In his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American Lives.” What do you suppose he meant by that?
First thing that comes to me is that Americans have a unique culture where you're always building up to "something," that's about to happen (Act 1), but then BAM you're fucking dead (FIN). There's no cultural phase where now we're clear on the quest and doing the thing and hitting the crescendo. It's a phase that's delayed until it's snuffed out.
Yeah I thought about that, and you could write it that way, but I think the important thing is what's happening in your mind at that moment. Like in your mind, you put your daughter in school and your wife in the asylum and your old dad in a home, but it's not steps on the way to solving your story goal or whatever. There is no goal. It's just shit that's happening and happening and happening. It's like we're all waiting for our inciting incident and then we're eating alone and we choke on a rib bone and it's lights out before it "started" in the sense of a second act. Like, what plot is now subverted when you're turning blue on the floor?
Hmmmm, I was awake last night regretting this cheap shot. Instead of deleting my own snarky comment, I will leave it here as proof of my own petty smallness.
We all "neglect" our emotional commitments when we have to work for a living. RIP F. Scott.
I think he meant that we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. Although it could just as easily be a quote about our current “cancel culture”…
Read 'The Jungle' by Sinclair Lewis, first. "And then all the rats and their feces and the aged cheeses went into a shredder and were ground, the rats alive, and made into new cheeses..." You have to love a novel about food adulteration. You'll love the part about rotted hams.
'Uncle Tom's Cabin'... 'The Jungle'... 'The Grapes of Wrath'... 'To Kill a Mockingbird'... 'The Fountainhead'... Has any film ever catalyzed social change the way any of these novels has? Novels can still be relevant.
I don’t think so. I wish some films could have catalyzed change to way novels have. For instance, David Lynch’s “Mullholand Drive” had more to say about how the film industry treats women than it’s recognized for.
I believe you’re right though. I can’t think of any that did complete the task of change. More like they turned watershed events into entertainment and dollars.
I will read and get back to you. I'm dying for some great reads. My other lesser favorite writers include David Sedaris, Jeffrey Eugenides, Margaret Mitchell, Dean Koontz, Lisa See etc...... You got a top 100 must read books list?
Skip 'The Last Tycoon' and read 'The Day of the Locust' instead. Fitzgerald and Nathanael West were best friends. The story is they died days apart because West was racing back from a hunting trip in order to attend Fitz's funeral (West died in a car accident, running a stop sign). 'Locust' is so similar to 'Tycoon' that you know they were sharing drafts with each other. And the West book has an ending...
Never read the book, but perhaps obsession and acceptance of youth and what's novel, much like Nabokov's "Lolita," and how we've missed the boat to begin again once we're older, perhaps how we're screwed to toil until too old with little energy to begin anew, perhaps in matters of when we Fall that it's over and you'll always be remembered for your wrong in the eyes of others, tainting anything we do from then on. I do know one thing now, maybe I should read the book.
I think he helped give birth to the illusion of the infinite that America and then the rest of the world have defined as "History". Staring Autistically out of the window, telling stories about supposed Ennuie, when World Wars Rage, Machines Fly...the peak of dynamism. But the illusion of "this is how it has always been" when there was Slavery one Grandpa ago in his time. It's being frozen in a Narcissist's Mirrored Ball. The only pain is the Ego Injury of feeling no part is played. An Act One forever, the Audience waiting for something that never comes. There is no Audience.
And he row row rowed his boat past the end of history, where there be Dragons. You are the genius of yours in a lot of the same ways I think. I think History proper is the struggle to agree upon a story, that links tribes in the agreement. The only thing Humanity can agree on really, is what weve learned and why they were Lost. There is no Trauma so severe it can't be made Banal. Numbness and Delusional Disaffection are the only psychological sure things. A Gunbarrel and Bootheels. The Struggle to Feel, comes after survival, but requires accepting Horror and Agony; show the wound and douse it in Hope and her Blue Eyes.
Anthony, you are a poet. But you're too young to be so cynical. It's just a matter of time before you tip over into the joy of Absurdist Existentialism. Orwell would've gotten there if not for tuberculosis. Foucault got there, but then... AIDS. Embrace the chaos!
But I didn't answer the question really. And I should throw fewer apples at or to yuh Teach. I'm an American, I went to all the school. Stood next to History Makers in my Navy Blues. Won the Girl. Lost it All. Got it back. Worked in an I.C.E. Concentration Camp. Threw it all away in Horror. Have been serving the poorest and sickest elderly to earn back my Self Respect. Maybe got Her Hazel eyes mine again. I've seen the corruption; the Labotamizing kind; The Dragon's held me in its mouth like a Dog with a Mouse it's not sure what's next. Couple times. Trying to kiss the right wrings, and learn to write. Write right. Yet.......Still, the curtain hasn't budged. Still I could be 17 getting head, wondering who this Man is. Act 1, Scene 10 to the nth power. And if the Bolt comes, and I matter, and that's Act 2, am I still "American"? Not in anyway that would matter to my fellows. Maybe
Nah, Sir, I agree with you in spirit. But Cynisim is Hedonism is Existencialism, which is Hedonism and DaDa as long as you got the Money. I'm not Cynical. My Medicine works, my psychotherapuetic techniques I mean. Work out there,.work in the Mirror. My Wounds heal, my Heart renews. I studied in school in Titty Bars for a good enough reason to make squares laugh and nod. I aspire to be no one, Le Etrange. I party like a Rock Star. They only ever got me for smoking weed when Dad as World said not to. Those Clowns running in Portland, got me through Organic Chemistry, and all the Way to Portland during the Chaos. Forrest Gump via some base Alchemical I'm trying to make into characters without the stench of the Autobiography. ....Which, you are a Master at. I don't agree that all the Protagansists sound the same, but they all never sound like you. That's the Magic I came to learn from. And how to ramble because I can't tolerate an Audience
And I did it again. Fucoult's "Psychiatric Power" is my whole point. But then wasn't that Plague the renunciation of the Postmodern. I want to be Absurdist. I don't want to need to have a point. But the Money Run Out, and then your just another Mime. Or. As I say in rela Life. Someone has to talk to the Cops when they get here.
