The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Oh, the memories
  • A great book for "warped" people (like myself)!
  • Long but worth it
  • Destined to be a Classic
  • barbarians at the gates of central park
The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.
William D. Cohan
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385514514
Release Date: 2007-04-03

Book Description

A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street’s most storied investment bank

Wall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood apart. Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were its weapons of choice. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

William D. Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes the reader into the mysterious and secretive world of Lazard and presents a compelling portrait of Wall Street through the tumultuous history of this exalted and fascinating company.  Cohan deconstructs the explosive feuds between Felix Rohatyn and Steve Rattner, superstar investment bankers and pillars of New York society, and between the man who controlled Lazard, the inscrutable French billionaire Michel David-Weill, and his chosen successor, Bruce Wasserstein.

Cohan follows Felix, the consummate adviser, as he reshapes corporate America in the 1970s and 1980s, saves New York City from bankruptcy, and positions himself in New York society and in Washington. Felix’s dreams are dashed after the arrival of Steve, a formidable and ambitious former newspaper reporter. By the mid-1990s, as Lazard neared its 150th anniversary, Steve and Felix were feuding openly.
 
The internal strife caused by their arguments could not be solved by the imperious Michel, whose manipulative tendencies served only to exacerbate the trouble within the firm. Increasingly desperate, Michel took the unprecedented step of relinquishing operational control of Lazard to one of the few Great Men still around, Bruce Wasserstein, then fresh from selling his own M&A boutique, for $1.4 billion.  Bruce’s take: more than $600 million. But it turned out Great Man Bruce had snookered Great Man Michel when the Frenchman was at his most vulnerable. 

The LastTycoons is a tale of vaulting ambitions, whispered advice, worldly mistresses, fabulous art collections, and enormous wealth—a story of high drama in the world of high finance. 

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Oh, the memories.......2007-07-27

This book brought back so many memories of the time (late eighties/early nineties) and place. Looking back while reading this book, I realize how much I learned about people and industry while working in investment
banking (albeit a bit remotely) in NYC in those years. The level of detail
that Bill Cohan brings to the topic of Lazard is noteworthy. It's a fun
read for insiders and non-insiders alike. I hope things are better for
women now - my daughter wants to be an investment banker when she grows up!

5 out of 5 stars A great book for "warped" people (like myself)!.......2007-06-11

660+ pages about the 150+ year history of Lazard Feres might put most people to sleep. Not me! As someone who actually likes this stuff, I found this book fascinating. The history of big money and finance is actually one of big personalties, and this book gives an inside look at several of the major players. Although tedious at times to read, I made it through the entire book in a couple of days. The most fascinating part of the entire story is simply that money at the levels discussed in this book doesn't seem real--most people could never fathom how corporate finance is conducted. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of investment banking, especially those considering a career in that arena.

5 out of 5 stars Long but worth it.......2007-05-30

extremely long, but it gives you a great description of how an organization rises and falls with the times and the great men who are at the wheel.

5 out of 5 stars Destined to be a Classic.......2007-05-24

Cohan has brought to life a vivid and spellbinding tale of the legendary giants in the investment banking field (Meyer, Rohatyn, David-Weill, Rattner, and Wasserstein) at Lazard, offering a compelling and revealing portrait of the relentless personalities that invented, dominated and defined the last few decades of M&A banking. At the same time, The Last Tycoons is, at its core, a saga of ambition, egotism, greed, vanity and pride of Shakespearean proportions played out on the grand stage of corporate takeovers and national politics.

What emerges is not a noble picture of what these ostensibly "Great Men" purported themselves to be. Instead, it is apparent that at Lazard, the black arts of power and greed were the currency used to exhort and extort men of high ambition and intellect to achieve stature and enormous fees. The long shadow of Andre Meyer (unquestionably a Sith Lord) looms over the Lazard partnership and his protégés and successors, Felix Rohatyn and Michel David-Weill. Meyer was a brilliant financier with no peer with the exception of Bruce Wasserstein and it's fitting and deserving that the story of Lazard begins and ends with these two men. In between, Michel and Felix weave a complex and fascinating legacy of fear and loathing in the intervening decades.

