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"Babylon Revisited" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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I'm not always a huge fan of Fitzgerald's, but this story is outstanding. It combines a love of Paris, both broad and close-up looks at people who profited from the bull market prior to the 1929 crash, those who looked at them from afar,and the reaction afterward. In addition, we get the desperate sense of a father trying to recover what is left of his family.And, that brings me to the main question that hovered in my mind after finishing the story. Did you all get the sense that Charlie really loved and wanted Honoria? Something didn't quite gel there. He was proud of her and liked having someone who loved him more than anyone. But, I had the sense that he was trying to recover himself. And, Honoria was part of that process.
And my question focuses on the alcohol. At one point in the story, when things are especially tough with the shrewish Marion, there is admission on his part that he "needs" a drink. Also, he brags about having just one a day, as if that's better than going cold turkey. Do readers buy this? Marion is not a very sympathetic character compared to the eminently reasonable Lincoln, but I think I buy her reaction to Charlie's drinking regime more than Linc's.
His one-a-day program for recovery didn't gel with what I've heard about alcoholism (just one sip and recovery is all over). But, in the world of the story, it seemed to be working for him. I, too, worried (as FSF wanted us to!) when I read that he "needed" a drink. I imagined, at several points, that he would fall back into excessive drinking and lose his chance to regain custody of Honoria. But it didn't happen. I think his desire to recover and his recovery were both real. I did have the sense that, though he loved Honoria and she certainly seemed to love him (and not just for the presents he gave her), he also wanted custody as part of an effort to regain a "normal" life, to establish a "home."
Odd that we didn't hear anything about what was happening to Honoria while her parents were on a drunken tear through the Paris of the 20s, stealing tricycles, tormenting each other by flirting, locking and being locked out of the house. And that the vengeful (and, apparently, willfully blind) Marion didn't hold their neglect of Honoria against them. Perhaps because her sister was also a guilty party?
Yes, the story has "gaps" like that, which means the reader is left with a typical conundrum -- were the gaps placed there for artistic purposes by the author, or are the gaps a lapse on his part?I'm voting the latter, though some might argue that it's just the "iceberg theory" in play, where the writer leaves 90% of his material underwater for the reader to infer. As a writer, you've got to love that iceberg theory. As an ocean liner, not so much....
Newengland: As a writer, you've got to love that iceberg theory. As an ocean liner, not so much.... Thanks for the chuckle, NE!
I agree it is sometimes our work to fill in the blanks. So, should we assume that, because Marion didn't throw bad treatment of Honoria in Charlie's face, that Honoria was cared for throughout? Or that Marion was so obsessed with her sister, maybe because it was too late to mend certain bridges (I think her husband tells Charlie that the 2 sisters had a difficult relationship as children), that she didn't give a fig for how Honoria was treated? I suppose Honoria's positive response to her father throughout indicates that she was not traumatized by earlier experiences. But that seems to neat and improbable to me, given what we know about her dear mom & dad in the late 20's.
If I had to hazard a guess (and I don't have to but I will), I'd guess that Marion may have held her sister in as low esteem as Charlie when she was alive. Death has a way of cleaning the slate, however, and then it becomes a matter of blood and blame -- blood being the sisterly bond and blame being the tendency to point the finger not at family but at interloper (as wayward sorts who marry into families tend to become).
Prior to the crash Charlie and his wife were very affluent. There was a French nanny to take care of Honoria. She would probably be shielded from her parents' evenings of galavanting. It is apparent in the story that Honoria truly loves her father.The story seemed to say that although we try to correct mistakes of the past, the mistakes will haunt us. Especially evident when Lorraine and Duncan appear at Marion and Lincoln's home. Ah, the fickle finger of fate!
Thanks, Rose! I'd forgotten about the French nanny. And I think that Marion was as resentful of their money as she was her sister's death.
FSF's fiction reports on his times. My answer to Barbara's question, "Did you all get the sense that Charlie really loved and wanted Honoria?"would be yes. I picture affluent children as "seen and not heard", except to parade before friends and family as well behaved, short spurts of loving time and gifts would be typical in my mind's eye. I don't even think the children dined with the parents.
Ah, the days of "seen but not heard." I think I read about them in my college mythology course.This story also, in a more subtle manner, takes a shot at Americans. This is the time of the The Lost Generation after the first World War -- the roaring 20s. And yes, though Americans must have been lovely for the Parisian economy, they also must have honed their favored status there as "least liked foreigners."
