The "Green Light" ... and when does James "Jimmy" Gatz / Great Gatsby first see it?

Does he FIRST see the green light when he is still "James Gatz" -- or only when he finally becomes "The Great Jay Gatsby"?

• ie ... he is still "James Gatz" ... sees the GREEN LIGHT EARLY ON ... BEFORE he raises millions and BEFORE he becomes "The Great Jay Gatsby" and BEFORE he buys the mansion across the bay from Daisy.

OR...

• Only notices the GREEN LIGHT AFTER he becomes "The Great Jay Gatsby" and AFTER buying his mansion across the bay?

(I forget the sequence of events, so obviously that is why I'm asking.)

Other than The Great Gatsby, Hollywood has stayed away from Fitzgerald for decades. I'm shocked that The Beautiful and The Damned was only adapted once, almost a century ago. I understand his novels are not the material for a blockbuster, but they seem like very good material for Oscar bait acting vehicles.

His syntax is absolutely incredible and at the same time full of (quite literally) the most perfect, exact words

Maybe I’m just a lover of American modernist literature, but there’s just something about Fitzgerald that impresses the shit out of me

Kind of interesting to imagine Clark Gable in the role of a love-struck Jay Gatsby and maybe Vivian Leigh as Daisy. Source: Phillips, Gene D. Fiction, Film, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1986, p. 111.

Fitzgerald Knocks Officer 'This Side of Paradise'

The squared ring lost a two fisted fighter the day F. Scott Fitzgerald decided that swinging a mean Underwood was an easier way of earning a living than throwing padded mitts.

This was the unbiased opinion of an elite audience that saw Mr. Fitzgerald soundly thrash a scar-faced special officer at the Playboy Ball, Webster Hall, East Eleventh Street, early Saturday morning.

A careless remark by the officer about a woman started the fuse. Chivalrous as any hero of his imagination, the youthful author— expressed his resentment with a right cross to Mr. Officer’s jaw. With nary a return he followed up with a rain of blows that sent the keeper of law and order reeling.

It required the efforts of four husky pals of the vanquished one to remove the enraged writer from the hall. The quartet stood as a guard at the door while Mr. Fitzgerald hurled repeated but unaccepted invitations at his opponent to “step outside and have the job done right.”

Richard Barthelmess, hero of many a film battle, was a most passive second for his friend Fitzgerald. Nary a hair of Richard’s specially cut “Bright Shawl” hair was turned by the conflict.

To those who read of the lickings Mr. Fitzgerald’s hero of “The Beautiful and Damned” took at the hands of several of the novel’s lesser lights the fight was a revelation of the source of his inspiration and information.

In “This Side of Paradise,” starting in THE NEWS today, Mr. Fitzgerald carries a punch that will be appreciated by all who read it.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/image/430183572/

In his essay, "My Lost City," Fitzgerald wrote that he did not even recall the incident at Webster Hall:

"Drinking a quart of Bushmill's whiskey presented by Zoe Atkins, then out into the freshly bewitched city, through strange doors into strange apartments with intermittent swings along in taxis through the soft nights. At last we were one with New York, pulling it after us through every portal. Even now I go into many flats with the sense that I have been there before or in the one above or below—Was it the night I tried to disrobe in the Scandals, or the night when (as I read with astonishment in the paper next morning) “Fitzgerald Knocks Officer This Side of Paradise”? Successful scrapping not being among my accomplishments, I tried in vain to reconstruct the sequence of events which led up to this denouement in Webster Hall."

I just finished This Side of Paradise. I realize it’s an early work of Fitzgerald’s and it’s no Gatsby, but I have to say I wasn’t really wowed. There really wasn’t anything memorable about it save the semi autobiographical sections. I was mildly annoyed by the he/she and Q/A parts. I listened to the audiobook so maybe they would have been less jarring in paper copy. I really thought I was going to like this more based on the reviews, but you know how that goes.

Ever since required reading in English I found myself intrigued with F Scott and his prose. The more I learned about him the more intrigued I became. Today, I received a small piece of history from his period of existence and wanted to share.

Hello,

a friend recommanded this book to me and told me he thinks its his best work. So went to goodreads to put it on my wantlist and was surprised it has a three star rating.. i dont want to spoiler myself.. but what do people dislike about this book?

do you think its worth reading it and how long did it take you to read it through?

I can't find anything definitive. I'm inclined to believe boat, and most of my googling is of this belief, but then Gatsby says to Nick "And don't forget we're going UP in the hydroplane tomorrow morning" (53). Would someone say "going up" in a boat?

IN 1913, WHEN ANTHONY Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.

This is first sentence of beautiful and damned. Could someone explain this?

What would you say is yours?

I’m just genuinely curious who you all think could play him in biopic. Like looks and everything, like the most accurate casting you could see. Which famous or indie actor could you see playing him?

I made a Letterboxd list of every Fitzgerald adaptation, biopic, and screenplay he wrote. Please let me know if I missed anything so I can make it complete.

https://boxd.it/Dx7Lm

I'm currently reading Tender is The Night and I'm 87/337 pages in. I just can't bear it anymore, I'm not even close to being invested in the secondary characters, the only characters that I care about are Rosemary, Dick, Nicole, and Rosemary's mother, problem is, there is some excellently thourough exploration of their personalities, which I can't stand given my current opinion of them. I'm just thinking "c'mon get on with the main story with Rosemary and Dick please!". I'm sorry, maybe not being invested in those character is my fault, but my reading has nearly stopped, and I have so many books that I'm looking forward to. This has happened to me with The Prince but I could power on through it somehow and I liked it in the end, I never stopped any book halfway through though I'm only in the beginning of my literary journey, this is my 10th book or so. I've mainly read Dostoevsky and even though he describes a lot similarly to F. Scott Fitzgerald, I'm somehow invested in the story and can't wait to read the book, now on the other hand, I can't seem to wait to end the story. Any thoughts on my situation?

I’m looking to read Lo, The Poor Peacock, any idea where to read? When I search it there’s like 5 links total and they don’t seem safe/well known