plot, * a fitting structure, * unforgettable characters, * a well-chosen setting, * an appealing style. Let's consider these elements as we discuss the following stories. Is it necessary to include them all in a successful story?
Notice that the titles are all links to the stories.
Discussion Schedule:
June 1 -June 9: *The Book of The Funny Smells--and Everything (1872) (http://shortstoriesreadonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-of-funny-smells-and-everything.html) by Eleanor H Abbott *The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace (1880) (http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gdemaupassant/bl-gdemaup-diamond.htm)- by Guy de Maupassant *A Pair of Silk Stockings (1896) (http://www.americanliterature.com/author/kate-chopin/short-story/a-pair-of-silk-stockings)by Kate Chopin
June 10- 14: *Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
June 15- 17: *First Confession by Frank O'Connor (https://www2.bc.edu/john-g-boylan/files/first-confession.pdf)
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BABYLON REVISITED by F.Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
Topics for Consideration
June 10 - June 14
Click this link for French terms appearing in Babylon Revisited) - (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfrenchterms.txt)
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfitzportrait.jpg) |
Have you revisited your own past, physically, mentally? What were the best years, the worst?
“strident queens” - two words that date this story. Today from the lamposts in my capitol city of Columbus, Ohio we have colorful banners promoting the “Stonewall Pride” parade. - http://www.stonewallcolumbus.org/ - times have changed. Is this progress?
Fitzgerald states that despite the economy, whether up or down - prostitution is a good business. What did you think when you read this?
“Now at least you can go into a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire.” Is this still true? Do Europeans or the world, for that matter, still believe every American is wealthy?
Charlie believes in “character” - the “eternally valuable element.” But “everything wore out.” What did Charlie mean?
DL Contact: Ella Gibbons (egibbons28@columbus.rr.com ) |
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The 1920's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJSdk44gWIE
Was there ever another period in American history that had such romance connected with it? It had booze, gangsters, the Charleston, the flappers, skyscrapers, great writers, and among them was F. Scott Fitzgerald. I'm sure you know the name, let's explore one of his short stories together.
WELCOME!
Read the story and tell us what you think. I have posted a few questions for our consideration (and have a few more if we have time.
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Good morning, Ella! Eager to get started with this story - trying to put it in context. It seems so autobiographical doesn't it? Parallels in Fitzgerald's life...makes it even more poignant.
The roaring 20's...so much fun (the Charleston, the flappers, those dresses! Fitzgerald coined the term for "The Jazz Age" - and yet Hemingway refers to the generation as "lost"... Is there a conflict here? Was it really fun...too much "fun"?
"The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I.
"all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation." This generation included distinguished artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald,[2] T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Isadora Duncan, Abraham Walkowitz, Alan Seeger, and Erich Maria Remarque. Why LOST?
A good question...why Babylon? Hmmm - There are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Is the tower of Babel in Babylon? (Feels like that's a dumb question) Might that biblical story relate to Fitzgerald's story title?
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Hello JoanP:
Oh, I think those young people had fun dancing with short dresses and all, until they matured somewhat and learned a few of life's lessons (whatever they are). A lost generation? I wish I knew what Hemingway meant? And he is referring specifically to "those who served in the war?"
As you said, that generation produced so many who gave us so much.
The title - Babylon Revisited - another question. What did Fitzgerald have in mind? It's fun to look it all up on the Web if you have time. This story is heralded as, not only Fitzgerald's best, and as you stated based on his own life, but one of the best short stories in modern times.
Did Babylon refer to the biblical city? Did it refer to corruption?
An interesting site I wandered into on the Web stated that the USA built an Army base on the grounds of the archeological site of Babylon in Iraq messing it up almost beyond repair. We have apologized to the Iraq government, but they are not sure it can be salvaged.
ARE WE GOING TO BE ALONE HERE!!! yoo-hoo!!
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JOANP, I know that Zelda, Fitzgerald's wife, spent years in a mental institution which burned down but I can't remember if she died first or our author did. I must look it up. I have a book titled Zelda somewhere, her life seemed so tragic as she tried to compete with Fitzgerald; well, both their lives were tragic but they had a few good years - fun years.
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I'm here, just struggling with what to say. Back in a bit.
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I met a woman who had been a caretaker in the institution where Zelda ended her life. I asked her what Z was like. Apparently, she was pretty much out of it.
I so associate Fitzgerald with the twenties, it's interesting to read a story by him after the crash. Since I noticed at once the publication date (1931), I assumed from the beginning that that was when the story took place.
Very sad. You're rooting for him, but knowing all along that somehow he won't make it. Although the story ends with some hope let, you know he's going to be dragged back into the tattered remnants of the life he knew (until he gets caught up with the Nazis).
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This is a good example of why I like short stories. They give you a chance to experience in small doses an author whom you couldn't take for a whole book. Fitzgerald's world is so alien from mine, I don't think I was ever able to finish "The Great Gatsby". But this story contains much of the same feeling.
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Holding a place - need to read the story - it is one I have never read -
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The title struck me as important . A hint to the meaning of the story.
Babylon was founded by the Amorites in 1894 BC. The original meaning is Gate of God or Gateway of God.
However Babel also is found in Genesis:11:9. And the meaning in that context is "Confusion" or To Confuse.
Both these meanings find expression in this superb story.
The Hero had lived like a God and ended up a confused man who eventually figured out a way out of his confusion. But was it too late?
When Lorraine and Duncan confused the fragile new bridge he was building the path to salvation was grabbed out of his hands. His past come back to haunt him.
This is a very sad but truthful story of how our past interferes with our present intentions. No matter how good we are now we are still carrying our past with us.
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I read The Great Gatsby twice--once over 30 years ago, and once about 10 years ago, when I was a more sophisticated reader. The book doesn't work for me. I think I see what he's saying, what he feels and wants you to feel, but he doesn't make me feel it. I'm just looking at it from the outside.
That's not true of this story, though; it works for me, and I think it's terrific.
I noticed the publication date too, but although there is nothing specific at first, right from the start it feels like Paris after the stock market crash--all the once lavish, now deserted haunts of Americans. Oops. Just spotted something specific: the head bartender Paul "...in the latter days of the bull market had come to work in his own custom-made car..."
As the story goes on we get more clues--all the people who have lost their money, Josephine Baker performing (that could be 20s or 30s)
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Babylon has always been a symbol of "sinning" in the kind of wild drunken way that the characters had done. it must be from somewhere in the Bible, I'm not sure where.
Fitzgerald was buried near where I used to live, in Rockville Maryland. It had been a country graveyard when he was buried there, but now it's a small triangle of grass, on Rockville Pike, the busiest shopping street in the area. I used to pass it all the time, going to the gas station nearby.
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I'm also marking a place. It's a complex story.
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The Columbia Encyclopedia says that Babylon during its heyday was noted for its luxury, splendid architecture, and sensual living. So it fits well in that way too, splendid past, less splendid present.
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She's not important to the story, but I can't let Josephine Baker pass by without comment; she's a favorite of mine. Baker was a Black dancer, born in St Louis. She rocketed to fame in Paris in the 20s, with her sensuous dancing, usually with exotic backgrounds and staging, famously dancing in a costume consisting of nothing but a string of bananas. She made several movies, which are still shown occasionally; they are mostly insubstantial stories used to string together extremely elaborate dance numbers.
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/about/biography.html (http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/about/biography.html)
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I'm here and have read the story. Still thinking about it. I found the story rather depressing. It was well written; but.....
Sally
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I find I have the same reaction to much of his writing, Sally. Such a sad, tumultuous life - over so soon. Illness due to alcoholism would get the better of him - Wasn't he only 40 when he died?
Babylon - wild, sensuous living...drunkeness - and confusion. Paris of the 20's - No wonder they were considered LOST.
JoanK - you say he WAS buried near where you used to live. What did you mean by that?
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(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OWRfq_b7ibA/Uai4tN0WMEI/AAAAAAAACho/ak6TW2jUF_Y/w320-h180-p-o/2013-05-31) ~ Brentano's Book Store
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Debussy - La Plus que Lente http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xYj2dmDKj4
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ah finally figured it out - Un strapontin is one of those pull down seats that used to be on the back of the front seats of automoblies so someone could have a temporary seat because they were not comfortable for a long drive however, I remember as a kid sitting on one as my mother and her sisters sat in the back filling up the back seat so that my sister sat in the one behind my father and I was in one behind my grandmother.