Is this where Parisians learned to be haughty, or is it in their blood?
NE mentioned the gaps, his iceberg theory. Spot on for me! The beginning of this story is exactly what I always struggle with – too much dialogue. For me, dialogue on paper just doesn’t work. And NE’s gaps explain for my why. I never know who is talking, I struggle to get a picture of each of the characters, and I end up reading and rereading the dialogues several times. When this happens at the beginning of a story that’s not good for me, at least if it happens mid way I have by then “got” the characters in my mind’s eye. Now that said, this story really picks up and paints an interesting and memorable picture of Charlie Wales whose life parallels the roaring 20s and the Crash. He is trying to piece himself and his life back together again. Will he be successful? I suspect the answer will be yes because he doesn’t take the extra drink at the end. Is he an alcoholic? I don’t think so because as has been said alcoholics can’t ever take another drink, none of this one a day lark. I put his previous lifestyle excesses down to over indulgence, which I think fits with the use of “dissipated” throughout and the Babylon of the title. He was going with the flow of the times, with the crowd he was “in” with. Sadly He can’t get away from it, “the fickle finger of fate” as Rose put it comes back to haunt him at every turn in the shape of those dreadful “Babylonians” Lorraine and Duncan.
One of the below the iceberg bits for me was what was Marion’s sickness?
I was also struck by the use of certain phrases throughout this story which to me seemed odd in comparison to the rest of the style – eg
“Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain”…….
“But he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the magnificence façade..”,
“…and watched Josephine Baker go through her chocolate arabesques”
“He woke upon a fine fall day – football weather.”,
“ .. and in the white, soft light that steals upon the half sleep near morning..”
- All so full of colours, sounds, and more than a little incongruous with the rest?
Nice picks of lines there, Sheila. Writing like this I especially like. What makes it a bit odd, maybe, is the fact that F. Scott may have written this with the market in mind -- specifically The Saturday Evening Post in mind. TSEP was a prime publisher of shorts back then and they paid well; when you write for the masses, you're more attuned to story and plot, I think, and more cautious about overwriting, using too much description, getting too fancy with sensory details and figurative language.
Me, I would have loved MORE of the "fire-red, gas-blue, ghost green signs" shining "smokily through tranquil rain." It sets a mood that matches the story.
What struck ME as odd was this bit:
"Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves in a corner.
'Nothing affects them,' he thought. 'Stocks rise and fall, people loaf or work, but they go on forever.' The place oppressed him. He called for the dice and shook with Alix for the drink."
I'm assuming by "queens" he means gay men (it is 20s slang for them), which can only bring to mind one thing -- the shadow of his writing bud and competitor, Ernie Hemingway. We all know the story of Hemingway and Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar, after all! I don't know -- the gratuitous inclusion, though minor, almost looks written by Hemingway, not FSF. That, or it looks like FSF is trying too hard to impress EH in all the wrong ways.
Oh, and Sheila -- you said you don't think Charlie is an alcoholic and then you said "alcoholics can't ever take another drink." Doesn't that prove he IS as opposed to ISN'T a 'holic because he CONTINUES to have a drink (albeit one) every day?
To me that single drink is the smoke and alcoholism is the fire. "The woods are burning, boys!" as Willy Loman told us more than once....
NE, because he stuck to his one a day is why he's not an alcoholic, an alcoholic would not be able to do this, the one would becomes two, becomes three, becomes four etc Oh I didn't know the Hemingway Fitzgerald story I had to go look it up :)
I didn't remember the story about the Dingo Bar either though I read A Moveable Feast in college. I googled it and found the following interesting article: http://www.ernest.hemingway.com/fitzg...But, there is no mention of a gay men in the bar in anything I read. Were they in the original story?
Rose, that is a good point that the relationship between adults and children was different at this point in time. But, Charlie seems to view Honoria as a possession to be admired. I wondered if he would have wanted her back so much if he had been in a relationship with another woman. Maybe so....
I thought these comments about "Babylon Revisited" from the Brandeis site were interesting:Now [Charlie] is whole, or nearly so, and returns sober, steady, and reliable to reclaim his little girl. Rather unluckily, some former drinking companions burst in as final arrangements are being made, and at the end it is clear that Charlie will have to wait a while longer before he recovers Honoria and his honor. He will come back again, though, for he wanted his child, and nothing was much good now, beside that fact. He wasn't young any more, with a lot of nice thoughts and dreams to have by himself.
