...f scott fitzgerald an american novelist of the modernist - lost generation...

Recently released by the University of South Carolina, the Fitzgerald Ledger (http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/fitzledger.html), of the writer F. Scott to be clear, is a unique perspective of a writer who could enjoy the fruits of his labors in his lifetime.  From it we can glean the massive differences in scale between the release of a novel and the copyright, especially when Hollywood would option the work for film adaptation.  There are private parts, but, he led a private life with multiple biographies, where the ledger's contents shouldn't surprise most.  Equally unique, he was able to piece together parts of his life, no doubt with his mother's help or stories she had told him (http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/fitz/id/44).  I do enjoy going through the snippets that are obviously his memory (go for age 7 forward) and the stories that call to all of us if we ever have the time to be able to do so.

With the DiCaprio version of "...Gatsby" out soon, here is a .pdf version to tote about with you (http://greatgatsby.org/great_gatsby.pdf), and for those that want a copy of "... Benjamin Buttons" (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6695)...

The sudden beauty of Fitzgerald's "Gatsby" is the staidness of narrative.  It is the events and the shocking reactions of the five characters that drive the story forward, and, in most ways, their deviousness and shortsightedness of intentions.  Never overwrought in its prose, but reading almost as a tract of Platonist journalism, it's a quick read, and a brutal one.  So clear are the characters and their flaws, you will see them instantly, within and without.  I've not read many novels where the characters remain with you (only trumped, of course, by my penchant for Twain).

As an exercise of interest, I took the versions of each trailer below.  Amazing how the work survives, although I would love to see a modern take (if it could be done), with the milieu shifted to today's hyper-social, hyper-selfish culture.