For bankers and professionals in the field, Cohan's detail and emotional and psychological nuances will be tantalizing and relevant. For those aspiring to enter the field, it's a cautionary tale - it's very hard to play on the big stage on Wall St without darkening your soul. This story is destined to be a Classic amongst Barbarians and Den of Thieves

5 out of 5 stars barbarians at the gates of central park .......2007-05-19

maybe the first casualty of wealth is self-knowledge. that is the takeaway from William Cohan's fine history of the fabled lazard freres banking house. in these pages we watch titans of finance gloat and preen while their castle crumbles from corruption and mismanagement.

Its a terrific story peopled with fascinating characters. who wouldn't, after reading this book, want to dine with the formidable felix rohatyn. He fled the Nazis as a boy, rescued New York from financial ruin and ditched Lazard at just the right moment to serve the nation as Bill Clinton's Ambassador to France. His intellect and achievement dominate the book, just as Felix dominated wall street for a generation. His departure from the firm caps the end of "the great man" era in investment banking. In Rohatyn's day only a select handful of wise men could be trusted to guide transactions. Nowadays all you need is armani and a spread sheet.

Even as he maps the tectonic movement in investment banking, Cohan keeps it light with plenty of well-researched dish on criminal investigations, love affairs, fabulous art collections, New Yorkana and the occasional drop to earth by some of Lazard's wax-winged partners. I closed the book -- a whopping 750 pp's -- edified and thoroughly entertained.
The Love of the Last Tycoon
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • All the Hollywood hypocrites
  • Incomplete is incomplete
  • Betrayal of a Demigod
  • There will never be another F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Last Achievement
The Love of the Last Tycoon
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0020199856

Book Description

The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by the preeminent Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli, is a restoration of the author's phrases, words, and images that were excised from the 1940 edition, giving new luster to an unfinished literary masterpiece. It is the story of the young Hollywood mogul Monroe Stahr, who was inspired by the life of boy-genius Irving Thalberg, and is an exposé of the studio system in its heyday. The Love of the Last Tycoon is now available for the first time in paperback.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars All the Hollywood hypocrites.......2005-06-30

The book edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli is a work in progress, left with various kinds of incompletion at F. Scott Fitzgerald's death. The narrator, Cecilia Brady, is on planes frequently. She attends Bennington. She is the daughter of a producer. Monroe Stahr is someone who was born sleepless. He has no talent for rest. Pat Brady, Cecilia's father, and Monroe Stahr are partners. Wylie White, one of the travelers on the plane, is a writer.

There is never a time when the studio is absolutely quiet. There are always technicians present. There is an earthquake and a small water main bursts. Stahr's work is secret in part, devious, slow. He seems ready to shelve a work the writers have labored over to bring to the screen. He notes that when he wants a Eugene O'Neill play he will buy one. If a director disagrees with Stahr he does not advertise it. The writers are people who are employed because they accept the system and manage to stay sober.

Stahr sees a girl who resembles his deceased wife. He has her found in order to see her. He has difficulty explaining his interest to her and she is troubled by people fawning for reason of his power and, in general, the notoriety of being seen in his company. Sustained effort is difficult in California it is asserted. It is Monroe Stahr's ability in this area that accounts for his success.

F. Scott Fitzgerlad chased ghosts, evanescence. Stahr pursues a girl, Kathleen Moore, because she is the image of his dead wife. The author pursued the following idea obsessively--when did his life derail. The Kathleen Moore character shares some of the attributes of Sheila Graham. She lived in England previously and was tutored in classical literature by her live-in companion.

It is reported that Fitzgerald had a life-long capacity to hero-worship. A writer character in the novel compares Monroe Stahr to Lincoln carrying on a long war on many fronts. At the end of the volume there are working notes and a brief biography. Revisiting the bright, shining world of F. Scott Fitzgerald, even with the melancholy features, is lots of fun.

3 out of 5 stars Incomplete is incomplete.......2005-06-06

I have no doubt that The Last Tycoon would have warranted at least one more star if Fitzgerald had lived to finish it. But like it or not, we have no way of knowing what he would have written and can only judge the merits of what he did write. And that, in any case, is still pretty good. It is definitely a departure from his earlier works, and a tantalizing taste of what he might have continued to do with his talent later on. The images of Southern California back when it was a nice place to live are wonderful, as is the behind-the-scenes look at the movie industry during its golden era.