Here is a picture of two strapontins
http://apeonthemoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/strapontin.jpg
This artcle shows a nice photo of Bricktop's
http://riverwalkjazz.org/2012/09/27/a-night-at-bricktop%E2%80%99s-jazz-in-1930s-montmartre/
Interior photo of Zellis Night Club
http://www.mediastorehouse.com/image/an_interior_view_of_a_party_at_zellis_nightclub_montmartre_7243415.jpg
Even found the Cafe Heaven and the Cafe Hell front entrances
http://expatparis.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/cieletlenfer-pjpg.jpg?w=640&h=446
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OH, GOOD, WE HAVE SOME FASCINATING REMARKS ABOUT THE STORY. THE TITLE! Did Fitzgerald make it confusing on purpose? To pull in curious readers? Are titles important in publication of a book or story or does the author himself bring in readers. Which do you look for in choosing a book to read?
Thanks so much for your interpretations,
JOANK, ordinarily I don’t like short stories, but they are a change from a book,and, as you say, they give your small doses of a life; a life that could be anyone’s life I think. Don’t any of you know someone who is addicted to alcohol, possibly beyond help? I had a brother-in-law who died too young who fit that pattern. It was terrible for my sister who three times attempted to divorce, but never could bring herself to complete it. I wonder if AA was around when Fitzgerald was alive; would he have used it do you think? Did he ever attempt to stop drinking?
I think Zelda drank also, but I'm not sure of my facts here. I must do some research. It's always sad to think of mental institutions of the past where patients were locked up, many of them for life.
“It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering……” Great sentence.
JUDE, thanks for the history and I agree it is a superb story, a tragic one - “a truthful story of how our past interferes with our present intentions.” Our past constantly is catching with us in one way or another., it seems to me. Particularly, as we get older and the memories resurface, we are not so busy, we reflect.
PATH: I remember reading about Jospephine Baker who couldn’t make it in a racially segregated America but was a sensation overseas. You didn’t like THE GREAT GATSBY - you probably did not see the movie either, did you? I thought Leonarda DeCaprio (what a name) was terrific in it, but I think the rest of it was poor. We have done it to its death I think. Enough.
That bookstore, Barbara, must have some meaning for you? Charlie remembered it as his cab rolled down one of his favorite avenues.
CHARLIE, such an American name, rather like Joe, isn’t it? DUNCAN and LORRAINE, formal names, I don’t know if that has any symbolism in the story or not.
Tomorrow let’s pick the story apart; I'm rather late for dinner tonight.
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BARBARA, we were posting together. Oh, gee, such great sites to look at; it will have to wait until tomorrow for me. THANKS, MUCH.
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Oh yes, posting at the same time -
Sad sad story - before fathers were considered a viable parent - too sad to think about. All sorts of power plays by Marion - if she could not beat him one way she could fall back on her weakness as a woman. Sad.
Did not remember other stories by Fitzgerald quite so poignantly sad.
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Marking my place here, too. Although I don't read them often, I find when I do, that I enjoy reading a short story. So much is said with fewer words and in less space. It's a skill, it's an art form. I've only read the first section of this story, but already the author has conveyed much.
I've never been a Fitzgerald fan, read Great Gatsby years ago. As my daughter would say, "it doesn't do anything for me." No desire to see the movie.
I appreciate the background from all of you. FSF died at age 40, a talented individual who probably lived too much too soon. Sad.
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I found this a complex story that had me emotionally involved from the beginning even though I didn't know what was going on at first. I had a sense of foreboding regarding Charlie from the beginning. I see that some of you have that feeling also.
I appreciate everyone's thoughts about the story. It has a lot of layers that I think we're peeling together.
Whether or not he was a practicing Catholic as an adult, since Fitzgerald was educated as a Catholic (attended two Catholic schools), it seems likely that the title of "Babylon Revisited" is, at least in part, a religious reference. Fitzgerald would have known some of the references to Babylon in the Bible as a city of "sin" or City of the Devil, because of the dissipated life of its people.
I found some details about Babylon at one website ( http://bible.org/seriespage/babylon-seen-scripture-introduction-rev-17-18 ) that brought to my mind some of the details that Fitzgerald includes in the story:
"The Origin of Babylon’s Religion
Ancient records indicate that Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis who was the founder and first high priestess of the Babylonian mystery religion. She gave birth to a son named Tammuz, whom she claimed was conceived miraculously....The rites incorporated the worship of the mother (who was called “the queen of heaven”) and the child. While the rites varied, and the idol images often varied from country to country as the cult spread from one location to another, they all contained one central feature, the worship of the goddess mother and her child. Often the names changed, but no matter where you went, pictures and images of a mother with a child in her arms were found."
The reference to a mother and child seems like it could be a reference to Charlie's wife and child. Charlie's feelings about his daughter seem to to be linked to his memories of his wife Helen.
"The Doctrine of Purgatory
The doctrine of purgatorial purification after death was seen first in pagan Babylonianism. It involved the same extortion and theft of the poor to get the dead cleansed and into a higher state. Prayers and supplications were offered by the priest but only after great fees were collected."
Charlie seems to be in a state of purgatory. The mood that I get from the story is that he's always hovering between "heaven" and "hell." (As someone mentioned, Charlie even passes by "the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell). He's trying to cleanse his life and atone for his wrong doing. He's willing to pay a great price for atonement and reunion with his child but it's not clear that he can attain his goals.
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Zelda was born to a wealthy Southern family in 1900. Her father was a Supreme Court Justice of Alabama.
Zelda was more playful than studious. Under her photo in the High School yearbook:
"Why should all life be work, when we can borrow
Lets think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow"
Zelda and Scott were married in 1920. She gave birth to their only child, a girl, Frances, in 1921.
Their lives were tumultuous. Especially after 1925 when Scott and Hemingway became friends in France. Scotts Alcoholism was severe . Zelda's mental health deteriorated and by 1930 she had to be hospitalized. First diagnosed as Bi-Polar, then as Schizophrenic.
Scott died of Alcoholism in 1940. Zelda in1948, in a fire that engulfed the institution in which she was living.
They are buried together and on their tombstone is written:
"So we beat on, boats against the current, Borne back ceaselessly to our past."
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BARBARA, thanks so much for the clickable. I played Debussy over twice, lovely, soothing, cleansing music for the soul. And Bricktops, fascinating. Cole Porter had a reserved table always, what a lady she must have been.
Most of us, I would imagine, have gone back to our hometowns or campuses, where we were young,. Were you happy you had gone? Would you make it a yearly visit if you could? Or are you content with the memories?
HI PEDLIN! True - "So much is said with fewer words and in less space. It's a skill, it's an art form."
Like you, I seldom read short stories, that is why this week of stories is so enjoyable. Sad, sad, everyone is calling the story sad. Is there no redeeming quality, no modicum of joy in the story?
MARCIE, I’m so happy you are joining us. Thanks for the information about purgatory. What specifically were Charlie’s wrong doings and was he able to atone for them?
Hi JUDE. Those words of Zelda’s in her yearbook were prophetic weren’t they? It’s been my experience with young people that they can’t wait for tomorrow - teenagers wanting to drive, go off on their own somewhere, anywhere, away from home, wanting to grow up, grow away. Out from under their parents rules, guidance. Zelda just wants to play, and play, and spend money, buy. She never matured, did Scott want her to? Did he want to keep her young and beautiful?
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On Youtube, a video of the Fitzgeralds and the 1920's:
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/rare_footage_of_scott_and_zelda_fitzgerald_from_the_1920s.html
It's ironic that the author's life seems to be as interesting, if not more so than the story he wrote; but they cannot be separated.
Let's begin the beguine:
Some of you have mentioned that the story at the very first is confusing. What's going on here, one asks when beginning to read.
But we soon get the idea that Charlie is reliving his past.
"He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty....It was not an American bar any more--he felt polite in it......It had gone back to France."
Bingo for me. How about you?
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There is SO MUCH HERE to digest this morning- who needs breakfast! Thank you will for making the era come alive - even before we get into this particular short story.
Ella, you are so right - you can't really separate Fitzgerald's life from his work. It has amazed me how autobiographical each of the short stories we have read so far have been. Do you suppose that it is necessary to write from your experience, from what you know when writing a short story because you have to develop your characters and setting in such an economical way? Or is this just a coincidence in the stories we have read so far?