Maybe he meant that American lives are non-linear and don't have Acts but instead are a series of interwoven cycles lived by people who believe their lives are a movie.
He did get meta with ‘Lunar Park’ (which is putting it lightly). ‘Glamorama’ is the novel about Victor Ward - not all that intelligent model who, through odd circumstances, gets taken hostage by part of a terrorist cell that’s comprised of former models. Thought out the duration of the narrative, Victor constantly refers to a camera crew that follows him around but which actually isn’t their. Whenever he wants to make a decision, he consults with the non-existent crew director.
I think he was making excuses. He was unable to change. That hunger he had, reaching for that green light. He was unable to moderate his lifestyle, burning through his money, health, and sanity - a milder version of his wife, Zelda. There was no second act for him. He could see the end rushing towards him.
I didn't see it as an excuse so much as a fear that he would never experience the zenith of success again. At the peak of his success (mid-1920s) he told a story about how travelling in a taxi one afternoon in New York City he started weeping when he realized he that he would never be as happy again. It's an attitude that doesn't allow for second acts.
Maybe it was an unfinished thought. I heard an FSF scholar on a radio show mention it wasn't the first time he used the line so looked it up and sure enough, he wrote that line in his 1933 essay "My Lost City" too: "I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days."
When it comes to creating our future selves I think we prefer insanity more than we’d like to admit. Old ways of winning, expecting different and better results. The second act offers the chaos and conflict required to truly change, but it’s often too scary and you risk losing a way back home if you go too far. So we hunker down and stick to what we know. There is no journey taken. It’s easier to convince oneself that the uncertain roads were probably bullshit and it’s a waaayyy better time playing it safe.
Was he meaning that American life is only the first act, or was he saying that we skip from the first act to the third? I haven't read enough Fitzgerald or recently enough to really know the answer.
I wonder, what’s your perspective on “past selves”? People we were who we’re trying to either get away from or back to, the person we are now, and how we view ourselves, how all of that plays in who we wish to become? Interesting how we rarely do the uncomfortable work to get to that future, thus winding up at points of traumatized self reflection and anxious reactions in a cycle, ad insanitum.
High School Physics Class introduced me the concepts of Distance vs. Displacement and it’s stuck with me.
Distance- how much path was traveled between the origin and the destination. Displacement- how far apart the origin and destination truly are right now.
Time is another harrowing journey. However, if the trip is planned around resolution, clarity, it can be as painful as it is insightful. Rent a car to go down Memory Lane. Don’t fly over where it everything looks good miles overhead just to pick out your old house. Risk going into the dark corners you avoided . Bring a flashlight into the dusty attic where you packed away the trophies and yearbooks between Christmas decorations as it may shine a light on the ugly truth…
Past You may have not been a Winner, just Not-A-Loser. Good times weren’t that great. Bad times weren't the end of the world. And yet, “Past Self” remains strikingly similar to “Present Self” which still looks nothing like “Future Self”? Distance = Decades. Displacement = Zero. Oh, how far we haven’t come.
You’d think “Present Self” should be more free after this. Clearer on how to not to look like “Past Self” or “Future Self”, but maybe this is the Second Act we lie about experiencing. We go there in our minds. Alone. No witnesses. So when we bring back this enlightenment and don’t correct our habits after an inward journey there‘s no judgement.
The beauty of memory is that it is basically Vegas.
But I digress, I’ve been telling myself over and over lately that I am NOT my Participation Ribbons. Funny how they stick to shoes like toilet paper.
Could maybe be alluding to how there’s no opportunity for a prolonged amount of time in which a person can take a break or escape from their day-to-day life. Second acts tend to feature the “road trip”, or something similar in effect where a character takes a break from the main crux of the narrative and that doesn’t exactly apply to the average person’s life. You don’t get to walk away from everything, drop all of your responsibilities, only to return and pick up from where you left off as if nothing happened.
I guess the line could be considered quite the pessimistic truism that’s still relevant nearly a century onwards. The west — America in particular — is a largely work ethic focussed culture (I know, I know. Find me a culture that isn’t and we can pack our suitcases). For example, if someone goes into further education in the present day, there’s no room for pursuing something that you might have an interest in or which might be considered as a hobby. No, it’s got to be something that’s going to be beneficial for your future, providing you with better hypothetical opportunities in regards to a career/financial security.