This is also the only Fitzgerald work I know of in which the narrator is a woman, and it's defnitely fascinating to see how he went about that exercize. Cecilia Brady is just about as egotistical and cynical as most of his other protagonists, but her innocence is refreshing. Also, telling the story through the eyes of one just outside the loop of the movie industry (she's the daughter of one producer, and hopelessly in love with another) was a very clever move. It allowed the plot to develop around the personal life of Cecilia's crush, Monroe Stahr, with only a bit of the bitterness from his work-related troubles seeping through.

But the sad truth is that that plot had only begun to develop. We know far more about Monroe Stahr from the notes and sketches Fitzgerald never intended for publication than we do from the "finished" part of the novel (which wasn't entirely finished either). If nothing else, though, this was a great start. As long as you don't expect more than that, it's worth reading.

3 out of 5 stars Betrayal of a Demigod.......2005-04-02

Fitzgerald's last novel--left unfinished due to his heart attack--presents darker themes than his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. Told by Cecelia, the 18-year-old daughter of a studio hotshot,and alternately by an omniscient narrator, this story depicts the glory days of the Hollywood studio system, where producers were America's new royalty. Egos collide, budgets quail and the earth quakes at the dawn of the Forties, when the country was threatened by the red menace of Communism. Not even Hollywood was immune from the birth pangs of unionism and pre- McCarthy era political paranoia over the secret revolution of the masses.

The protagonist is 44-year-old Monroe Stahr, a successful and powerful producer whose insight re movie-going America usually proves correct. Having a hopeless crush on this associate of her father's Cecelia gradually realizes that her workaholic idol has fallen in love with a mysterious lady--a British Cinderella raised completely outside the glittering purviews of starlets and gossip columnists. The tragic affair between the mogul and the lovely Kathleen (who resembles his beloved dead wife) is doomed by her prior commitment to an American man, her humble past and Stahr's own failure to take decisive action at critical moments in their poignant relationship.

The completed storyline may be deduced from Fitzgerald's extensive notes for each chapter,plus his conversations with associates. Health concerns plagued both Stahr and ultimately Cecelia--presaging the author's own private medical battle. How frustrating for him (and his alter-ego) to be snuffed out while yet so productive and mentally alert. It would be curious to see how contemporary Hollywood might finish this story if made into a movie. Like rats caught in a maze of their own devising, the characters are trapped by weakness and vanity, while naively convinced of their own personal or business power. As evil schemes corrupt backstage Hollywood, filth and crime trickle down to ultimately contaminate even the once idealistic Stahr. Tragically he did not live long enough to impress the man on the beach: that movies Were worth attending. THE LAST TYCOON proves a starkly grim but gripping tale of searing emotions at the end of the Depression era.

5 out of 5 stars There will never be another F. Scott Fitzgerald.......2003-03-09

No other author in history has so astutely penned such profound and sublime novels with such amazing social insight as has Scottie(as his contemporaries called him) - all the while doing it with such amazing and unparalleled grace and lucidity. While The Love of the Last Tycoon may not be finished, I can easily discern that F. Scott was well on his way to achieving his goal -penning a novel on the level of The Great Gatsby and not as "depressing" as Tender is the Night.

What makes this so amazing, yet so painful, is the extraordinary potential that this work exudes. The Last Tycoon does seem to be like Gatsby moreso than any other Fitzgerald work in its endearing and sympathetic characters such as the self-made Monroe Stahr, the young Cecilia, & tragic Kathleen. As usual, Fitzgerald recreates and tells of his life experiences - this time of his tumultuous years in Hollywood as a screen writer. Although hardened somewhat at this stage of his career, Fitzgerald, like his hero Stahr, still purveys his characteristic idealism laced with a latent hint of foreboding tragedy inevitably awaiting on the horizon. Stahr, like Fitzgerald, is forever viewed as a boy wonder, despite being a seasoned veteran at this stage of his career, due to his overnight success at age 23. So, Fitzgerald, who had the splendid This Side of Paradise published at age 23, and who also was known for his propensity to turn a sickly pale white just as Stahr does, ingeniously incorporates himself into his work one last time.