From reading all of the above descriptions of "Babylon" - Fitzgerald's Babylon is Paris. It seems most of his stories center on this period in his life, and then the atonement for this period in later works.
I just read that Babylon Revisited" was written in 1930 and first published on February 21, 1931 in the Saturday Evening Post. It was later adapted into a movie called The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson .
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JoanP, I'm glad to know when Babylon Revisited was first published -- 1930. It probably couldn't have been even written much earlier. I get the feeling it was post-stock-market crash. The economic status of much of the world was hard, and much lower than it had been in the earlier flapper, jazz era.
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Incidentally, I did find my book, Zelda by Nancy Mitford. Read about it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Zelda-Biography-P-S-Nancy-Milford/dp/0062089390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370960693&sr=8-1&keywords=zelda+by+nancy+mitford#reader_0062089390
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Loved the video, Ella! (And the Charleston music) Such a happy family. Wish they had all lived happily ever after with little Scottie. Both parents dead at such an early age.
"Babylon Revisited" is based on a true incident - Perhaps that makes it even more poignant, Marcie. When Zelda suffered a breakdown and was committed to a sanitarium in Switzerland, Rosalind, Zelda's sister, felt that Scott was unfit to raise their daughter and that Rosalind and Newman should adopt her.
I read that Scottie married, had four children, a daughter, Eleanor Lanahan, wrote a biography of her mother, Scottie, "The Daughter of ... The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith" (1995). In it she wrote of Scottie's wish to share her parents' life while maintaining their privacy. I'd love to read that recently published book.
"There is the strictness of the father attempting to keep Scottie from repeating his mistakes. Much of his advice Scottie resented (or at least did not appreciate), and she endured many embarrassing situations."
ps. JoanK, after reading your remark about F. Scott's original grave site - and interesting story about the nearby Catholic St. Mary's cemetery relented and allowed Scottie to have her parents buried together. - Reburying f scott fitzgerald (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/13/reburying_f_scott_fitzgerald_partner/) - Scottie's daughter, Eleanor, also had Scottie and her father buried in cemetery, near her grandparents F Scott and Zelda...
ps Ella, I have found going home again is painful...the places, the remembered homes and landmarks may still be standing - but the PEOPLE who made it "home" are no longer there!
Thanks for the link to the Mitford book on Zelda, Ella. I'm afraid the price of Scottie's daugher's on her mother is prohibitive...http://www.amazon.com/Scottie-Daughter-Frances-Fitzgerald-Lanahan/dp/0060927380
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How much disconnect is there between how Charlie Wade sees himself and what he’s really like?
He sees himself as having plenty of ability to make a living, and that’s probably true, when he wants to exert himself. He worked at it even before he hit it lucky in the stock market boom, and at the moment he’s making good money in Prague, where “They don’t know about me”.
He feels he’s conquered his drinking. He’s had it under control for a year and a half, which is good, but taking one drink a day and stopping with that sounds like a pretty precarious way to handle the problem. He could relapse any time.
What about his stormy marriage? He doesn’t assign all the blame to either side, and clearly they both behaved fairly outrageously. Was it mostly his fault? Was his wife mentally unstable, as Zelda was? Her sister is certainly emotionally fragile.
He does genuinely love his child, and want her back. And he must have treated her lovingly, since she really wants to go back with him.
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The way I read the story he is not Scott Fitzgerald - it may be a dream of Scott's idea of how you can become a sober upstanding acceptable person but the story seems to read the Charles was not a drunk so much as a temporary drunk with no focus on life other than having fun and drinking binges in the most "in" place in the world, Paris, with the most "in" entertainment and music because, he had no more need to work for money and it appears this lot had no more idea of work except for money.
So I do not doubt that Charles could take care of his daughter - as the story reads I was immediately struck how Marion was depicted as the hurdle to Charles wanting his daughter - this is still a time when women may be able to vote in the US but are still not a powerhouse of self-determination. Since Marian and Lincoln are less wealthy she holds that against Charles and then when her logical argument does not sway things her way she falls into the old cliche "i have a headache" that is carried a bit further to "Marion is in bad shape.' - 'Marion's sick". (you have to wonder if Scott saw women as controlling - did he come from a home where his mother held his future in her hands I wonder?)
But all this striving on the part of Charles to obtain his child sends the message of a very vindictive God punishing Charles for his year and a half decent into decadence with no life goals other than making life an orgy highlighting his value of seeing life through the eyes of the almighty dollar. Because having lost it and regained his fortune and his work in Czechoslovakia is not about making the world a better place or bringing services to his customers it is about making money and lots of it.
Is that the message in this story - forget everything and loose yourself when money is no longer a reason and by not continuing to work for the money but engaging in the feeling of anything goes you pay dearly as others, who did not share in your wealth, end up with the power to deny you anything else that you hold most dear?
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Thanks, JOANP, for your remarks about going home again. Am sorry it is so painful .
Do you think that Charlie’s driving through Paris was painful to him; his wife dead, his drinking days over (it was nice while it lasted, he says, with a sort of magic around us) He strolled through Paris at night, watching, observing its night life. Did he long for those old days or was he looking forward to the future?
He had come to Paris for a purpose, to attempt to make a home again, with his daughter
“He thought he knew what to do for her. He believed in character, he wanted to jump back a whole generation and trust in character as the eternally valuable element. Everything wore out.”
Why did he feel as though he had to go back in time to find character? Do we feel that way about our parents generation - The Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw called it.
The book by Scottie’s daughter looks very interesting as does this one;
http://www.amazon.com/Zelda-Fitzgerald-Meticulously-Researched-Biography/dp/1611453046/ref=pd_sim_b_3#reader_B006Z8RKFO
Read the Introduction.
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PATH, I think you are in doubt about Charlie’s ability to conquer his addiction to drink. Is it an addiction? Scot Fitzgerald certainly knew he was a drunk and unable to quit. It ruined his marriage, his life, his work.
“He feels he’s conquered his drinking. He’s had it under control for a year and a half, which is good, but taking one drink a day and stopping with that sounds like a pretty precarious way to handle the problem. He could relapse any time”
I wonder how AA would feel about that attitude? I don’t think he would be applauded .
My husband, who was a heavy smoker, and myself, who was a light smoker, in years past, both went to a support group to stop our bad habit. It worked for both of us but the program called for fewer and fewer cigarettes a day until we were down to one a day and then QUIT DAY.
Charlie should have had such a program for drinking.
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BARBARA: You think the opposite, am I correct? You think Charles capable of taking care of his daughter and not falling into his bad habit of drinking again.
Marion, the sister- in-law, is portrayed as rather vengeful for the death of her sister, believing Charles was responsible for it. I might have felt that way if this had happened to one of my beloved sisters, there is not always forgiveness for wrongs.
“The image of Helen haunted him. Helen whom he had loved so until they had senselessly begun to abuse each other’s love, tear it into shreds. On that terrible February night that Marion remembered so vividly, a slow quarrel had gone on for hours. “
When he consented to the guardianship of his daughter he was in a sanitarium and broke, but now that he is making money again he can give her certain advantages that Marion cannot. At one point in the story Marion felt as though Charlie had arrived at control over the situation and then Duncan and Lorraine appeared on the scene. What damage they did to the whole situation. His past coming to haunt Charlie. Again and again, the past.
He lost a lot of money in the crash, but he lost everything he ever wanted in the boom! How tragic life can be.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8289335/Babylon-Revisited-When-the-money-runs-out.html
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I believe that AA only came into being in the late 1930s much after this story was written.
Yes Ella, I do not think Charlie was an out and out drunk - the story says -- You know I never did drink heavily until I gave up business and came over here with nothing to do. followed by My drinking only lasted about a year and a half--from the time we came over until I--collapsed. different than most alcoholics who are in the famous AA words DE-Nile Charles says, "I knew I'd acted badly,". Many people have an evening or nightly drink without being a drunk and so I see he had a swinging good time with no ambition and no reason to live other than have that swinging good time and after his body gave out and his wife was so ill and he lost all his money he stopped and reverted to what he probably was before his living in Paris but certainly to the way of life laid out for him by his parents and grandparents.
I think by his revisiting all the places in Paris, the author could tell the story showing the difference between what was and what is after the crash and what is for Charles now that he has resumed working that provides a focus in his life, a reason to be alive.
