The Trickiness of Literary Fame

 Rejections continue, which I have always expected. It is nice when I get a rejection that give me insight on my writing. That they like the writing, but the piece has no place in their publication, or that it did not gain a consensus with all the editors, lets me know the actual prose is not as bad as I might think. You can read my rejections, they are posted under the label “Literary Magazines.” Also helping me with all these rejections is knowing that far better writers pass into obscurity. Starting late in life to do what I was supposed to when young, starting from a non-literary region, I have been reading with intent. I sought out books that might help me with what I did want to write – rather than make any attempt at being fashionable. This led me into places that had lost its fashion. I hope, also, an appreciation for the work only. It has me wondering about my education, its holes.

Reviews like Why have you read ‘The Great Gatsby’ but not Ursula Parrott’s ‘Ex-Wife’? is a good example of who and why the canon is a problem – it is who sets it out that needs questioned. I do not go with the idea of consigning all those dead, white men to the dustbin of history. No, it is a place to start, not a place to end.

I am convinced that “Ex-Wife” deserves a place alongside Fitzgerald’s novel in classrooms and in the hands of a new generation of readers based on the merits of its style and contents.

But more importantly, I’m convinced that the reason Fitzgerald’s novel is so ingrained in American life and letters has little to do with its originality, craft or quality and everything to do with the way books were marketed and promoted over the arc of the 20th century.

“The Great Gatsby” owes its resuscitation from obscurity in the 1940s to the efforts of prominent male critics and scholars – and even to the American military.

Fitzgerald had important friends and admirers, among them the esteemed literary critic Edmund Wilson, who was instrumental in the republication of “Gatsby” in 1941. Thanks to Wilson’s efforts, Fitzgerald’s novel could be taken up by other well-regarded and influential scholars like Lionel Trilling, who wrote admiringly about Fitzgerald in The Nation in 1945, and Malcolm Cowley, who edited collections of Fitzgerald’s short stories and celebrated his literary gifts.

Yes, there is only so much time. Believe me, I know. Having played with Christopher Marlowe as a character, I decided to start doing actual research on him. I have a short novel by Roberto Bolano that needs to be finished, I have stories to be typed, I must get these notes on here. But, if I put this here, maybe someone will read it, and get on with their own writing. (I do this even in the face of declining readers, because of this hope. A contribution, I wish I had had 40 years ago, a debt from a misspent life needing paid.)

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