The Gun and the Pen : Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and the Fiction of Mobilization

## Abstract This book demonstrates that Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were motivated, in their famous postwar books, not by their experiences of the horrors of the war but rather by their failure to have those experiences. These “quintessential” male American novelists of the 1920s were all deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command and the result was that they felt themselves “emasculated”: not, as the usual story goes, because of their encounters with trench warfare in a mechanized army, but because either they got nowhere near the trenches or because they got to them in “trivial,” noncombat roles. By bringing to light previously unexamined archival records of the Army, the book shows that the frustration of these authors' military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of a whole new set of methods employed in the mobilization for World War I, unprecedented procedures that had as their aim the transformation of the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not black-white difference). So, for these writers, the humiliating failure to get into or to be promoted in the Army was also a failure to compete successfully in a rising social order and against a new set of people. And it is that social order and those people — these effects of mobilization, and not other effects supposedly produced by mass war and a mass army — that The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury register and re-imagine. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner stand as the American voice of the Great War. But was it warfare that drove them to write? Not according to Keith Gandal, who argues that the authors' famous postwar novels were motivated not by their experiences of the horrors of war but rather by their failure to have those experiences. These 'quintessential' male American novelists of the 1920s were all, for different reasons, deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command. As a result, Gandal contends, they felt themselves emasculated--not, as the usual story goes, due to their encounters with trench warfare, but because they got nowhere near the real action. Bringing to light previously unexamined Army records, including new information about the intelligence tests, The Gun and the Pen demonstrates that the authors' frustrated military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of the unprecedented U.S. mobilization for the Great War, a radical effort to transform the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not to racial difference). For these Lost Generation writers, the humiliating failure vis-?-vis the Army meant an embarrassment before women and an inability to compete successfully in a rising social order, against a new set of people. The Gun and the Pen restores these seminal novels to their proper historical context and offers a major revision of our understanding of America's postwar literature. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner stand as the American voice of the Great War. But was it warfare that drove them to write? Not according to Keith Gandal, who argues that the authors' famous postwar novels were motivated not by their experiences of the horrors of war but rather by their failure to have those experiences. These 'quintessential' male American novelists of the 1920s were all, for different reasons, deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command. As a result, Gandal contends, they felt themselves emasculated--not, as the usual story goes, due to their encounters with trench warfare, but because they got nowhere near the real action. Bringing to light previously unexamined Army records, including new information about the intelligence tests, The Gun and the Pen demonstrates that the authors' frustrated military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of the unprecedented U.S. mobilization for the Great War, a radical effort to transform the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not to racial difference). For these Lost Generation writers, the humiliating failure vis-a-vis the Army meant an embarrassment before women and an inability to compete successfully in a rising social order, against a new set of people. The Gun and the Pen restores these seminal novels to their proper historical context and offers a major revision of our understanding of America's postwar literature Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner stand as the American voice of the Great War. But was it warfare that drove them to write? Not according to Keith Gandal, who argues that the authors'famous postwar novels were motivated not by their experiences of the horrors of war but rather by their failure to have those experiences. These'quintessential'male American novelists of the 1920s were all, for different reasons, deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command. As a result, Gandal contends, they felt themselves emasculated--not, as the usual story goes, due to their encounters with trench warfare, but because they got nowhere near the real action. Bringing to light previously unexamined Army records, including new information about the intelligence tests, The Gun and the Pen demonstrates that the authors'frustrated military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of the unprecedented U.S. mobilization for the Great War, a radical effort to transform the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not to racial difference). For these Lost Generation writers, the humiliating failure vis-à-vis the Army meant an embarrassment before women and an inability to compete successfully in a rising social order, against a new set of people. The Gun and the Pen restores these seminal novels to their proper historical context and offers a major revision of our understanding of America's postwar literature. "In this work of literary and historical scholarship, Keith Gandal shows that Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner were motivated, in their famous postwar novels, not by their experiences of the horrors of war but rather by their failure to have those experiences." "These "quintessential" male American novelists of the 1920s were all, for different reasons, deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command. As a result, Gandal contends, they felt themselves emasculated - not, as the usual story goes, due to their encounters with trench warfare, but because they got nowhere near the trenches or the real action. By bringing to light previously unexamined archival records from the U.S. Army, The Gun and the Pen demonstrates that the frustration of these authors' military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of a whole new set of methods employed in the mobilization for the Great War - unprecedented procedures that aimed to transform the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not to racial difference). For these Lost Generation writers, the humiliating failure vis-a-vis the U.S. Army became a failure to compete successfully in a rising social order and against a new set of people."--Jacket In this book, Keith Gandal contends that 'The Great Gatsby', 'The Sun Also Rises' and 'The Sound and the Fury' were all written by men who were greatly influenced by their shared frustration of not serving in the American military's colossal war effort Keith Gandal. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 221-254) And Index.