I think this story is too easily compared to Scott Fitzgerald life and I see differences. There may be underground feelings and above ground instances that are similar but he writes Charles as a man of his times more than a man with a chronic problem. Could be Scott's own DE-NILE where he thought he only had a temporary problem
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Ella, thanks very much for the link to the review at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8289335/Babylon-Revisited-When-the-money-runs-out.html
It has lots to think about. I especially feel in accord with the following statement by the writer. I think the idea of "dissipation" does capture a main theme of the story:
"Wandering through Montmartre, Charlie suddenly realises the extent of his wastefulness in what is perhaps the most superb passage in this tale: “All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realised the meaning of the word 'dissipate’ – to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion. He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab. But it hadn’t been given for nothing. It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember – his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont.”
The idea of “dissipation” as an active loss is perhaps the story’s central insight, and it is one to which Fitzgerald would return again and again in his fiction of the Thirties. The passage evokes the sense of vanished and wasted time, the remorse that characterises the morning after the night before, the sense of everything being spent."
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
Short Stories - Some SeniorLearn Favorites - JUNE ~ JULY
(http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/shortstory/storyheading.jpg)
It is said that a good short story should include: * a strong theme, * a fascinating plot, * a fitting structure, * unforgettable characters, * a well-chosen setting, * an appealing style. Let's consider these elements as we discuss the following stories. Is it necessary to include them all in a successful story?
Notice that the titles are all links to the stories.
Discussion Schedule:
June 1 -June 9: *The Book of The Funny Smells--and Everything (1872) (http://shortstoriesreadonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-of-funny-smells-and-everything.html) by Eleanor H Abbott *The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace (1880) (http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gdemaupassant/bl-gdemaup-diamond.htm)- by Guy de Maupassant *A Pair of Silk Stockings (1896) (http://www.americanliterature.com/author/kate-chopin/short-story/a-pair-of-silk-stockings)by Kate Chopin
June 10- 14: *Babylon Revisited by F.Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
June 15- 17: *First Confession by Frank O'Connor (https://www2.bc.edu/john-g-boylan/files/first-confession.pdf)
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BABYLON REVISITED by F.Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
Topics for Consideration
June 10 - June 14
Click this link for French terms appearing in Babylon Revisited) - (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfrenchterms.txt)
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfitzportrait.jpg) |
Have you revisited your own past, physically, mentally? What were the best years, the worst?
“strident queens” - two words that date this story. Today from the lamposts in my capitol city of Columbus, Ohio we have colorful banners promoting the “Stonewall Pride” parade. - http://www.stonewallcolumbus.org/ - times have changed. Is this progress?
Fitzgerald states that despite the economy, whether up or down - prostitution is a good business. What did you think when you read this?
“Now at least you can go into a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire.” Is this still true? Do Europeans or the world, for that matter, still believe every American is wealthy?
Charlie believes in “character” - the “eternally valuable element.” But “everything wore out.” What did Charlie mean?
DL Contact: Ella Gibbons (egibbons28@columbus.rr.com ) |
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Such an interesting way of looking at the story, BARBARA, a good way, a hope of restored reason, good living. Thanks for that, it gives another way of thinking about the story.
And another insight into the story, MARCIE, there are so many. As JOANP said a few posts ago, it is a lot to digest. We perhaps, too easily, attempt to attach the story to Fitzgerald’s own life, but dissipation seems to me to be the theme of at least a portion of Charlie's life and our author's..
Dissipation - to waste, squander, carouse.
I looked the word up in my American Heritage Dictionary and behold I find this: “He could dissipate without going to pieces “ (F.Scott Fitzgerald)
He is quoted in the Dictionary!
THANK ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR WONDERFUL INSIGHTFUL REMARKS, IT’S GREAT READING THEM EACH DAY.
WE HAVE TWO MORE DAYS TO DISCUSS THE STORY OR ANY PART THEREOF, OR ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TALK ABOUT. REMINISCES, A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE, ANYTHING?
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I had no idea this existed. BIO -
Here authors, such as Joseph Heller, Tobias Wolf, Jane Smalley and Garrison Keillor, discuss the merits of Scott Fitzgerald's life.
http://www.biography.com/people/f-scott-fitzgerald-9296261
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I'm new to Fitzgerald and this discussion but I have read all of your comments carefully.
I was struck by so many things in the story. I can't figure out the divisions, what they mean. Is there a reason for them? Do they indicate something? I didn't understand...he went back to Paris in 1931, is that the time of the story or is that only the date of the writing? The rich "good times" are gone, that's clear. Is the narrator reliable?
I didn't know why the old times are gone...why are they? The stock market crash? As the story goes on the conversations seem to reveal one by one what happened. One thing about Fitzgerald's writing I've noticed is he puts you in the middle, in medias res, and then you have to figure out what's going on? That's what keeps me reading. I am not sure I know. They money's gone. The good times are gone. Were they such good times? Marion and her husband don't seem to think so.
Ella asked if none of us have known a drinker. I am pretty sure if any of us did know an alcoholic on a personal level, that is, a level at which we would be personally affected, I am pretty sure that would be a very painful experience nobody would want to idly chat about. His "ways," was it only alcohol or was it this profligate spending and rich living, that really anger Marion?
The thing that struck me the most about this character is his distance. He's distanced not only from the Paris he knew and the bar where he felt "ownership," but his daughter, and it appears just about everything and everybody else including his wife who dies, as we see, possibly? Possibly because of his behavior, (who knows, her character is only fleshed out by the small revelations, that seems to be Fitzgerald's forte, and he's good at it. Is the sister also displaying a family trait in taking to her bed, was that her dead sister's way of coping or was Helen really a mess? Or was she a mess at all, he's the one in the sanitarium...Certainly he's now distanced from his "friends" in the bar whom he now sees as drunks and fools.
But I'm not sure I trust his version, or his reliability in relating it. Marion and her husband are there, it seems to me, to provide a more sober picture anyway, an opposing version.
I keep thinking of the Cheers theme, you want to go where everybody knows your name...and they're always glad you came....I just came from Germany where you can sit on a step at 9:30 am waiting for a museum to open, and watch the bar across the street with people in it, sitting even in the window sills, cheering on some soccer team, with foot high lager glasses, swigging it down, is everybody HAPPY? They certainly seem to be. What happens by 10 pm, tho? I found out on one train watching a small woman down three of those foot high things, by about 4 pm; it wasn't long before there was a tear in her beer, not perhaps the best environment for any of us at the table.
At one point Fitzgerald has the character say, you have to be drunk to appreciate this (or words to that affect).
Did his drunk acquaintances ruin his chances? I don't think so. If you look carefully Marion wanted to retain her legal guardianship, even while agreeing, they were all polite, that the child could go with Charlie. What did that mean? It reminds me of a Tom Cruise movie where the father tries to repent, tries to get the kids back (or the Dustin Hoffman movie about the father Mrs. Doubtfire, trying to make it good and get the kids back). Looks like Fitzgerald did it first. But Marion even in the best of times didn't want to give up her legal rights (apparently there are no rights for parents in 1931 Paris, no legal system?) She was waiting for what she saw as inevitable. 10 months since he had seen the child.
Have there been other books that I have missed written by alcoholics about the alcoholic's feelings? Are they all that distanced from everybody else? That calculating? Marion is upset, initially, as she would be. His reaction? "She had built up all her fear of life into one wall and faced it toward him....." and then " It had all happened at a point in her life where the discouragement of ill health and adverse circumstances made it necessary for her to believe in tangible villainy and a tangible villain."
Really?
He's...is he making excuses, deflecting her anger by giving it a cause? Other than himself and his own culpability? Is he "cured?" I notice in time of stress he feels he needs a drink.
Bottom line: if YOU were Marion what would YOU do? Would the appearance of the drunks make a difference to you? That really IS the bottom line here. Is it "unfair" that the two former acquaintances found the address and came by? THEY ruined it for him?
Can you not turn over a new leaf then? Has he actually?