The incredibly insightful notes, outlines, and revisions written by Fitzgerald shown at the conclusion of the book open an amazing new world of intropection to the reader. I give it 5 stars not for what it is, but for what it would have been. I just finished reading all of his works chronologically and I must say, unequivocally, that this very well could have eclipsed his other works of fiction, all of which are truly sublime.

"It is an escape into a lavish, romantic past that perhaps will not come again into our time." - F. Scott on The Last Tycoon

4 out of 5 stars The Last Achievement.......2002-06-03

This work derives part of its importance from what it says about Fitzgerald at the untimely end of his career: fans of his earlier work will be pleased to see that this final tome showed all the hallmarks of becoming another masterpiece. By 1940, when "Tycoon" was written, FSF hadn't written a book in six years. But the familiar voice, though muted, had not been lost.

The lapse provides welcome proof of the endurance of Fitzgerald's talent over time. We can only imagine what biting, incisive insights he would have come up with if magically sent to chronicle the 1990s.

Fitzgerald's "Unfinished Symphony" is presented in this Scribner paperback edition in a way that will appeal to both casual readers and serious students. Leading Fitzgerald expert Matthew Bruccoli has assembled the fragments of this book into a gripping and highly readable narrative, and the publisher has included a detailed preface exploring FSF's thoughts at the genesis of the work, as well as a selection of working notes which will delight writing students looking for some insight into the workings of a great mind.

This book tells the story of Monroe Stahr, an early Hollywood producer who makes his mark on the industry almost at its very inception. Stahr's word is law within his studio, and a single order from him is enough to reshape, delay or outright kill a film in process. Since the death of his wife, actress Minna Davis, Stahr's job is his life - a life that illness and overwork threaten to cut short. But a chance sighting of englishwoman Kathleen Moore brings back a flood of old memories and new desires. Stahr's pursuit of Moore leads him briefly into the world outside the studio, and then her actions leave him reeling from the blows just when his rivals gang up against him.

The book is truncated at a very unfortunate point, Episode 17 of 30 - the precise point at which events begin to turn against Stahr. To finish the book in our minds, we can visualize the ending put forth in Fitzgerald's surviving notes, though we have not his words to shape it for us. But even in unfinished form, this book is still worth reading, if only to revisit one last time the mind that produced phrases such as this, in describing loops of unedited film hanging in a projection room: "Dreams hung in fragments at the far end of the room, suffered analysis, passed --- to be dreamed in crowds, or else discarded."
Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Thalberg-Last of the Tycoons
Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M
Roland Flamini
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0517586401
Release Date: 1994-02-22

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Thalberg-Last of the Tycoons.......2005-02-21

This was the kind of book you want to memorize if you are interested in the early beginnings of MGM.
Thalberg started out as a secretary to Carl Lemelle, and his brillance and observance of the film industry was noticed by Lemelle and Iriving was placed at Universal as Producer. He took a company with low revenues, and with poor management and made it into a thriving movie making business.
He left there to join forces with Mayer, and they made the deals that subsequently formed MGM.
You will learn much about other producers- and how Irving operated and made MGM a multi-million dollar business.
The journalism is very accurate. I could hardly put this book down for one who wants to digest the early makings of MGM. I also found the spot online where THalberg had his "Ocean Front" home in Santa Monica. Amazing what the internet can tell you.
I would recommend this book. Nice B & W pics too.
Barb
4 Book Collection : Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, the Great Gatsby,the Last Tycoon.
Average customer rating: Not rated
    4 Book Collection : Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, the Great Gatsby,the Last Tycoon.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Manufacturer: Scribner's
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

    Fitzgerald, F. ScottFitzgerald, F. Scott | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    ASIN: B000OHO4GU
    The Last Tycoon (Penguin Modern Classics)
    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • Interesting But Incomplete.
    The Last Tycoon (Penguin Modern Classics)
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Manufacturer: Penguin Books
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0141185635

    Customer Reviews:

    4 out of 5 stars Interesting But Incomplete........2006-04-05

    Fitzgerald is considered to be an important early 20th century American writer. I bought and read Fitzgerald's five major novels ("This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon") plus one book of short stories plus the biography "Some Sort of Epic Grandeur" by Matthew Broccoli.