Fitzgerald 's own dreams had begun to fade too, but he had less control over his drinking than Charlie Wales. After touching bottom in 1935 and 1936, a process vividly described in the Crack-Up essays, he finally began to master the demon of alcohol. Meanwhile, his stories had lost some of their appeal.
I like the point that Honoria is the one good thing left in his life. That makes me understand why he would have wanted her back. And, the parallels with Fitzgerald's life are interesting.
BTW, sorry I haven't been around this past week. I was in Arizona (a nice change from cold Michigan) visiting with my sister for 4 days.
I also wondered if Charlie's ability to have one drink a day was wishful thinking on Fitzgerald's part.
I'll have to look up the Dingo Bar story, too!Barbara, I think you are right regarding FSF's wishful thinking about the drink a day. After Charlie explained, self-consciously, his one-drink-a-day theory, I kept waiting for the other shoe, or the sword of Damacles, or something dire, to drop. That part of the plot didn't ring true for me. Which makes me wonder: was AA a part of the culture when this was written?
I can understand why Fitzgerald's writing lost appeal. Most of the country was in Marion's position in the 30's: they'd never been part of the Roaring 20's party (as most of us did not strike it rich in the 00's!), and were then really broke and aware that they'd NEVER make it to the party. So a Charlie West character would have little appeal.
Marion's disease: I wonder, was she an alcoholic??
I think she had Hoyden's Disease (shiver).Barbara, I was extrapolating a bit up there. Hemingway was obsessed with issues of masculinity (thus the infamous Dingo Bar "size" anecdote) and one unfortunate aspect of that with him was gay-bashing. So I'm figuring if a Fitzgerald, under the sway of the Big Lug, knowing that same read all his stuff because EH was a big fan of Gatsby, may have slipped it in for Papa. As I recall, Fitzgerald was taken with EH and always out to impress him, probably due to his (FSF's) less steady state of mind in those days.
Maybe a leap, but still, I thought the lines in the story were a leap, too.
And yes, don't many writers write their own scripts the way they WISH it were? Charlie is described as having an Irish face, and FSF was Irish, and the crazy partying wife matches Zelda, and I believe they had a little girl (if memory serves).
Barbara said, "...at the end it is clear that Charlie will have to wait a while longer before he recovers Honoria and his honor."A very clever play on words!
Regarding your question about AA, Mary Ellen, I did some poking about on the internet and it looks like it was established in about 1935. This story seems to have been published in 1931 so the idea of alcoholics being able to drink a little bit may have been part of the popular culture at that point.The Fitzgeralds seem to have had only one child, a boy named Francis Scott Fitzgerald. While looking, I found another great biographical site with interesting pictures:
http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.or...
That's Frances Scott Fitzgerald (a.k.a. "Scottie"), who, turns out, made a name for herself as a Washington socialite and even has a biography you might (and might not) read:http://www.amazon.com/Scottie-Daughte...
Looking over that bio link Barbara posted, I see that F. Scott went downhill bigtime after this story was written. Alcoholism with a capital "A" and death by heart attack in his young 40s. What a waste.
First, echoing Rose's comment re Barb's words - nice!NE, what's Hoyden's Disease?
Barb, interesting contextuality in the references and in the comment about alcoholism. The first goes to show just how much may be biographical, and the second to show how interpretation of a piece of writing is so conditions by the reader's own ie my own time,place and experience.
Shiela said, "...and the second to show how interpretation of a piece of writing is so conditions by the reader's own ie my own time,place and experience."I agree totally, Shiela.
Consider the source, but, Wikipedia has an interesting entry on this story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_...
I enjoyed this story. The characters' weaknesses and desires to overcome the past resounded with me. Here are three points I read elsewhere that I agree with and feel are worth mentioning.1. The story begins and ends with Charlie in a bar.
2. Charlie left his brother-in-law's address at the bar for Duncan in the first few lines of the story. The fact that he later doesn't recall that detail and thinks his old friends must have "wormed" the information out of someone shows that he may still have trouble with alcohol and that what he says can't be completely trusted.
3. The daughter's name is no accident. His family is his honor and he is trying recover it. The scene in the restaurant in which he introduces himself to his daughter and she presents the doll as her child presents the fantasy. A complete, reunited family - father, mother, and child.