Or it could be that a person spends so long in their “first act” figuring out the what the kinks are — “Kinks“ in this instance being, you know, the one or two things that you might have to learn/experience in life — resulting in not so much as a “second act” but instead more of a prolonged first one that comes complete with a relatively short “third act” tacked on at the end in which the person inevitably spends the majority of the time with wondering where the hell the “second act” went.
Could it be that the pursuit of “The American Dream” is the only “act” we (Americans) have? You never fully achieve it, maybe you obtain portions of it. Our only second act is dying. This is drawing off my knowledge of his whole “lost generation” gig.
This was one of those cultural phenomenas which I 100 percent could not relate to. In my mind, soap operas were shows that housewives had on in the background while warming up frozen dinners and chain smoking.
I'd trade McDonalds for Tim Hortons anytime. British Columbia and Nova Scotia strike me as national treasures. Without Quebec, the world would never have Cirque du Soleil!
I believe he got stuck in his first act for the majority of his life though not before doing a reasonably good impression of a pool floaty come the impromptu third act.
Relatedly, I guess, a few days ago I wound up watching the scene in Fight Club where Pitt says Just. Let. Go. in reaction/despair to learning that a friend plans his day around watching Jeopardy at 7:30 every evening. People don't change. There is no second act.
I’m gonna go with, he wrote that but because the novel it was in was never finished he didn’t have a chance to explain what he meant.
Reading it, though, I’ll hazard a guess that we in America get a first act and a third (or fourth, fifth, etc.) but nobody wants to tell the story of the boring bits of life that are not “struggle” but are the potatoes that make the meat so appetizing.
Maybe that our impatience, short attention span, and perennial discontent leads to either full-throttle, crash and burn existences, or horribly drawn-out denouements?
i think fitzgerald wrotr this later in life when he had been through the ringer with publishers and friends and he was extremely jaded by the prospect of going from famous published novelist to paid hollywood scribe. but hey, faulkner and dorothy parker were doing it too so at least he was in good company. i do not subscribe to this remark he made because lots of great writers, actors, artists have resurrected their careers in mid-life or later in life from the dustbin of creative genius.
i think it was a lot of other things in his personsl life too like zelda being mad as a hatter and hemingway's compleye rejection of scott as an author and a friend. Fitzgerald was broken by the time he got to Hollywood. Died of a broken heart rather than a heart attack
spot on. and i think bret has mentioned in his podcast that he thinks star authorhead is dead, especially with everyone blogging all the time. BTW if you can...check out bret's interview with chuck and stay to the very end. it's a hoot
That the average American doesn’t take chances anymore. They don’t live big dreams. Instead they keep their heads down and grind through an endless loop of working and making no progress in things that really matter — like who they want to be. From a male perspective, it’s the corporate castration of his ability to take control of his own life. In modern America, if you want to have a second act, it means you either end up swimming in a sea of cash or living under a bridge. Instead of taking risks that might put you under a bridge, people work toward ‘safe play’ career advancements. They don’t worry about the problems of others surrounding them, so long as they have the financial means to avoid such problems themselves. America no longer has the romantic luxury of taking risks in the face of adversity. It’s now about finding excuses to avoid them. (And to pretend you’re not avoiding them)
Most of the "Character Development" of a person occurs in Childhood. Childhood traumas or lack there of inform who we become as adults. You go to school. You get A's or F's. You go to college or trade school. That informs whether you will be a plumber or a hedge fund manager. Then that is what they do for the rest of their lives.
We like like the familiar. Most of our media consumption habits whether it be music, movies, or books are a product of our formative years. Like the same bedtime story being read to us every night. Very few people put in the work to change. Particularly in F. Scotts time period I can't imagine there were too many people clamoring to go to therapy or having spiritual awakenings.
Honesty, I can't figure it out. Maybe because we are so fixated on accomplishing a thing, that the process or the long journey often becomes a blur in retrospect?
We like beginings a lot. Think of every friendship, every relationship, every invention that always looks like a delicious hot potatoe at first but, eventually burns our mouths. A second act in life is often a dark walk that demands sacrifice to get out from, and an almost 'twisted' ability to enjoy the pleasures of the night, and a confidence to wait patiently for the dawn. These journeys can drive a person nuts so, thank God we can always hit the reset button.
Dang. I think I just had a morning epiphany. I think what he means is that the second act is where characters endure trials that lead to the growth required to triumph (or at least survive) in the third act. We, as Americans, rarely achieve this growth or face insurmountable obstacles. E.g. the star quarterback who spends his life in his high school letterman jacket, working a factory job, performing the same task for forty-two years.
What if Fitzgerald isn’t assuming lives have 2 acts; what if the quote assumes imagining a traditional 3 act structure? 1st act - introduce character, who gains some power; 2nd act - character learns to use power to successfully solve some low stakes personal conflicts; 3rd act - character triumphs/fails to use power to address high stakes world-ending apocalypse. (Yes, I’m lensing the quote through the American superhero story. But you can substitute “job/family/house/whatever” for “power.”) So, if Fitzgerald was thinking of 3 acts, maybe he was saying Americans are expected to excel with the power/talents/opportunities/people they get before they’re ready. Another way to explain it maybe? In high school, I was a lifeguard. Some swim instructors thought the best way to teach someone to swim was to simply throw them in the deep end. I don’t know if that approach is effective, but it always struck me as being uniquely American.