The word Babylon also has led me on a wild goose chase. Having confused the Tower of Babel with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I have had to do some delving myself. apparently they are connected, after all. That makes a lot more sense to me, in that in the so called Tower of Babel, everybody was speaking in a different language and nobody knew what the other was saying. That is the case, to me, in the story, too. Other than that I have no idea what the "Revisited" means, how interesting. What's being revisited? I think you all have made some great suggestions but I don't see anything except the old ways, the drunks, actually being done over? Or? The daughter? The promise of a "do over"? Very complex story (especially when you keep thinking of it as the Tower of Babel) hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
That's what passes for random thought for me on this one, but it's powerful. I'm wondering why the story was written. I don't know anything about Fitzgerald's private life, don't want to, really, tho he died young apparently of alcoholism but I wonder if this story, it just occurred to me, that in this story there seems to be an attempt to show how you really can't escape your past and make it right again. Several people here have said that you can't get rid of the baggage of your past and it occurred to me that maybe Fitzgerald is using the story to show how unfair it really all is if a man is repentant and no matter what he does, he can't wipe the slate clean.
Maybe there's more Fitzgerald in this one than initially seemed to be. It may be his own excuse.
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"The idea of “dissipation” as an active loss is perhaps the story’s central insight."
That's very interesting.
One point that interests me in the story is the life Fitzgerald is comparing to that of dissipation. Surely his in-laws represent the "happy family" life that Charlie wants to create for his daughter. And yet his sister-in-law is so disturbed that she has to go to bed for days after the scene. Is he saying something about his view of the alternative to his former life, or is he just so used to disturbed women, that he assumes that's how women act?
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There's always at least two "sides" in a relationship. I think the sister was blaming Charlie for everything that happened, yet it wouldn't have been all his "fault."
He seemed to be trying to get his life back in order; maybe he couldn't in Paris, though, because it seems neither friends nor family were willing to let him change. The friends, perhaps, resented his strength; the family because it meant he wouldn't then be the guilty one they could blame everything on, including having another child in the family.
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Hey, GINNY, good to see you!. Many of us have had little or no contact with a Fitzgerald story except THE GREAT GATSBY, which is a classic.
Did you like the story? I agree Fitzgerald does bring you into the middle, but reading carefully provides answers to some of the questions. Not all, by any means I was left with wondering who gets the child or who should have the child. Obviousy she wants to live with Daddy. But it's up to the reader, is Daddy truly reformed?
Should we give him the chance to prove it? The same question that we ask of a former prisoner, a mental patient. Do we give them employment?
I'm not sure, are you, that Marion's home is the best either. So there is the quandry.
Most of us agree that the theme or moral of the story, if that be the case, is you cannot escape your past. Fitzgerald, undoubtedly, had occasion to hope he could, but he was never able to stop drinking, get his life back on an even keel, get a proper home for Zelda and his child.
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Hi JOANK. Do you think the sister-in-law's home is the best influence on the child? Is that a happy home? Marion with her sudden illnesses and the rut that the husband seems to be in. Compare that to the life that Charlie promises.
Loss as the central insight of the story? Yes, I agree. Charlie's loss, the child's loss. A family's loss, the death of the mother.
A sad story, as we have said before, mirroring Fitzgerald's own life.
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NLHOME (can't remember your given name) what an interesting remark: "The friends, perhaps, resented his strength; the family because it meant he wouldn't then be the guilty one they could blame everything."
Yes, I never thought of resentment, but it is true. Marion did want to blame him for her sister's death; it's human to find blame for something that hurts. Children do it early in life, don't they?
Thanks for your remarks.
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Tomorrow is our last day, I believe, for our Fitzgerald story. Let's take a few moments to think how we would have written the story differently .
Woul you have started the beginning in a different way?
How would you have entitled it?
How would you have ended it?
Would you have introduced Lorraine and Duncan in the story? To what effect did they alter the story?
Would you have described the terrible scene between Charlie and his wife in the same way? Could it have been improved? What did it add to the story?
Did you like the story? Why?
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There's always at least two "sides" in a relationship. I think the sister was blaming Charlie for everything that happened, yet it wouldn't have been all his "fault."
That's very important. Fitzgerald came up with a memorable line about it:
"He looked at her, startled. With each remark the force of her dislike became more and more apparent. She had built up all her fear of life into one wall and faced it toward him."
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One more day? I thought we had two. Anyway, I know you won't lock the door for a while, but I'll start my summing up.
Loss, dissipation, the difficulty of escaping your past—all themes, both in this story and Fitzgerald’s life. One thing I noticed is that in a way, Fitzgerald is rewriting his own problems to make them just a little more hopeful. Charlie lost all his money, but is now making good money again, maybe will continue to do so. Bad luck has messed up this chance to get his daughter back, but he still has a good chance. He drank himself into a hospital, but is now sober—who knows if it will last, but his chances look better than Fitzgerald’s did. Charlie can’t ever get his wife back, but Fitzgerald may have realized that Zelda was lost to him in any meaningful sense too.
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With all the books written about both Scott Fitzgerald and T.S. Elliot - all written from their perspective and none written from the wives perspective, who both had daring party girl wives drinking too much and they no longer fit the accepted behavior for the life style of the men. The wives become sicker and you have to wonder if it in response to knowing they are a dissatisfaction to their husbands. So they become more ill and are committed.
Makes me feel very uncomfortable. To me it is like they were used up and all was well when the men were wanting a life of the party girl for a wife but then they want something different and the wives are ill from the party lifestyle but also, they become more ill trying to be themselves, and addicted while wanting the attention of their husbands.
Today they would be put on medication and a 30 day treatment center - possibly several times like Lindsay Lohan - but the life of a women that did not fit the "Marian" type mold was shut up much as Elenore of Aquitaine was locked away by Henry II of England. I think many women during this time actually went mad or killed themselves as Virgina Woolf.
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What a lot of interesting and helpful questions and comments. One of your questions, Ella, is:
Would you have introduced Lorraine and Duncan in the story? To what effect did they alter the story?
They seem central to the story in a complicated way. When we first meet Charlie in that bar, he's asking the bartender about some of his old friends/associates. He leaves his address at his brother-in-law's house for "Mr. Schaeffer." The next day, when he is out with his daughter, he runs into Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarrles at the restaurant. He doesn't want to give them his address when they ask. We're told: "Somehow, an unwelcome encounter. They liked him because he was functioning, because he was serious; they wanted to see him, because he was stronger than they were now, because they wanted to draw a certain sustenance from his strength."
I'm wondering why he left his contact information (at his brother-in-law's house) at the bar? He wanted to be contacted by Duncan and now that he has been, he doesn't like the contact. The past seems to have an attraction for him. On his first night in Paris, we learn "He was curious to see Paris by night with clearer and more judicious eyes than those of other days." He seems to be courting disaster.... testing himself.
Some of you have mentioned his approach to taking one drink a day and no more. During his night-time stroll: "A few doors farther on he found another ancient rendezvous and incautiously put his head inside. Immediately an eager orchestra burst into sound, a pair of professional dancers leaped to their feet and a maître d'hôtel swooped toward him, crying, "Crowd just arriving, sir!" But he withdrew quickly. 'You have to be damn drunk,' he thought." Another "incautious" moment: "In the glare of a brasserie a woman spoke to him. He bought her some eggs and coffee, and then, eluding her encouraging stare, gave her a twenty-franc note and took a taxi to his hotel."
Is he trying to prove to others and to himself that he has conquered his "dissipated" past? Does it make him feel superior to others to show that now he has gained back control over his finances, his drinking... his life? Does he want to think that he's in a better position than his former friends and his sister-in-law?
As we see near the end, Duncan and Lorraine "intrude" into the house. Their visit is unwanted by Charlie and everyone, Charlie says to his brother-in-law: ""I didn't tell them to come here. They wormed your name out of somebody. They deliberately--" He doesn't seem to remember but it's almost certain it's because Charlie left his brother-in-law's address for Duncan that they are able to find him. If that unpleasant event didn't take place, would he have been happily reunited with his daughter?
I'm left wondering if Charlie isn't in as much control of his life as he thinks. Yet he doesn't take a second drink at the very end. I don't think that all hope for him is lost but he may have to face the situation that he'll have to find/make meaning in his life without his young daughter.
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I can appreciate the writing in this story. However, I did not like the story. It was too depressing and left too many questions unanswered. That is the problem with short stories for me......they end before problems are solved and the characters never get fully developed. FSF, however, did a good joy of developing these characters.
Sally
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Those are great points, Marcie. You've zeroed in on how they found his brother in law's place, and the bit about he seems drawn to the past and is testing himself perhaps. Like Marion, from the clues we are carefully given, I don't personally have confidence in him, either.
