The ‘great American novel’ Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is celebrating its 100 anniversary this week. His take on the excesses of the Neptune in Leo Roaring Twenties has become for many a definitive statement on unaccountable elites today. “They were careless people . . . they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
A thoughtful comparison of his vision of the faultlines in American society a hundred years ago and today’s excesses by cultural historian Sarah Churchwell in the Financial Times deserves a wider audience.
“He foresaw tragedy in the country’s impulse towards grandiosity and self-destruction in its reckless dishonesty.” “The novel’s prescience lies not in foretelling specific events but in diagnosing a culture where power enjoys impunity and cruelty rubs out its traces — a society run by careless people.” “Carelessness, in Fitzgerald’s vision, is more than negligence — it is a way of wielding power. It’s the certainty that the world exists to absorb your damage. “
“Tom is a bully and bigot, a careless, foolish man who triumphs simply because the world permits it —- a society in thrall to raw power. “Flushed with his impassioned gibberish he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.”
“People such as Thiel, Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to find democracy vexatious because it is a theory of power-sharing. Tech moguls who advocate “exit” from democratic accountability imagine themselves natural rulers, reasserting hierarchies that protect their privilege.”
“Musk and Trump posture as saviours, but they are bent on extraction — stripping resources, exploiting labour.” Leaving devastation behind in the Valley of Ashes.
“Fitzgerald saw society not as a historian, but as a novelist who felt the undertow of his own time. The Great Gatsby ends not with transformation but return. The forward motion exists, but the direction is an illusion. Beneath it is recurrence: the same hierarchies, the same betrayals, the same brutalities.”
https://www.ft.com/content/dd6f1a32-398e-47f2-85a3-41120c952554
Scott Fitzgerald, 24 September 1896 3.30 pm St Paul Minnesota, oddly attracted little success during his short life, only becoming recognized after his death from heart disease aged 44 after a spell as an alcoholic.
He had an intense, deep-thinking 8th house Libra Sun inconjunct a Taurus Moon in his communication 3rd so he would be constantly at odds with himself. He had Neptune Mars in Gemini in his creative and entertaining 5th house with Pluto in Gemini in his 4th; and Jupiter in flamboyant Leo conjunct his South Node in his 7th drawing him to the glitz and glamour of the age. He had Venus Mercury in Libra in his 9th house of publishing and writing, along with serious and innovative Saturn Uranus in Scorpio.
His North Node in Aquarius opposition his Jupiter and square his Uranus Saturn arguably pulled him towards a more humanitarian outlook as he understood only too well the siren call of his Jupiter South Node in Leo – and the world of wealth and selfishness which it represented.
He was on his First Saturn Return when The Great Gatsby was published with his Solar Arc Uranus opposition his Mars; and tr Neptune in Leo conjunct his South Node. Surprisingly it was a commercial failure at the time.
He would have understood Neptune moving into Aries only too well.
Thank you Marjorie. Hard to believe a century has passed since The Great Gatsby was published. The quote about ‘They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money…’
reminded me of Mark Zuckerberg’s “Move fast and break things” from 2012. Neptune was just beginning it’s journey through Pisces then, Uranus in early Aries, Pluto still in the first decan of Capricorn. And now look where we are!
I also thought about the creative energy and complicated thoughts and feelings that surged up from the horrors of the First World War and its aftermath. Gatsby is set in 1922, the year when T. S. Eliot’s dark and mindbending poem, The Waste Land, was published. Another Libran writer, he was born 26 September 1888. Like Fitzgerald, he had Mercury 26 degrees conjunct Venus at 24 Libra – conjunct Fitzgerald’s Venus/Mercury. Eliot was one of the generation that carried early Neptune (2) conjunct Pluto in Gemini (5), in his chart they oppose Jupiter too. Be interesting to see what Uranus in Gemini may shake out of the archives from writers and creatives of this generation as it rattles their ‘ghost’ charts.
V. What the Thunder Said
[…]
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Thank you Marjorie for highlighting The Great Gatsby. It’s not only the most beautifully written English language novel ever, but also an indictment of American exceptionalism and the myth of the American dream. Gatsby who embodies the rags to riches success is a law breaking bootlegger, wealthy Tom is a racist thug, Daisy, faithless and shallow, Jordan is a liar and cheat, and Nick, the only one with any redeeming qualities, abandons his dreams of Wall Street success to return to the Mid West. I think this renunciation of wealth probably stems from Fitzgerald’s own experience with early fame and huge financial success, which he subsequently squandered, leaving him broke when his writing fell out of favor.
I find it intriguing that the Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton about the pre war Gilded Age in America and the Great Gatsby about the 1920s Jazz Age were only published 5 years apart, the former in 1920 and the latter in 1925. Both novels about wealth and class set in New York and its environs.
I don’t understand why you state Fitzgerald attracted “little attention.” He was the bestselling author of his time. He and Zelda were the “It” couple of their era.
What does FT stand for….I’m not familiar with London newspapers???
The Financial Times. A well respected daily newspaper with international business and economic affairs its main topics. It’s printed on pink paper!
And with an amazing book jacket that captured all those themes. Especially the eyes and the pornographic images and the tears.
The astrology a perfect fit for a writer and truth teller.