Most americans double down on their ineffective identity once it is no longer working to their advantage. We keep busy beating our heads on the wall trying to break through it, until a pandemic gives some of us time to see that we could just take a very long, uncomfortable walk around it. I cant type the whole story here, but I lived this and will share the most important bits.
Postcards from the Future put the idea of writing fiction into my head in 2011 or so, but I had a lot more fucking up to do first. Left home and bounced around the country for 9 years, changing very VERY slowly. Then in 2017 Sebastian Junger encouraged me to write about the travels. I havent done that, but it did get me writing again some. I had written songs a lot as a kid but fallen out of it because I was working myself to death. A pandemic, another cross country move, and an injury finally got me into a daily writing habit. I knew I had to change 9 years prior, and I knew I had to travel to accomplish that, but I also needed enough time away from working shit jobs to exhaustion every day to accomplish the change. 2020 was the first time in my life I had a soft place to land and didnt have to focus on survival every day, and I finally feel like a whole human being.
I am typing this from a leaky, musty camper that tweakers stole all the copper off because I want that to be the story of finishing this book. I would rather live in squalor than go back to working a job I hate around people I hate to live comfortably, have no energy for writing, and be miserable. Even if I wind up not selling it, and serializing it here, its great practice and a huge personal win. I will figure out a way to make a living from writing fiction.
Yes, sometimes we have to live life for a while before we have something worthwhile to say, or we needed the time and experience to figure out how to say it.
I took "acts" to "chances" and interpreted it as you you don't get a do-over at life so make the most of it. Much in the vein of those "life isn't a dress rehearsal" saying.
Then I read all y'all comments and felt a bit...um simple 😖
I think the American dream is to magically strike it rich. And Fitzgerald's characters often find no meaning in the wealth they have accumulated, and then the story is over. Act two would be the challenges that test the character's assumptions about the emptiness of their wealth, and act three would cement that meaning in the character's mind. The quote could just be a pessimistic look at the wealth Americans value most.
Everyone perceives their lives as an ongoing first act. Admitting to yourself that you're beyond your formative years is both depressing and infuriating, so we all consider whatever point we're at in life as the beginning. I believe it's a Buddhist quote that goes: "The problem is, you think you have time."
I used to coach high school track, and about half of track coaches are athletes reliving their glory days. I expect a lot of folks have a first act, then just sort of re-live it or recycle it over and over until they’re so distanced from it that it no longer works for them.
Americans are constantly trying to recapture in a second act what they perceive as beautifully wonderful in a first act. They do not recognize the futility of trying to replicate what never was. Fitzgerald knew this all too well. Read "Winter Dreams."
Unfinished, like The Last Tycoon if I'm not mistaken.
I wonder how it would have turned out if he didn't die while writing it and his editor hadn't ghost write the ending.
Wah? Edmund Wilson ghost-wrote the end of 'The Last Tycoon'?
Excellent point. It's like the Patty Duke song in 'Valley of the Dolls' that critics panned as being "a bridge in constant search of some verses."
First thing that comes to me is that Americans have a unique culture where you're always building up to "something," that's about to happen (Act 1), but then BAM you're fucking dead (FIN). There's no cultural phase where now we're clear on the quest and doing the thing and hitting the crescendo. It's a phase that's delayed until it's snuffed out.
But... isn't the raising-kids-part the second act? Or the put-your-daughter-in-boarding-school and put-your-wife-in-an-asylum part?
Ah the good ol days
Yeah I thought about that, and you could write it that way, but I think the important thing is what's happening in your mind at that moment. Like in your mind, you put your daughter in school and your wife in the asylum and your old dad in a home, but it's not steps on the way to solving your story goal or whatever. There is no goal. It's just shit that's happening and happening and happening. It's like we're all waiting for our inciting incident and then we're eating alone and we choke on a rib bone and it's lights out before it "started" in the sense of a second act. Like, what plot is now subverted when you're turning blue on the floor?
But... wait, in the second act you get to build the big-big house!
No place like big-big home.
Yes! Where else would the Amazon boxes arrive...?
Hmmmm, I was awake last night regretting this cheap shot. Instead of deleting my own snarky comment, I will leave it here as proof of my own petty smallness.
We all "neglect" our emotional commitments when we have to work for a living. RIP F. Scott.
I think he meant that we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. Although it could just as easily be a quote about our current “cancel culture”…
Probably, he means we don’t do much of anything important between college and retirement.
What?! Have you not read 'Babbitt' by Sinclair Lewis?! No, wait, you're right. Sinclair West says you're right.
Just throwing it out there. :) I haven’t read it. But I will now that you’ve suggested it.
Read 'The Jungle' by Sinclair Lewis, first. "And then all the rats and their feces and the aged cheeses went into a shredder and were ground, the rats alive, and made into new cheeses..." You have to love a novel about food adulteration. You'll love the part about rotted hams.
'Uncle Tom's Cabin'... 'The Jungle'... 'The Grapes of Wrath'... 'To Kill a Mockingbird'... 'The Fountainhead'... Has any film ever catalyzed social change the way any of these novels has? Novels can still be relevant.
I don’t think so. I wish some films could have catalyzed change to way novels have. For instance, David Lynch’s “Mullholand Drive” had more to say about how the film industry treats women than it’s recognized for.
I believe you’re right though. I can’t think of any that did complete the task of change. More like they turned watershed events into entertainment and dollars.
