F. Scott Fitzgerald put it like this. There are no second acts in American lives.
Indeed so, for Fitzgerald himself. After a huge success as chronicler of the Jazz Age, everything fell apart.
His first novel, “This Side of Paradise," made him a top rank literary star. The good times seemed without end, but end they did.
From boom to bust.
He lost his touch as a novelist in New York and got no luck as a screenwriter in Hollywood. He covers all that in ‘’The Crack-Up," a beautiful work of wisdom that comes with failure.
No wonder his admiration for King Solomon.
He rated Ecclesiastes among the finest literary works ever.
For everything a season…and he had his, but so fleeting. Sometimes, one shot is all we get.
Hemingway objected to the self-pity. “We are writers. Not for us to be tragic figures."
On topic, then, to Illia Malinin, 21, who was supposed to bring home the gold from his performance as a figure skater on ice at the winter Olympics in Italy.
He was the favorite for the United States.
Alas, he tripped and crashed, and not just once, but several times, and to this day, people talk about it, how he ‘’choked.’’
There is more like this, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and I spilled my coffee watching one of our girls go plop.
She was also supposed to win gold for the USA, but apparently, she did not twirl correctly.
Looked good enough to me. Those judges are tough. Fortunately, she was not on trial for her life. If so, she would be in handcuffs by now and taken away.
For doing two twirls instead of three…a crime.
You would truly think so according to her reaction. She was in tears, broken, devastated.
As expected.
She is probably 18, and spent 16 years of her life preparing for this. She gets five minutes on the ice to succeed or fail.
In front of her family. In front of the world;
She failed and from the bitterness of five bad minutes nothing will ever be the same. Behold, a tragic figure.
Off the ice, I wonder about the rest of us. Somewhere in our lives, one chance we got, whether choosing a husband, a wife, a job, a career, for war, for peace. And Trump?
Did we succeed? Will he?
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. New from the novelist, the gambling thriller Compulsive. Website: www.jackengelhard.com
From the esteemed John w. Cassell: “Jack Engelhard is a writer without peer, and the. conscience of us all."