F.Scott Fitzgerald taught young Americans how to flirt and kiss and play romantic games. Hemingway showed them how to hunt and kill animals and people. Which one of these writers would Americans deify? The killer, of course. “November rain had perversely stolen the day’s last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence - the night” F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and the Damned
“The nighttime wrote a check that daylight couldn’t cash” Thomas McGuane - Panama
After reading three novels by Ernest Hemingway (Sun, Farewell, Belt Holes) and four by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Paradise, Gatsby, Tender, Tycoon) Fitzgerald is stronger, deeper, far more subtle with more color, lyricism ie magic. Hemingway is a plodder in comparison. Hemingway gets boring often, especially in Belt Holes. The Sun Also Rises is the finest of the three. This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald’s finest.
In The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald is mimicking Hemingway’s terse prose to ill effect. The feminine narrator just doesn’t work.