(doing victory dance, hoping Bret Ellis takes note that novels still have a place in our culture)
I will read and get back to you. I'm dying for some great reads. My other lesser favorite writers include David Sedaris, Jeffrey Eugenides, Margaret Mitchell, Dean Koontz, Lisa See etc...... You got a top 100 must read books list?
Skip 'The Last Tycoon' and read 'The Day of the Locust' instead. Fitzgerald and Nathanael West were best friends. The story is they died days apart because West was racing back from a hunting trip in order to attend Fitz's funeral (West died in a car accident, running a stop sign). 'Locust' is so similar to 'Tycoon' that you know they were sharing drafts with each other. And the West book has an ending...
Never read the book, but perhaps obsession and acceptance of youth and what's novel, much like Nabokov's "Lolita," and how we've missed the boat to begin again once we're older, perhaps how we're screwed to toil until too old with little energy to begin anew, perhaps in matters of when we Fall that it's over and you'll always be remembered for your wrong in the eyes of others, tainting anything we do from then on. I do know one thing now, maybe I should read the book.
I think he helped give birth to the illusion of the infinite that America and then the rest of the world have defined as "History". Staring Autistically out of the window, telling stories about supposed Ennuie, when World Wars Rage, Machines Fly...the peak of dynamism. But the illusion of "this is how it has always been" when there was Slavery one Grandpa ago in his time. It's being frozen in a Narcissist's Mirrored Ball. The only pain is the Ego Injury of feeling no part is played. An Act One forever, the Audience waiting for something that never comes. There is no Audience.
But...b ut.. bu t.. (stammering & sputtering) Fitz was part of the Lost Generation, who fought the Great War, and survived the Spanish Flu...
And he row row rowed his boat past the end of history, where there be Dragons. You are the genius of yours in a lot of the same ways I think. I think History proper is the struggle to agree upon a story, that links tribes in the agreement. The only thing Humanity can agree on really, is what weve learned and why they were Lost. There is no Trauma so severe it can't be made Banal. Numbness and Delusional Disaffection are the only psychological sure things. A Gunbarrel and Bootheels. The Struggle to Feel, comes after survival, but requires accepting Horror and Agony; show the wound and douse it in Hope and her Blue Eyes.
Anthony, you are a poet. But you're too young to be so cynical. It's just a matter of time before you tip over into the joy of Absurdist Existentialism. Orwell would've gotten there if not for tuberculosis. Foucault got there, but then... AIDS. Embrace the chaos!
But I didn't answer the question really. And I should throw fewer apples at or to yuh Teach. I'm an American, I went to all the school. Stood next to History Makers in my Navy Blues. Won the Girl. Lost it All. Got it back. Worked in an I.C.E. Concentration Camp. Threw it all away in Horror. Have been serving the poorest and sickest elderly to earn back my Self Respect. Maybe got Her Hazel eyes mine again. I've seen the corruption; the Labotamizing kind; The Dragon's held me in its mouth like a Dog with a Mouse it's not sure what's next. Couple times. Trying to kiss the right wrings, and learn to write. Write right. Yet.......Still, the curtain hasn't budged. Still I could be 17 getting head, wondering who this Man is. Act 1, Scene 10 to the nth power. And if the Bolt comes, and I matter, and that's Act 2, am I still "American"? Not in anyway that would matter to my fellows. Maybe
I stand corrected, I guess.
Nah, Sir, I agree with you in spirit. But Cynisim is Hedonism is Existencialism, which is Hedonism and DaDa as long as you got the Money. I'm not Cynical. My Medicine works, my psychotherapuetic techniques I mean. Work out there,.work in the Mirror. My Wounds heal, my Heart renews. I studied in school in Titty Bars for a good enough reason to make squares laugh and nod. I aspire to be no one, Le Etrange. I party like a Rock Star. They only ever got me for smoking weed when Dad as World said not to. Those Clowns running in Portland, got me through Organic Chemistry, and all the Way to Portland during the Chaos. Forrest Gump via some base Alchemical I'm trying to make into characters without the stench of the Autobiography. ....Which, you are a Master at. I don't agree that all the Protagansists sound the same, but they all never sound like you. That's the Magic I came to learn from. And how to ramble because I can't tolerate an Audience
And I did it again. Fucoult's "Psychiatric Power" is my whole point. But then wasn't that Plague the renunciation of the Postmodern. I want to be Absurdist. I don't want to need to have a point. But the Money Run Out, and then your just another Mime. Or. As I say in rela Life. Someone has to talk to the Cops when they get here.
We flit from problem to problem instead of digging in and doing something. A perpetual first act.
Americans are a policy of infinite possibilities.
There is no second act; only reactions.
Starting anew at any given moment.
Maybe he meant that American lives are non-linear and don't have Acts but instead are a series of interwoven cycles lived by people who believe their lives are a movie.
Do you have covid? Everyone else in workshop has posted their test on Discord. Hope you're well. Glad (very) I missed last Monday (food poisoning).
(but even movies have second acts!)
I'm negative! Thanks for checking, I waited 5 days to take the test. Your poisoned salad may have saved you Chuck.
So... does this mean Bret Easton Ellis’ “Glamorama” is the second act?
That's when he went 'meta'.... Or was it 'Lunar Park'?
Lunar Park. The protagonist is a fictionalized version of himself.