I don't believe I necessarily agree, Ella, that the theme or moral of the story is you can't escape the past. I think Fitzgerald and maybe Charlie would like it to be seen thus. I hope that's not true in every case because there are an awful lot of people with pasts out there who have seemed to overcome tremendous odds.
I don't know anybody without a "past," but I have seen several who use it as an excuse. It's a major theme, but not the overarching one, I think, personally.
I keep thinking about Marion. Was her home better than Charlie's would have been, Ella asks? She's apparently stepped up to the plate, and by Charlie's own admission, has done a wonderful job.
If we knew for instance that Charlie was a child abuser could we understand Marion's reaction a bit more? I'm using that as an extreme example but she does know something we don't. As she sat by her sister's deathbed she learned something of her sister's life which even Charlie admits was torn.
I don't have a sister (or a brother), so I don't know the dynamics. However finding her sister locked out in a snowstorm has made a tremendous impression on her. Marion is possibly ill, what disease we don't know. She stepped up to the plate because her dying sister asked her to look after her child, and she's done a great job.
In possibly the most poignant moment of the piece she turns to her husband, who seems remarkably equable, for support after the imps and demons of the elephant in the living room, the Alcholosim, (which I think is more of a major theme than the past), physically appear in the form of Duncan and Lorraine in her own home. Marion turns to Lincoln for support. She doesn't get it.
What's left to her? She's to lose the child. She's outvoted. And to her the thought of the child living with Charlie is intolerable. It literally makes her sick and she's apparently ill to begin with. She has no confidence in Charlie's reclamation. Which type of home is better? Should he relapse again and lock out the child this time or worse, would that be a great home for the child?
I have a lot of sympathy for Marion, she's been betrayed by her husband initially in this, she's lost her sister, (tho Charlie opines they weren't that close in life, he didn't think) Really? Maybe that's why she reacts as she does now, and why she stepped up when he disappeared (in treatment?) for 10 months.
Which life is better for a child?
I keep trying to think what I would have done in her place.
I distrust Charlie. I am sure he wants one more chance. All his preparations (except the Nanny is certainly missing, isn't she?) but it was Marion who picked up the ball.
It's a very powerful and unfortunately true to life piece. Especially in 2013. I agree in this short piece the characters are well defined but we actually don't have all the answers, about them, or Helen or her life, or Charlie's "wanting a drink," when things go bad, and of course never will. It's pretty stunning. The second Fitzgerald I have read but it won't be my last. I'd like now to read something he won acclaim for and see what I think.
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Do we have tomorrow, the 14th? Yes, I think you are right. Days slip away, I lose track of them, thank you PATH for the reminder.
Oh, so many good remarks., but none of you have any suggestions as to how you would rewrite the story? How you would change the ending.
SALAN, I'm sure you would change the story or not write it at all, too depressing. Life is for an alcoholic, don't you think? Why do people drink to excess? Why drink at all? Too escape? ''
Thanks, GINNY, for your ideas, I agree with some, not all. Charlie does want to escape his past, he wants Marion to believe he has overcome his drinking so as to get his child back, a home life again, but he is wavering a bit, perhaps, stumbling is a better word. Paris is too painful for him, he should have stayed in Prague and become stronger. He visits his old haunts, sees old friends, Duncan and Lorraine; as MARCIE stated the past still has an attraction for him.
The question remains in the story, can he escape it and make a new life in Prague with child and sister?
Today, of course, as BARBARA said, Zelda, would have been put on medication and escaped those years in a sanitarium, those years that also dragged Fitzgerald down as the expenses mounted for Zelda. He always put her in the very best sanitariums of the day, she never wanted for anything. HOwever, she was in and out, had vacations with Scottie and Fitz, and lunches , wrote extensive letters (many of which are quoted in the book that I have on Zelda). Both of them had affairs, both wrote extensively and were published authors, were jealous of each other, and loved each other until the end. Scott never stopped loving Zelda.
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Click below to see all the published stories and books by Zelda Fitzgerald:
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/zeldabib.html
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And by Scott Fitzgerald:
http://www.duluth.lib.mn.us/Programs/Gatsby/Works.html
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GINNY brought up a thought about alcoholics and writers so I put the subject in Google with this result:''
http://listverse.com/2008/01/22/top-15-great-alcoholic-writers/
Many believed, as did F.S.Fitzgerald that drinking enhanced their writing, one wonders why?
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Is it then impossible for a recovering alcoholic to be happy? I don't get that sense in real life, I know alcoholics who are happy, just aware they need to take control in order to remain happy - and in the story, I see a man who is dealing with his demons, trying to make amends in a way for bad choices he made that weren't necessarily all related to alcohol. I think the dissipation in his life was much more than the drinking.
A good short story can be open to so many ideas and interpretations.
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I read numerous articles on this unhappy couple. One of them mentioned that today there is a "Team Scott" and a "Team Zelda" fighting it out endlessly as to who was to blame for their unhappiness.
Mostly though, I was looking for information on the daughter "Scottie" who was the same age as the girl in the story.
She is after all the reason for the actions that move the characters most deeply.
The real girl it seems was brought up by Nannies in America and in France. As an adult she went to Vassar and became a Journalist for the Washington Post and the New Yorker. She married twice and had four children but said she felt burdened by her children and was not a good mother. One of her sons committed suicide and another became drug addicted.
Presently her oldest daughter is trying to write a book about her mothers life.
The girl in the story loves her "good times Daddy" but he does have a rather awful past. I can't blame his sister in law for her attitude. She has learned to love the girl and sees her as an integral part of her families life. How can she trust him not to fall back on his old ways? She can't and that is easy to understand. He has only one drink a day now. That is called a "Maintainence drinker". He can't really abstain completely.
Having worked for the Bureau of Drugs and Alcohol and seen how many lives are destroyed by these things it seems to me that Charlie should have requested a long visit with his daughter and slowly won over his in laws. He feels he has recovered but it is hard to believe that he will remain so and be able to give his daughter anything close to a normal life.
Like his use of Alcohol, Charlie was looking for a "quick fix".
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nlhome, I'm inclined to agree with you that "A good short story can be open to so many ideas and interpretations." Charlie is no longer young but he's got more life to live. We don't know exactly what's in his future.
Do you all think there is a clue to the chances Fitzgerald sees for Charlie in the very last sentence?
Here is the last paragraph:
"He would come back some day; they couldn't make him pay forever. But he wanted his child, and nothing was much good now, beside that fact. He wasn't young any more, with a lot of nice thoughts and dreams to have by himself. He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone.
It seems likely that the last time Charlie saw his wife was the evening that he locked her out of their apartment.... or, afterward, when she was in the hospital. Apparently, at or near the end of his wife's life, Charlie was recovering (from alchohol? a breakdown?) in a sanitarium. She asked her sister (not Charlie) to look after their daughter. Is it a revengeful Helen who might well want Charlie to be alone (in which case, the last sentece is his fantasy). Or is it the Helen with whom he was in love and who loved him who would want him to be with their daughter?
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Oh such good points. Nlhome, I forgot to say in my long post how stunning I thought your prior post was and so on the money with: He seemed to be trying to get his life back in order; maybe he couldn't in Paris, though, because it seems neither friends nor family were willing to let him change. The friends, perhaps, resented his strength; the family because it meant he wouldn't then be the guilty one they could blame everything on, including having another child in the family. Wow!
And you're right, maybe that's what makes a good piece of literature, period, its timelessness and issues , and how we all see them differently. How many grandparents are raising children today!
In 2013! Whole families of children and great grandchildren for just this issue: hard drugs with or without alcohol?
I see Jude has some background in this issue and I am finding I agree with her take on Charlie: brilliant!
"Maintenance drinker." I didn't know that, is that a sign of relapse or not being entirely "cured?" Jude says he can't abstain completely. Does this type of being a new man actually work?
I don't know the terms but I thought that Alcoholics Anonymous has a tenet that "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic," and as nhlome said, it takes constant maintenance. It's a double whammy apparently, a chemical drug addiction and something causing it, the need for the "quick fix" as Jude says. A hard thing to deal with says the woman perpetually on a diet.
I agree he'd have been better not to have come back to Paris. His "needing a drink" for stressful situations is to me a warning sign.
What's wrong with 6 months wait? Why is this so "sad?" 6 months is reasonable and nothing in time. Perhaps if Marion and Lincoln, who clearly can't afford it, could see his new place and the arrangements, they would feel better about it.
