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.
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”…
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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?
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.
We flit from problem to problem instead of digging in and doing something. A perpetual first act.
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.
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.
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.
After all, there is no place like home.
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.
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.
You cannot redo or undo what has been done.
Maybe F. Scott was just having a bad day.
No one learns anything. Nothing resolved
Didn't Jay Gatsby's life have a second 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.
It means there's no word in American for "siesta."
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.
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.
Wow. Writers... This thread is nerd heaven. Thank you all!
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."