He did get meta with ‘Lunar Park’ (which is putting it lightly). ‘Glamorama’ is the novel about Victor Ward - not all that intelligent model who, through odd circumstances, gets taken hostage by part of a terrorist cell that’s comprised of former models. Thought out the duration of the narrative, Victor constantly refers to a camera crew that follows him around but which actually isn’t their. Whenever he wants to make a decision, he consults with the non-existent crew director.
*through out
*there
I always chuckle when I think that Ellis got a settlement from the Zoolander people.
I think he was making excuses. He was unable to change. That hunger he had, reaching for that green light. He was unable to moderate his lifestyle, burning through his money, health, and sanity - a milder version of his wife, Zelda. There was no second act for him. He could see the end rushing towards him.
I didn't see it as an excuse so much as a fear that he would never experience the zenith of success again. At the peak of his success (mid-1920s) he told a story about how travelling in a taxi one afternoon in New York City he started weeping when he realized he that he would never be as happy again. It's an attitude that doesn't allow for second acts.
Maybe it was an unfinished thought. I heard an FSF scholar on a radio show mention it wasn't the first time he used the line so looked it up and sure enough, he wrote that line in his 1933 essay "My Lost City" too: "I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days."
'My Lost City' is glorious. It's read as voiceover in the Ken Burns documentary about New York. I applaud you for citing it.
When it comes to creating our future selves I think we prefer insanity more than we’d like to admit. Old ways of winning, expecting different and better results. The second act offers the chaos and conflict required to truly change, but it’s often too scary and you risk losing a way back home if you go too far. So we hunker down and stick to what we know. There is no journey taken. It’s easier to convince oneself that the uncertain roads were probably bullshit and it’s a waaayyy better time playing it safe.
After all, there is no place like home.
Josh, I love your answer. Really. You'd have the dinosaurs eat the kids in 'Jurassic Park.' That would be worth buying a ticket.
Certainly at least one of the kids. Probably the youngest. The boy. He loved the dinosaurs the most.
Be careful what you wish for Lil’ Gatsby.
Josh, you have a heart of stone. I like that.
Speaking of stones... If Shirley Jackson had channeled her inner Josh, we may have ended up with a much more youthful lottery "winner."
Was he meaning that American life is only the first act, or was he saying that we skip from the first act to the third? I haven't read enough Fitzgerald or recently enough to really know the answer.
I wonder, what’s your perspective on “past selves”? People we were who we’re trying to either get away from or back to, the person we are now, and how we view ourselves, how all of that plays in who we wish to become? Interesting how we rarely do the uncomfortable work to get to that future, thus winding up at points of traumatized self reflection and anxious reactions in a cycle, ad insanitum.
High School Physics Class introduced me the concepts of Distance vs. Displacement and it’s stuck with me.
Distance- how much path was traveled between the origin and the destination. Displacement- how far apart the origin and destination truly are right now.
Time is another harrowing journey. However, if the trip is planned around resolution, clarity, it can be as painful as it is insightful. Rent a car to go down Memory Lane. Don’t fly over where it everything looks good miles overhead just to pick out your old house. Risk going into the dark corners you avoided . Bring a flashlight into the dusty attic where you packed away the trophies and yearbooks between Christmas decorations as it may shine a light on the ugly truth…
Past You may have not been a Winner, just Not-A-Loser. Good times weren’t that great. Bad times weren't the end of the world. And yet, “Past Self” remains strikingly similar to “Present Self” which still looks nothing like “Future Self”? Distance = Decades. Displacement = Zero. Oh, how far we haven’t come.
You’d think “Present Self” should be more free after this. Clearer on how to not to look like “Past Self” or “Future Self”, but maybe this is the Second Act we lie about experiencing. We go there in our minds. Alone. No witnesses. So when we bring back this enlightenment and don’t correct our habits after an inward journey there‘s no judgement.
The beauty of memory is that it is basically Vegas.
But I digress, I’ve been telling myself over and over lately that I am NOT my Participation Ribbons. Funny how they stick to shoes like toilet paper.
Could maybe be alluding to how there’s no opportunity for a prolonged amount of time in which a person can take a break or escape from their day-to-day life. Second acts tend to feature the “road trip”, or something similar in effect where a character takes a break from the main crux of the narrative and that doesn’t exactly apply to the average person’s life. You don’t get to walk away from everything, drop all of your responsibilities, only to return and pick up from where you left off as if nothing happened.
I guess the line could be considered quite the pessimistic truism that’s still relevant nearly a century onwards. The west — America in particular — is a largely work ethic focussed culture (I know, I know. Find me a culture that isn’t and we can pack our suitcases). For example, if someone goes into further education in the present day, there’s no room for pursuing something that you might have an interest in or which might be considered as a hobby. No, it’s got to be something that’s going to be beneficial for your future, providing you with better hypothetical opportunities in regards to a career/financial security.
Or it could be that a person spends so long in their “first act” figuring out the what the kinks are — “Kinks“ in this instance being, you know, the one or two things that you might have to learn/experience in life — resulting in not so much as a “second act” but instead more of a prolonged first one that comes complete with a relatively short “third act” tacked on at the end in which the person inevitably spends the majority of the time with wondering where the hell the “second act” went.
So you're in effect saying "Eat Pray Love" is the American second act?