If I were Marion he'd not take the child, period. I do feel for her. And I wouldn't retire to a bed to get my way but the devil drives when the needs must, she's said her piece, she's said this type of thing makes her sick, she's said that she has no confidence, and she's to lose the child anyway. So she uses the last piece in her arsenal and Lincoln capitulates. What is SIX MONTHS?
And now Marcie! Is it a revengeful Helen who might well want Charlie to be alone (in which case, the last sentence is his fantasy). Or is it the Helen with whom he was in love and who loved him who would want him to be with their daughter?
Good question! I think that was Helen's realization that the child needed to be in sober capable hands, nothing to do with Charlie whose entire world seems to revolve around Charlie. And Charlie's needs.
So why does Helen appear to him in a gauzy dress on a swing, saying he should have the child but swinging out of reach and understanding? Why is that in there?
This, for some reason, really made me angry: He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone.
Really? REALLY? Why is poor Charlie "so alone? " This is the kind of thing that hits all my buttons. Charlie is not "cured." Can he be happy someday? Sure. Will he? Who knows? What drove him to drink in the first place which caused his problems now? Are those demons cured? What is he pinning all his hopes for "happiness" on?
It is a great story which can bring all this speculation out, isn't it marvelous to have so many different takes on it?
And this is what a good book discussion is for, quite a joy to be able to be participating in this one.
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Righto, then I think I have it right!
Today is our last day - our last thoughts on this story.
Do plan to continue right on posting in the next short story which begins toorrow. All our great stories.
Charlie is in haste to make amends; but there is no quick and easy way to stop drinking is there? Personally, I'm not sure he ever will; that one drink a day is no cure. And if I were Marion I would keep that child until Charlie has stopped drinking altogether and realizes he can never take another. He needs counseling, or AA, or something, and he needs to wake up from that dream he has of his dead wife, Helen - who asked Marion to look after her child not her husband.
Of course, the child, Honoria, will resent her for it, will blame her for the seaparation from Daddy. This child seems to sense the difficulties, remembering the bad times when they were not rich.
ANY LAST THOUGHTS?
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR POSTS! I'VE LOVED EVERY DAY OF IT AND HOPE YOU WILL BE WITH HAROLD AND MYSELF IN AUGUST WHEN WE DISCUSS "THOSE ANGRY DAYS" by Lynn Oldon -a bitter, sometimes violent clash of personalities and ideas between FDR and Charles Lindbergh that divided the nation and ultimately determined the fate of the free world.
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Ella, we're leaving all these short story discussions open throughout the month for further comment. So keep on! So much to think about still.
I've had some interuptions at this end...plan to get back into the swim here later this afternoon when Miss Cassidy goes home...A five year old who insists on my full attention. I keep saying I'm going to get her out of this, but somehow, she always wins...
ps. We're looking forward to "THOSE ANGRY DAYS" in August...
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I think that this story has room for lots of interpretations because it has complex characters. No one is perfect. There doesn't seem to be one "right" or "wrong" course of action.
We see alot of Charlie's weaknesses. We see some of Marion's too.
I'm not sure that Marion's assessment of Charlie is all about alcoholism. She always had a "curious disbelief" in her sister's happiness (the phrasing makes us unsure if she was correct in her disbelief or not) though it's weighted by the characterization that it was a "prejudice" on her part. During the back-and-forth when Charlie asks about getting Honoria back:
"Marion shuddered suddenly; part of her saw that Charlie's feet were planted on the earth now, and her own maternal feeling recognized the naturalness of his desire; but she had lived for a long time with a prejudice--a prejudice founded on a curious disbelief in her sister's happiness, and which, in the shock of one terrible night, had turned to hatred for him. It had all happened at a point in her life where the discouragement of ill health and adverse circumstances made it necessary for her to believe in tangible villainy and a tangible villain.
"I can't help what I think!" she cried out suddenly. "How much you were responsible for Helen's death, I don't know. It's something you'll have to square with your own conscience."
An electric current of agony surged through him; for a moment he was almost on his feet, an unuttered sound echoing in his throat. He hung on to himself for a moment, another moment.
"Hold on there," said Lincoln uncomfortably. "I never thought you were responsible for that."
"Helen died of heart trouble," Charlie said dully.
"Yes, heart trouble." Marion spoke as if the phrase had another meaning for her.
Then, in the flatness that followed her outburst, she saw him plainly and she knew he had somehow arrived at control over the situation. Glancing at her husband, she found no help from him, and as abruptly as if it were a matter of no importance, she threw up the sponge.
"Do what you like!" she cried, springing up from her chair. "She's your child. I'm not the person to stand in your way. I think if it were my child I'd rather see her--" She managed to check herself. "You two decide it. I can't stand this. I'm sick. I'm going to bed."
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For me, one of the strong points of this story is its ambiguity. We really have to decide a lot of things for ourselves. Marion seems to me to be mentally or emotionally unstable, but that doesn't tell us whether she's right or wrong about Helen and Charlie; she sees nothing good about the marriage, and Charlie does, but he isn't reliable either.
I especially like the last line: "He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone". At first you think Charlie means Helen would want him to have their daughter back, but there's an additional possibility. He made it possible for Duncan and Lorraine to track him down (though it turned out to be disastrous) and had been attracted to Lorraine in his old life. Is this his temptation to get out of his lonely hotel room, track them down, and go out on the town with them? And will he do it, or stand firm?
I've really enjoyed teasing apart this complicated story, and all of you made me see things I didn't notice. Thanks to all for a great discussion.
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I am still haunted by the idea that adults for their own needs decide if a child should be raised by her parent as if any parent is perfect - it makes me feel like egos are pulling apart a child.
If this was only a story but it happens too frequently - because an adult is poor and gets into trouble. often for smoking pot that is now being made legal and they cannot afford a decent much less a good lawyer the state takes control of a child - more often than not the child simply swaps one set of dysfunction for another - taking a child from a parent tears at my heart and so this story remains for me sad and painful.
Lots of input and we all have our hot button and yes, I found Marian to be too self-righteous and I think Charles is correct, she will, not covertly but her dislike and blame will be under the surface and she would turn Honoria away from Charles.
Thanks Ella you really tackled an in depth story with many varied opinions beautifully - Kudos to you for bringing this story to our attention and for making all our opinions feel validated.
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"But he wanted his child, and nothing was much good now, beside that fact. He wasn't young any more, with a lot of nice thoughts and dreams to have by himself. He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone"
Like Pat, I interpreted the last sentance as his excuse to reconnect with Lorraine; he is obviously sexually attracted to her. And given what we see of her, that will mean re-entering his old life. The fact that six months seems like forever to him shows that his desire for his daiughter is like his desire for a drink, or an affair: a "fix" that will magically make his life happy again. And if he does get her, it will be just as successful as the first two were.
But I'm not sure marion loves the child, either. The family that he shows doesn't make sense: no love shown between the adults or toward the child, but she seems happy and well adjusted. I don't know whether Fitzgerald meant to portray a happy family, and just didn't know what they look like, or an unhappy one, but wanted his daughter to be perfect anyway.
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My impression of Lorraine's behavior and his reaction makes me think he'd stay away from her.
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I have to admit that when I first read that sentence about being alone, I too thought of Lorraine. Because I don't want the story to be about that, I think I talked myself out of that meaning....but obviously since you, Pat and JoanK, thought about it, it's a possibility (however remote ;) )
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You all --your insights -- have motivated me to read the story again. Another metaphor that struck me is the many references to "paying." It seems as if paying money is equated by Charlie to spending/using up/losing himself as opposed to giving and being enriched/developing himself.
Here are a few instances:
"It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember--his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont."
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"He passed a lighted door from which issued music, and stopped with the sense of familiarity; it was Bricktop's, where he had parted with so many hours and so much money."
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"All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word "dissipate"--to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion."
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There wasn't much he could do now except send Honoria some things; he would send her a lot of things tomorrow. He thought rather angrily that this was just money--he had given so many people money. . . .
"No, no more," he said to another waiter. "What do I owe you?"... He would come back some day; they couldn't make him pay forever."
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I was torn between wanting Charlie to have his child and wondering whether she might be better off with her aunt. He thinks drinking is under control since he only allows himself 1 a day. How much longer before that 1 becomes 2 and so on? He returned to Paris and visited his old haunts...was he missing his life as it had been?
