I think I liked this book by a Dutch writer, which I found at Mr. B’s Bookshop in Bath, and read it on a short flight to Copenhagen, but how quickly one forgets….

Read on the plane flying from London to LA. Interesting because of the notes and the insights into how much work he put into constructing his novels and characters. His writing seems to come effortlessly to him but here we see that there is indeed a great deal of effort in it, plus he is harshly self critical. He writes “Only Fair” opposite one paragraph. These notes in many ways are more valuable than the unfinished novel because they show the artist in mid brush stroke. The only thing I don’t find convincing on re-reading is the narrator – the female character Cecilia. She doesn’t really come alive for me. Does he ever try and inhabit another female narrator? I still love the Pat Hobby stories for the shabby view of Hollywood, but here you see that Fitzgerald was actually really seen and appreciated for what he was, when he first went to Hollywood. Stahr really knows him and appreciates him. “There are no second acts in American lives.” Does he use this elsewhere? What exactly did he mean? Certainly no second act for Monroe Stahr who goes down in flames. “Action is character.” I like this, and it’s certainly true of the movies, though I vaguely remember something similar from E. M. Forster (Aspects of the Novel?)