The exact nature of hook-up culture. Heidegger would be so proud of you right now! (all the better to eat you with, my dear)
Brandan, are you deleting?
I prefer the phrase “Typo amendment in progress” myself.
Also, why does this kinda sound like a veiled threat? Does something happen to people when they delete a certain number of comments?
Is having an existentialist philosopher who harboured some rather interesting political views being proud of you a good thing?
More like “Eat Consume Die”.
Could it be that the pursuit of “The American Dream” is the only “act” we (Americans) have? You never fully achieve it, maybe you obtain portions of it. Our only second act is dying. This is drawing off my knowledge of his whole “lost generation” gig.
"Gig"! Gig! If American's two hottest celebrities (Scott & Zelda) can't find happiness, then what hope is there for the Kardashians?!
Someone should probably tell them.
Did Luke and Laura ever find happiness on 'General Hospital'?
I had college friends who neglected to get degrees because they had to be near a television to see Luke and Laura struggle along.
Kanye will crawl back to her. Just you wait. They have a child together.
This was one of those cultural phenomenas which I 100 percent could not relate to. In my mind, soap operas were shows that housewives had on in the background while warming up frozen dinners and chain smoking.
Chuck, I never picture you keeping up with the kardashians 😆😁
Nor do I. The last time I watched series television Alexis was still slapping Krystal.
You cannot redo or undo what has been done.
Maybe F. Scott was just having a bad day.
That's what I figure, but I'm Canadian so I can't really weigh in here.
I want to be Canadian. (To clarify, way before your comment, I wanted to be Canadian. Instead, I'm a Hoosier.)
Why in God's name would you want... *gestures broadly at my surroundings* THIS
I've spent a little time in Canada. This'll seem crazy, but gravity seems lighter up there. That, and folks seem more civilized.
Our manners are like those of politicians and CEOs. Ultimately self serving.
Oooh. That's harsh. You've got some terrific theatre, though. Some of my favorite performers are Canadian. (Sorry, that's not counting Bieber.)
I was an honorary Canadian for 9 years until I let my residency lapse while I was in Costa Rica. Born in Arizona though.
Ah, but Canada looks soooo beautiful! I'd love to visit it 😊
Aren't Canadians also American?
Are you saying we don't have much in the way of our own identity? Because that's pretty accurate.
I'd trade McDonalds for Tim Hortons anytime. British Columbia and Nova Scotia strike me as national treasures. Without Quebec, the world would never have Cirque du Soleil!
Methinks F. Scott wasn't referring to the entire continent. (Says the self-centered American.)
No one learns anything. Nothing resolved
Didn't Jay Gatsby's life have a second act?
If he did, he couldn't let go of his first act.
I believe he got stuck in his first act for the majority of his life though not before doing a reasonably good impression of a pool floaty come the impromptu third act.
We become too wedded to who we think we are or are supposed to be and thus, it becomes very difficult to evolve or change.
Relatedly, I guess, a few days ago I wound up watching the scene in Fight Club where Pitt says Just. Let. Go. in reaction/despair to learning that a friend plans his day around watching Jeopardy at 7:30 every evening. People don't change. There is no second act.
It means there's no word in American for "siesta."
Yes sir. No rest for the wicked.
Nap? Coffee break?
Typical second act.
of course, F. Scott never had a second act
I guess he means Chekhov's gun is not a thing in America.
Imagine scribbling a random note, only to have people untangling it decades later.
I’m gonna go with, he wrote that but because the novel it was in was never finished he didn’t have a chance to explain what he meant.
Reading it, though, I’ll hazard a guess that we in America get a first act and a third (or fourth, fifth, etc.) but nobody wants to tell the story of the boring bits of life that are not “struggle” but are the potatoes that make the meat so appetizing.
Maybe that our impatience, short attention span, and perennial discontent leads to either full-throttle, crash and burn existences, or horribly drawn-out denouements?
i think fitzgerald wrotr this later in life when he had been through the ringer with publishers and friends and he was extremely jaded by the prospect of going from famous published novelist to paid hollywood scribe. but hey, faulkner and dorothy parker were doing it too so at least he was in good company. i do not subscribe to this remark he made because lots of great writers, actors, artists have resurrected their careers in mid-life or later in life from the dustbin of creative genius.
i think it was a lot of other things in his personsl life too like zelda being mad as a hatter and hemingway's compleye rejection of scott as an author and a friend. Fitzgerald was broken by the time he got to Hollywood. Died of a broken heart rather than a heart attack
spot on. and i think bret has mentioned in his podcast that he thinks star authorhead is dead, especially with everyone blogging all the time. BTW if you can...check out bret's interview with chuck and stay to the very end. it's a hoot
That the average American doesn’t take chances anymore. They don’t live big dreams. Instead they keep their heads down and grind through an endless loop of working and making no progress in things that really matter — like who they want to be. From a male perspective, it’s the corporate castration of his ability to take control of his own life. In modern America, if you want to have a second act, it means you either end up swimming in a sea of cash or living under a bridge. Instead of taking risks that might put you under a bridge, people work toward ‘safe play’ career advancements. They don’t worry about the problems of others surrounding them, so long as they have the financial means to avoid such problems themselves. America no longer has the romantic luxury of taking risks in the face of adversity. It’s now about finding excuses to avoid them. (And to pretend you’re not avoiding them)
Most of the "Character Development" of a person occurs in Childhood. Childhood traumas or lack there of inform who we become as adults. You go to school. You get A's or F's. You go to college or trade school. That informs whether you will be a plumber or a hedge fund manager. Then that is what they do for the rest of their lives.