Sally
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I agree, Sally, I think you've put your finger on it.
I actually never thought of Lorraine either, nlhome, but I agree with Marcie that Pat and JoanK have opened up a new possibility, and his whiny "so alone," could well apply to, if not Lorraine, somebody else along the way, or even the camaraderie of a bar, the "ownership" he felt in the old bars where everybody knew his name (but not, apparently that he had a child). So it's a superficial bonhomie.
"So alone." It's all about Charlie, isn't it? The child would have been alone for 10 months, mother dead, father missing, had it not been for Marion: any thoughts for her?
6 months is nothing, Charlie.
I really love all the different slants on this, and things you see. I missed the Lorraine connection entirely, I thought he was repulsed by her or turned off, but he gave them the address!
Oh the paying thing is brilliant, Marcie. Lots on paying. I thought it was odd that Lincoln said, while you were roaring we were just making do. I didn't quite understand there what he meant? They don't have a lot of money, there are doormen and chauffeurs laughing on Charlie's tips, but Lincoln has taken on his child. The child will cost them, (Lincoln is in this too) in addition to their own, quite a bit to raise and educate, and this apparently is 1931, the height of the Great Depression. Is Lincoln saying he should be giving THEM child support? Is that his way of saying Marion resents you because we were struggling while you threw it away.
He threw so much away. And now he's so alone. I'm coming back to Barbara's dissipation: that was a GOOD set of points, there.
I love the "paying" theme. He's paid, in his eyes, paid and paid and "paid his dues," as if it's only about him, and now he wants his reward. More whining. This does not bode well.
I thought Ella had a stunning point about the child would resent Marion, I never thought of that, either. If Marion does not vilify or characterize Charlie as an alcoholic, the child may well resent her. If she does, bad on her, she hasn't so far, which is amazing considering the circumstances.
I'm not sure I see that there's no love between Lincoln and Marion, they are in a very stressful situation. Lincoln seems remarkable to me, trying to see both sides. Marion as a parent sees that Charlie wants finally to be a parent, and she understands that, but the elephant is still in the living room.
This thing, written in 1931, could be written today, I don't see it as dated, do you? Universal themes. Wonder why it's still relevant almost a century later, since we, in 2013, are so enlightened.
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Interesting the use of "escaped to a grave" when referring to his wife's death - leaving him behind in this awful world? That was her way of getting away from the dissipated life, leaving him behind to do the harder thing and remember it?
I realize that alcoholics are in denial until they face up to it - I understand there are programs other than AA that would look at Charlie's actions as getting control of his alcohol issues, and he has done it for a long time, at least that is what he says. I seem to remember someone saying he was self-centered - which is part of what I also understand about AA, that the individual is the only one who can do something and that the individual comes first. As for 6 months - he's gone longer than that, I believe, with the control, or maintenance, of his drinking - so maybe in the scheme of things, not so long.
I think Lincoln may be caught between his wife, whose hatred is so strong it makes her sick, and his logic. He loves her, so has to stand by her. And they still have the daughter. So Charlie is alone, not even family to help him.
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Charlie is typical of the "stinki thinkin" of the Alcoholic.
His daughter is there so HE won't be lonely rather than he, as the adult , is there to care for her.
In so many Alcoholic families the children are expected to fill the adults needs rather than the other way around.
Anyone who knows these families can cite how five, six and seven year olds take care of younger siblngs, do the cooking and feel responsible for the family.
Also, the lavish spending Charlie uses to assuage his guilty conscience is another way of making up for his inability to really care for his daughter. Money equals love to many disturbed individuals.
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reading this from Ms. Magazine cements my dislike of some writers in the 20s and 30s - there work may be world class outstanding but the price makes me cringe to the point of stomach turning.
"Indeed, Zelda, who was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and died at an insane asylum, spent most of her marriage struggling to define herself as an artist and her own person. Her husband copied liberally from her journals and letters for his novels. When she finally wrote an autobiographical novel of her marriage in 1932, Save Me the Waltz, he edited out several of the stories that he intended to use for his own, 1934’s Tender Is the Night..."
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That's shocking, Barb, though not surprising. F. Scott was never able to recapture the magic, or match the success of his Great Gatsby written in 1925 - no matter how hard he tried.
We've been trying to separate the author from his character Charlie Wales, but can't help but be reminded of the similarities. It's kind of eerie to consider that this story was written in 1930 - and that Zelda didn't die until 1947. He was writing this story while she was living - in the sanitorium!
I'm sitting here wondering why he wrote it...what motivated him? Was he trying to prove to the family - (and to himsel) that he had really reformed, or maybe it was just wishful thinking- hoping for a better life if only he could.
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I didn't see Lorraine as a temptation...he says she seemed "trite, blurred, worn away." Really doesn't want to have anything more to do with her - lonely as he is. Do you see the loneliness overcoming his good intentions, PatH? I don't think he left his address at the Ritz bar for Lorraine, did he? He just wanted to reconnect with familiar faces, as he saw no one he knew now? Or maybe he knew Lorraine and her like would track him down. He did avoid her direct requests for his address when she asked him for it.
Mixed feelings towards Marion, Marcie. I saw her as a sister who was always jealous of her prettier, rich sister who had a gay old time in Paris. Was Marion really "sick" after Lorraine's visit? What kind of sick is this? Is she really concerned about about Honaria's welfare or jealous to learn that Charlie is making a comeback?
How cruel, telling Honaria she was going to live with dads dads dads. Who is to tell her now that this is off? And why? (Do you wonder how Scottie Fitzgerald reacted to this story?)
I thought the best line in the story - "He lost a lot in the crash, but everything he wanted in the boom."
The moral is there, no?
Thank you for bringing us this spirited discussion, Ella! We'll stay open for more comments, but don't forget today we are beginning the discussion of Frank O'Connor's First Confession (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=3834.0). You won't want to miss this one either.
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
Short Stories - Some SeniorLearn Favorites - JUNE ~ JULY
(http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/shortstory/storyheading.jpg)
It is said that a good short story should include: * a strong theme, * a fascinating plot, * a fitting structure, * unforgettable characters, * a well-chosen setting, * an appealing style. Let's consider these elements as we discuss the following stories. Is it necessary to include them all in a successful story?
Notice that the titles are all links to the stories.
Discussion Schedule:
June 1 -June 9: *The Book of The Funny Smells--and Everything (1872) (http://shortstoriesreadonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-of-funny-smells-and-everything.html) by Eleanor H Abbott *The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace (1880) (http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gdemaupassant/bl-gdemaup-diamond.htm)- by Guy de Maupassant *A Pair of Silk Stockings (1896) (http://www.americanliterature.com/author/kate-chopin/short-story/a-pair-of-silk-stockings)by Kate Chopin
June 10- 14: *Babylon Revisited by F.Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
June 15- 17: *First Confession by Frank O'Connor (https://www2.bc.edu/john-g-boylan/files/first-confession.pdf)
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BABYLON REVISITED by F.Scott Fitzgerald (http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html)
Topics for Consideration
June 10 - June 14
Click this link for French terms appearing in Babylon Revisited) - (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfrenchterms.txt)
| (http://www.seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/babylonrevisited/babylonfitzportrait.jpg) |
Have you revisited your own past, physically, mentally? What were the best years, the worst?
“strident queens” - two words that date this story. Today from the lamposts in my capitol city of Columbus, Ohio we have colorful banners promoting the “Stonewall Pride” parade. - http://www.stonewallcolumbus.org/ - times have changed. Is this progress?
Fitzgerald states that despite the economy, whether up or down - prostitution is a good business. What did you think when you read this?
“Now at least you can go into a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire.” Is this still true? Do Europeans or the world, for that matter, still believe every American is wealthy?
Charlie believes in “character” - the “eternally valuable element.” But “everything wore out.” What did Charlie mean? |
PLEASE JOIN THE NEXT SHORT STORY DISCUSSION, June 15-17 HERE: *First Confession by Frank O'Connor (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?board=159.0)
DL Contact: Ella Gibbons (egibbons28@columbus.rr.com )
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Thank you, ELLA for a great discussion.
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Yes, thank you very much Ella, and all of the participants, for an interesting discussion.
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Ella, you've said you don't read much fiction. That may be, but you sure know how to lead a good fiction discussion. You really kept us going. Thank you.
And thanks to everyone for bringing in so many ideas and interpretations. We really squeezed every drop out of that story.