Wednesday, March 6, 2013

F. Scott Fitzgerald and GKC

F. Scott Fitzgerald told Shane Leslie, one of his many biographers, that he intended to quote a passage from Chesterton on the title page of his first novel This Side of Paradise. The quote would have been the nonsense song that a judge, in the book's first chapter [i.e., GKC's book The Club of Queer Trades], sings in court as his summation of a case"

"O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty
Tiddly-owty tiddly owty
Highly-ighty tiddly-ighty
Tiddly-ighty ow."

-The Fantastic Fiction of Gilbert Chesterton, Martin Gardner

He read voluminously all spring, the beginning of his eighteenth year: "The Gentleman from Indiana," "The New Arabian Nights," "The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne," "The Man Who Was Thursday," which he liked without understanding...

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
(Book One, Chapter 1- emphasis mine)

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