Failure of a Success

"The Disenchanted," was hailed as a semi-biographical novel of F. Seott Fitzgerald even before its publication. But Budd Sebuthorg, prefaces this book with a short quotation from Henry James: "Let us have here as little as possible about its 'being' Mr. This or Mr. That. If it adjusts itself with the least truth to its now life it can't possibly be either."

Sehulberg's protagonist, Manley Halliday, invites comparison with Fitzgorald, for he is an author, fabulously unsuccessful as a writer in and of the twenties, who has never made the transition to modern times. He was "the only writer who could win the approval of Monckton and Stein ad make fifty thousand a year doing it."

As Sehulberg's book opens, Halliday is a diabetie, a debtor, a voice of the twenties which is no longer heard. He is assigned to collaborate with a worshipful youngster on a movie, "Love on Ice," which he calls, "An orphan child born of artificial insemination on a box office counter." As the two writers seek a plot for this movie, Halliday gradually exposes his past.

The book is a series of flashbacks, dream sequences, occasional streams of consciousness, interspersed with formal narrative of Halliday's present life. It attempts to show the deterioration of a once-famous author and it could be if it were successful, a tragic tale.

Schulberg has undertaken a difficult task. Where he fails is in his characterization of the earlier author, for if we are to be moved by a tragic tale we must believe that Manloy Halliday was once a great author. To put this across, Halliday must do more than recall some wild weekends, his love of the twenties, fragments of the jazz age.

Schulberg has many virtues as a writer. His knowledge of locale, of his characters, is extensive. Seldom does he draw a picture of a place which cannot be envisioned. Seldom does he present dialogue which cannot be envisioned. Seldom does he present dialogue which cannot be hoard. He has a sense of humor which is lively and interesting, and an car for fine phrases which is always alert.

Schulberg has picked up pieces of an age which has great appeal today, but he fails to integrate these pieces into the novel which was intended. The dying author says, "Nothing fails like success." It is an interesting note, but just where the success was, we never know.