We like like the familiar. Most of our media consumption habits whether it be music, movies, or books are a product of our formative years. Like the same bedtime story being read to us every night. Very few people put in the work to change. Particularly in F. Scotts time period I can't imagine there were too many people clamoring to go to therapy or having spiritual awakenings.
Honesty, I can't figure it out. Maybe because we are so fixated on accomplishing a thing, that the process or the long journey often becomes a blur in retrospect?
Ah, I don't know lol
There is never a time to not go full blazing. Contemplation is for the neurotic.
We like beginings a lot. Think of every friendship, every relationship, every invention that always looks like a delicious hot potatoe at first but, eventually burns our mouths. A second act in life is often a dark walk that demands sacrifice to get out from, and an almost 'twisted' ability to enjoy the pleasures of the night, and a confidence to wait patiently for the dawn. These journeys can drive a person nuts so, thank God we can always hit the reset button.
Dang. I think I just had a morning epiphany. I think what he means is that the second act is where characters endure trials that lead to the growth required to triumph (or at least survive) in the third act. We, as Americans, rarely achieve this growth or face insurmountable obstacles. E.g. the star quarterback who spends his life in his high school letterman jacket, working a factory job, performing the same task for forty-two years.
What if Fitzgerald isn’t assuming lives have 2 acts; what if the quote assumes imagining a traditional 3 act structure? 1st act - introduce character, who gains some power; 2nd act - character learns to use power to successfully solve some low stakes personal conflicts; 3rd act - character triumphs/fails to use power to address high stakes world-ending apocalypse. (Yes, I’m lensing the quote through the American superhero story. But you can substitute “job/family/house/whatever” for “power.”) So, if Fitzgerald was thinking of 3 acts, maybe he was saying Americans are expected to excel with the power/talents/opportunities/people they get before they’re ready. Another way to explain it maybe? In high school, I was a lifeguard. Some swim instructors thought the best way to teach someone to swim was to simply throw them in the deep end. I don’t know if that approach is effective, but it always struck me as being uniquely American.
Tyvm! Will absolutely do! It's my day off.
Most americans double down on their ineffective identity once it is no longer working to their advantage. We keep busy beating our heads on the wall trying to break through it, until a pandemic gives some of us time to see that we could just take a very long, uncomfortable walk around it. I cant type the whole story here, but I lived this and will share the most important bits.
Postcards from the Future put the idea of writing fiction into my head in 2011 or so, but I had a lot more fucking up to do first. Left home and bounced around the country for 9 years, changing very VERY slowly. Then in 2017 Sebastian Junger encouraged me to write about the travels. I havent done that, but it did get me writing again some. I had written songs a lot as a kid but fallen out of it because I was working myself to death. A pandemic, another cross country move, and an injury finally got me into a daily writing habit. I knew I had to change 9 years prior, and I knew I had to travel to accomplish that, but I also needed enough time away from working shit jobs to exhaustion every day to accomplish the change. 2020 was the first time in my life I had a soft place to land and didnt have to focus on survival every day, and I finally feel like a whole human being.
I am typing this from a leaky, musty camper that tweakers stole all the copper off because I want that to be the story of finishing this book. I would rather live in squalor than go back to working a job I hate around people I hate to live comfortably, have no energy for writing, and be miserable. Even if I wind up not selling it, and serializing it here, its great practice and a huge personal win. I will figure out a way to make a living from writing fiction.
More power to you, John! Keep keeping on & believing.
Much appreciated!
Yes, sometimes we have to live life for a while before we have something worthwhile to say, or we needed the time and experience to figure out how to say it.
Wow. Writers... This thread is nerd heaven. Thank you all!
No kiddin, I'm really glad I subscribed. I've never been exposed to a community like this.
I took "acts" to "chances" and interpreted it as you you don't get a do-over at life so make the most of it. Much in the vein of those "life isn't a dress rehearsal" saying.
Then I read all y'all comments and felt a bit...um simple 😖
I think the American dream is to magically strike it rich. And Fitzgerald's characters often find no meaning in the wealth they have accumulated, and then the story is over. Act two would be the challenges that test the character's assumptions about the emptiness of their wealth, and act three would cement that meaning in the character's mind. The quote could just be a pessimistic look at the wealth Americans value most.
Everyone perceives their lives as an ongoing first act. Admitting to yourself that you're beyond your formative years is both depressing and infuriating, so we all consider whatever point we're at in life as the beginning. I believe it's a Buddhist quote that goes: "The problem is, you think you have time."
I used to coach high school track, and about half of track coaches are athletes reliving their glory days. I expect a lot of folks have a first act, then just sort of re-live it or recycle it over and over until they’re so distanced from it that it no longer works for them.
He meant that Americans didn’t grow or change.
Within the era he wrote, it meant Americans had a beginning (birth) and end (worm food) but nothing in the middle to make Existence meaningful.
Americans are constantly trying to recapture in a second act what they perceive as beautifully wonderful in a first act. They do not recognize the futility of trying to replicate what never was. Fitzgerald knew this all too well. Read "Winter Dreams."