How Max Gerlach became associated with Arnold Rothstein isn’t clear. There is an eight-year period in Max’s life, starting 1912, when his exact location and activities are the subject of much speculation. This becomes clear in the report put together by Agent Harry W. Grunewald in the summer of 1917. After serving with the Atlantic…
Category: The Jazz Age
A New Race of Man — How Trotsky’s Dream of a Soviet Superman Helped Perfect the American Dream
When F. Scott Fitzgerald sat down to work on his third novel, The Great Gatsby there was probably no greater influence on its composition than the author’s rediscovery of Percy Bysshe Shelley, a poet once memorably described by Harold Bloom as the Leon Trotsky of his day. D. Appleton and Company had just that year…
Vegetable Eugenics — Genius Lost and Genius Regained.
If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby exposed the tragic reality of Eugenics and the cruel, pyrrhic triumph of the American Dream, then it was only because previous attempts to drive a nail through its genetically superior heart with comedy had failed to prevent its moronic spread. The cheeky, irreverent view the author had taken…
Eugenically Speaking — How F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Love or Eugenics?’ prepared the way for Gatsby
The Great Gatsby wasn’t the first time that F. Scott Fitzgerald had confronted the rising tide of bigotry that had been surging around Eugenics. As an 18 year-old student at Princeton University, Scott had written what even his contemporaries — and more extraordinarily still, his fellow students — had regarded as a vicious but highly…
The Rise of the Coloured Empires — Gatsby and Eugenics
Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard? Well, it’s a fine book and everyone ought to read it … This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you…
The Holocaust Was Complete: The Great Gatsby and the Lost Green Light of Liberty Part II
The second of a two-part look at the impact that the sinking of the Titanic may have had on the conception of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. What does the author mean by ‘the Holocuast was complete’? What was the author saying about the times? Henry Adams and F. Scott Fitzgerald weren’t the only…
The Green Light at the End of the Dock. The Great Gatsby and Titanic
April 10, 2023 marks 98 years since the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and 111 years since the RMS Titanic left Southampton’s White Star Dock on its ill-fated maiden voyage. This article explores the meaning and symbolism behind the green light and its possible inspiration in the Titanic disaster. “Gatsby believed in…
Meyer Wolfsheim — Arnold Rothstein, Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby
A 157-page PDF book of this story can be found here Among the masses of articles and books on the Jewish origins of Jay Gatsby, by far the most popular evidence that gets cited on a regular basis relates to Gatsby’s small, flat-nosed friend and mentor Meyer Wolfsheim — ‘the man who fixed the World…
Max von Gerlach aka Max Stork – The Original Great Gatsby?
“He started as one man I knew and then changed into myself.” That’s how the author described his most famous creation, Jay Gatsby. And on the evidence currently available there’s no reason to doubt him. Discoveries made by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Horst Kruse suggest that the ‘one man’ he knew was Max Gerlach, whose…
The Eyes of T. J. Eckleburg, The Valley of Ashes and the Meaning and Inspiration Behind Them.
Blending into the background and creating a mask is all part of the tradecraft of being a spy, and whether it’s the endless whirring rumours at Gatsby’s parties, the private investigations into his business affairs carried out by his love rival Tom Buchannan, or the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg staring out with haunting…