The scene in the restaurant with his daughter reminds me of the restaurante scene in "For Esme - With Love and Squalor" by Salinger. (We read the Salinger story a year ago in this group.) It seems to me the girls in both stories represent anchors for the men.
Mike, I had missed that Charlie had given the address to Duncan! Thanks for pointing that out. It shows both failure of memory and a big error in judgement!
Great observations, Mike (or observations of others' observations). Of course, we're always left to wonder what is intentional on the part of the author and what is UNintentional. That is, sharp readers often pick up cues that even the authors are unaware of.Was FSF implying something about alcoholism, or were his eyes on the HONOR prize? It would seem the latter (daughter theme), but the more interesting and revealing angle is the former.
Newengland wrote: "Was FSF implying something about alcoholism, or were his eyes on the HONOR prize? It would seem the latter (daughter theme), but the more interesting and revealing angle is the former."As far as I'm concerned, they are both intentional and inseparable in this story.
Mike , great observations - I missed 2 completely and I agree both of NE's theme's are interlinked, may be those of us without kids would be less impacted by the second? Interesting how one short story can give us so much food for thought about the authorial intent and reader fallibility!
OK, maybe I should frame my question better. I realize the important role alcohol plays here, but was it FSF's intent to play it straight and write a story about a guy trying to vindicate himself, with Marion as the villain? OR was FSF playing us, and implying furtively all along that his protagonist was doomed to failure because, as Mike says, it begins in a bar and ends in a bar PLUS he leaves his contact info for the people (Lorraine and Dunc) he professes to now abhor?
OR, did he intend scenario #1, then without realizing it betray scenario #2? I'm fascinated with authors who betray something about their characters without even realizing it or intending to do so, and I submit that this DOES happen, more often than we might initially guess.
Mike wrote, "As far as I'm concerned, they are both intentional and inseparable in this story."I completely agree with that statement.
I think Charlie's weakness for alcohol and his curiousity or longing for his old friends are primary obstacles in the story. I think this is clear because of the prominence of bars and alcohol in the story, the character's consistent desire to wander his old haunts and seek out old friends, and finally his lapse of memory and judgment regarding how those two arrive at his brother-in-law's home. These motifs and his unreliability are too prominent for me to consider them unintentional.Marion, is perhaps a false villain. If you don't want to go far as to say she is a false villain then maybe we could consider her a secondary or weaker villain. For me, the genius of the story is that in the end we see that maybe she is not so unreasonable. It's a wonderful twist.
That's what I wanted to hear -- FSF in control, with a framed copy of the quote "Know Thyself" on the wall (even though he could only truly "know" and "indict" himself fictionally and artistically).
Newengland wrote: "That's what I wanted to hear -- FSF in control, with a framed copy of the quote "Know Thyself" on the wall (even though he could only truly "know" and "indict" himself fictionally and artistically)."NE, you've said two very interesting things. "Only" suggesting fiction was a necessary crutch for him and "truly" introducing the idea that fiction is sometimes more accurate that non-fiction.
Mike, I forgot that Charlie had left the address with the bartender too. Thanks for the reminder. It almost feels purposefully self-destructive in a way. I don't mean to say that he wanted his old life to stop his new one. But, it certainly does beautifully illustrate the clash between his hopes for the future and reality. And, that does feel like the nonfiction of Fitzgerald's life.In some ways, Marion is sort of a symbol for the rest of us, all those who couldn't life the high life. Small detail -- I thought that the female form of this name is always Marian.
I think it's usually Marian. A high school friend of mine, however, was a "Marion."
http://gutenberg.net.au/fsf/BABYLON-R...
The following short description of Fitzgerald is from http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/fi...
There is also a wonderful photo of him there and a great deal more information.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a writer very much of his own time. As Malcolm Cowley once put it, he lived in a room full of clocks and calendars. The years ticked away while he noted the songs, the shows, the books, the quarterbacks. His own career followed the pattern of the nation, booming in the early 1920s and skidding into near oblivion during the depths of the Depression. Yet his fiction did more than merely report on his times, or on himself as a prototypical representative, for Fitzgerald had the gift of double vision. Like Walt Whitman or his own Nick Carraway, he was simultaneously within and without, at once immersed in his times and able to view themand himselfwith striking objectivity. This rare ability, along with his rhetorical brilliance, has established Fitzgerald as one of the major novelists and story writers of the twentieth century.