    His first major novel, "This Side of Paradise," along with "Gatsby" and "Tender is the Night" are considered to be great novels, and I enjoyed the reads. The other two have serious flaws. Interestingly, the Bloomsbury Guide does not rate any of the five well known Fitzgerald novels as masterpieces. His best or most complicated work is "Tender is the Night," but it is less well known than "Gatsby" which became a successful film.

    Fitzgerald wrote about half a dozen novels and over 100 short stories between approximately 1917 and 1940. The short stories were done largely to make money to support his life style. In later years, he worked on a number of Hollywood film scripts. He died poor in Hollywood in 1940 at an age of just 44, leaving an insurance policy as his main asset.

    The present novel was written by Fitzgerald at the end of his short life. It reflects his own life as a screenwriter although here the protagonist is a dynamic producer, not a writer.

    This is a very unsatisfactory novel to read because it has one major flaw: Fitzgerald dies at page 150 leaving the reader hanging mid-air, seemingly in the middle of the unfinished story. It is edited by Edmund Wilson and Wilson suggests different endings, but it does not quite work.

    It is an interesting read for two reasons. Firstly, other than his over 100 short works, Fitzgerald has just a handful of novels so there is the curiosity factor. Secondly, it is interesting to see how he develops as a writer. Here in "The Last Tycoon" the great prose and romance is largely gone. It seems more or less like any other Hollywood story. He seems to have lost that romantic identification of the earlier work. Perhaps he was tired.
    The Last Tycoon
    Average customer rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    • Another stab at the rich and famous
    The Last Tycoon
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Manufacturer: Charles Scribner's Sons
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

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    ASIN: B000ELOU10

    Customer Reviews:

    1 out of 5 stars Another stab at the rich and famous.......2007-05-23

    F. Scott Fitzgerald is unique among the great American writers in that his most famous works examine the lives of the wealthy elite. This book looks at the Hollywood set of the 1930's, when sound was becoming an integral part of movies, but color was still beyond the horizon. The movie business is big enough and profitable to be respectable and even appealing in the public eye, but also enough to spawn rivalries and politicking among and within the major studios. It is this seamy, backstabbing side of Hollywood examined here. Again, many of the characters have major flaws that make the reader go "what is he thinking". Alcohol, jealousy, and envy drive this book, making it quit similar to the other works by Fitzgerald. I did not enjoy this book, and found it quite boring. I would not recommend it to anyone.
    The Last Tycoon
    Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    • Anatomy of a novel
    • Should this have been left alone?
    • An Unfinished Masterpiece?
    • Not Highly Recommended
    • The Last Tycoon
    The Last Tycoon
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Manufacturer: Abacus
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0349106630

    Customer Reviews:

    3 out of 5 stars Anatomy of a novel.......2005-06-20

    I must admit i am not too familiar with FSF's work. Sure, i read The Great Gatsby centuries ago, but in Spanish. I also watched the movie. But that's it. Dare i say, then, that if this had been finished, edited and released, it would not have the same success it has? Part of the aura of The Last Tycoon is that FSF, on account of his death, never finished it. I found the prose a bit difficult, and there were enough situations loaded with innuendo that i was not able to resolve. For example, the cameraman who attempted suicide. Was he going blind? Was all a malicious rumor? How about the actor who is "through"? What unspeakable issue does he suffer from to stop his career? "I've tried everything. I even - one day in desperation I went down to - to Claris. But it was hopeless. I'm washed up". Does he mean he was impotent?
    So i found the novel itself very frustrating. However, i found the development notes fascinating. Those notes offered a fantastic behind-the-scenes peek at how a novel is written. I had no idea there was such a method. My guess was that the process was far more visceral, more gut-feeling as to what should happen now and what then. But by reading the notes that FSF left, i understand what a systematic and structured process it is.

    3 out of 5 stars Should this have been left alone?.......2005-05-23

    I am sure it must have been tempting as a publisher or one in whom the rights to publish resided, to get excited about an unfinished work from a master with the mystique and cache of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this case, while there is certainly merit in the writing, and some rewards to be had from the reading of this incomplete work by an acknowledged master, it is debatable whether many readers have been satisfied by reading it. I was not one of them. As always, Fitzgerald introduces characters both rich and shallow, and makes fascinating observations of an era which most of us find fascinating. But it felt incomplete, all the way through, not just at the end, and perhaps Fitzgerald may have polished or edited it a great deal more had he survived to finish it.

