F. Scott Fitzgerald is simply a beautiful writer.  His phrases and turns of words are an illumination of emotion or thought or presentation, a distillation of the truth of what a thing is.

Yesterday I read The Love of the Last Tycoon, the novel Fitzgerald was working on when he died suddenly at age 41. I’ve read his other novels and many of his stories before but this one was new for me.  I was struck by the words, the loveliness and exactness of his words. Although the point of view shifts and the mood shifts and the focus of the plot seems to shift, the words are very solid and true.  I loved this book, even without having it end.  I dreamt all night of being a Hollywood  film maker, of having to make the shots and capture the mood and draw in the people to see the movies that I made.  Fitzgerald is creating lasting, beautiful shots with his words; he is making book magic, the way people talk about movie magic.  The big moments of the book (entrancement, seduction, love, and abandonment) are indelibly marked on my mind by the brilliant writing.  Each particular word he chooses (and he wrote carefully, with rewrites and rewrite and writing it over again) is perfect, like the clearest photo or most vivid of paintings, at conveying what he wants us to take away, to dream of, to remember.

A few examples (I could quote the entire book and it is hard to pick just a few; my copy is covered in lines and exclamation points and squiggles):

When Stahr (the protagonist and a big Hollywood producer) is describing what he wants a certain movie to be like: “There was a right thing and wrong thing to do — at first it was not plain which was which but when it was she went right away and did it.  That was the kind of story this was — thin, clean, and shining. No doubts.”

A group of movie executives pitch in money to help earthquake victims:  “In a sudden burst five of them all at once made up a purse of twenty-five thousand dollars.  They gave well but not as poor men give.  It was not charity.”

Stahr enthralled:  “[H]e felt exalted and happy.  He was glad that there was beauty in the world that would not be weighed on the scales of the casting department.”

Still enthralled:  “As he walked towards her the people shrank back against the walls till they were only murals; the white table lengthened and became an altar where the priestess sat alone.  Vitality welled up in him and he could have stood a long while across the table from her, looking and smiling.”

And the object of his desire back to him:  “When I’m with you I don’t breathe quite right.”

Describing a beach:  “... like ant hills without a pattern, save for the dark drowned heads that sprinkled the sea.”

Stahr in love: “[H]e wanted to stop being Stahr for awhile and hunt for love like men who had no gifts to give, like young nameless men who looked along streets in the dark.”

Remembering his dead wife:  “She had loved him always and just before she died all unwilling and surprised his tenderness had burst and surged toward her and he had been in love with her.”

And, “He went upstairs.  Minna died again on the first landing and he forgot her lingeringly and miserably again, step by step to the top.”

Heartbreaking, beautiful words.

And he can be so succinct and perfect with his words: “A mixed motive is conspicuous waste.“  Or: “He was due to die soon.”

Even when Fitzgerald takes his time, the effect seems so succinct because every word is needed and the result is electric:  “In its way the little trip they made was one of the best times he had ever had in his life.  It  was certainly one of the times when, if he knew he was going to die, it was not tonight.”

Careful and perfect use of words to create an electric charge of recognition, of truth, between reader and writer.  This is poetry.  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote poetry in the form of novels and stories.