    I will stick with Gatsby and Tender is the Night and put this one down to experience.

    3 out of 5 stars An Unfinished Masterpiece?.......2004-01-07

    The Last Tycoon was to be Fitzgerald's return to Gatsby form and to critical acclaim. In his notes, he wrote that this was to be more like Gatsby than like Tender is the Night (yet altogether original).

    Indeed, F. Scott gets the setup right - a sympathetic, immensely talented and paternalistic workaholic movie producer with an ailing heart (medically and emotionally) discovers the potential for salvation in the arms of a true love while trying to baffle his greedy partner's plots for takeover. And FSF conceives a partly Conradian narration of the chief plot points - through the eyes of Cecelia, the partner's daughter, while offering an omniscient overview.

    The book is hard to evalaute as we see less than half of Fitzgerald's execution, but it's fascinating to watch the pieces fall into a place (if some may miss). Fitzgerald's tone progresses from a shaky start into his patented lyricism and elegantly seamless observations on love. Read the notes, as they give an intriguing look at the great author's mind at work.

    2 out of 5 stars Not Highly Recommended.......2000-12-13

    The book was kind of boring. It wasn't very interesting reading about Hollywood back in the thirties. Adults may get into it more, because they will be a little bit more familiar with the time period. But for teenagers-not very interesting to read. There are alot of names to remeber throughout the book, and you don't know how it really ends, because it is unfinished. You may want to know if one of the characters will get rid of his boring liferstyle, but you never find out. I have not read any other books by this author, but by reading this one first, I don't think I'll read any more of his books.

    3 out of 5 stars The Last Tycoon.......1999-12-14

    The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald was more than just another depiction of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald's theme, corruptive wealth is also present in The Last Tycoon. Even in this unfinished work Fitzgerald portrays the spirit of the age well at the smae time critizes the values of our society.
    This Side of Paradise/the Last Tycoon
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      This Side of Paradise/the Last Tycoon

      Manufacturer: Scribners
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      Fitzgerald, F. ScottFitzgerald, F. Scott | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      ASIN: B000FOVNNO

      Product Description

      These are two famous stories by Fitzgerald under one cover.
      The Last Tycoon (F Scott Fitzgerald Manuscripts Vol)
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • Love in a power-hungry jungle
      The Last Tycoon (F Scott Fitzgerald Manuscripts Vol)
      M. Bruccoli
      Manufacturer: Routledge
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      United StatesUnited States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | 18th Century | 19th Century | 20th Century | African American | Asian American | Classics | Collections & Readers | Drama | General | Hispanic | History & Criticism | Humor | Jewish American | Letters & Correspondence | Native American | Poetry | Short Stories | Women Writers
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      ASIN: 0824059638

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Love in a power-hungry jungle.......2002-07-31

      F. Scott Fitzgerald probably had there his real masterpiece, but he did not have the time to finish it. The social and political background, the film industry in Hollywood, was perfect for the kind of intrigues and characters he tried to depict. The period brought a sense of absolute confrontation between the leaders of the industry and the workers, writers, scenographers, technicians, etc. The communist manipulation of the situation was just as effective and real as that by the capital-owners, and this confrontation enabled some social-climbers and some violent power-hungry individuals to take over, when they deemed it necessary or possible, from those who had a cultural and even artistic vision. This artistic vision was not in anyway exclusive of the economic consideration that a film had to make money, but led to the idea that some films had to be so good that they did lose some money bringing a certain aura to the producer. Fitzgerald was also dealing with characters who had a private and emotional life, though mostly an emotional instability that made them desire a dream more than real achievement. Love was never a real consideration. It was at the most a side-kick in life. And that dimension of human life is marvellously shown in the unfinished manuscript. Love is a mixture of memory, dreaming, hoping, need, desire, lust, and social use, at times social escape. This is a final version of love from a man who had probably seen it all and was more than ready to leave this life behind. Unluckily he left it a little bit too soon.

      Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
      Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Last Tycoon
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Last Tycoon
        Leonard Mosley
        Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

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        ASIN: 0316585386

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