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This digital document is an article from St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1875 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Signed essays ranging from 500 to 2,500 words, written by subject experts and edited to form a consistent, readable, and straightforward reference. Entries include subject-specific bibliographies and textual cross-references to related essays. ... Read more

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F. Scott Fitzgerald's second collection of short stories contains some of his best-known tales of the glittering era he gave a name to. 

Published in 1922, Tales of the Jazz Age featured not only the flappers and lost young men Fitzgerald had made his name with, but a greater variety of characters and scenes. The critically admired novella "May Day" contrasts its drunken debutantes with a mob of war veterans battling socialists in the streets. Here, too, are several imaginative stories that Fitzgerald described as "fantasies," including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," about a man who ages in reverse, and "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz," a surreal fable about the excesses of greed. Tales of the Jazz Age not only furthered Fitzgerald's reputation as a master storyteller but cemented his place as the spokesman of an age. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

When they were good they were very very good, and when they were bad they were horrid
This 1922 short story collection is a trip back in time through the eyes of this celebrated author.There are 11 stories here, of varying quality and I enjoyed reading them all and letting myself visit the time and a place and the culture that is now just a small blip in the annals of history.Some stories are set in the world of the moneyed, others are set in the world of fantasy and there are other that are just figments of the author's imagination.I didn't like all of these stories.As the saying goes, "when they were good they were very very good, and when they were bad they were horrid", but I felt I got to know F. Scott Fitzgerald through these stories, see how his mind worked, and understand how he became so well known and was able to come to his full power in his novels.

His strongest stores were set in the real world, the young southern man who was smitten by a rich young woman, two recently released soldiers from the War in Europe who stumble upon some party-going socialites, a very funny story about a costume party where two men dress in a camel costume, and a sad story about a happy marriage which is spoiled by the husband's illness.

I don't like fantasy and found myself annoyed by these stories, even the one about the Curious Case of Benjamin Button which was recently made into a movie, or The Diamond as Big as the Ritz which was a fantasy of enormous wealth and cruelty.There were stories of unfulfilled dreams and real emotion which I liked.And others that were just stupid and silly and hard to follow.

Yes, I enjoyed this book, even the stories I didn't like.Having a critical attitude towards something I am reading is not a bad thing.However, I was really annoyed at the plethora of typographical errors throughout the book.There is no excuse for that.

MobileReference edition also has at least one error...
Tales of the Jazz Age: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,The Diamond As Big As The Ritz, My Last Flappers & more (mobi)

I'm sorry to report that there is at least one error in the MobileReference edition of Tales of The Jazz Age in the Jelly-Bean story, and that it mirrors the same error I found in the public domain editions.

In the paragraph that begins with, "In the twilight of one April evening when a soft gray had drifted down...," this sentence is truncated:"His mind was working persistently on a problem that had held his attention for an."

I bought this MobileReference edition based upon the publisher's post and claim of no errors in this thread.It's no big deal ("To err is human...."), but I'll be asking for a refund of my 99 cents.

Tales of the Jazz Age
This is a well-bound, well illustrated hardcover reprint of F. Scott Fitzgerald's second collection of short stories, including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "May Day," and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz."

Comments from the publisher
This page mixes reviews for 3 books: one published by MobileReference and two others published by 'Public Domain Books' and 'Juniper Grove'. It is unclear which review corresponds to which book. We assure you that MobileReference book does not have any errors. The MobileReference book was carefully checked for accuracy and completeness by a team of experts. Please download the Free demo. To find Tales of the Jazz Age published by MobileReference, search: mobi Tales of the Jazz Age.

MobileReference

Affordable but filled with errors
Although the stories are complete, they are filled with errors. It is distracting when sentences don`t make sense and it takes away from the experience. It is understandable why it was so affordable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Fire In The Lake
The condition of the book was as advertised and it arrived in the time frame as expected.

Dated, wrong, useless
"Fire in the Lake" is a hysterical book from a hysterical time. Whatever Frances Fitzgerald has to offer in terms of passion is overwhelmed in hindsight by appaulingly bad research, naive condecending attitudes and having gotten so many things so wrong about the war.

The book is incredibly derivative of the works of Paul Mus. Vietnam is seen through his eyes, his view of history and his biases. Fitzgerald, rather than doing research, simply parrots Mus.

She gets the NLF (Viet Cong) completely wrong. she treats all its wartime propaganda as unquestioned truth. Comparing what he said to the NLF postwar accounts, its clear that he was absolutely wrong. That doesn't make the pro-vietnam war side "right" or the vietnam war right. It just makes Frances Fitzgerald and her book wrong.

While this book is of use in understanding the psychology of the disputes in American society over the Vietnam War, it is worse than useless as any sort of account of events or history of the war. Almost any history written since 1979 or so is better than this dated nonsense.

A Work of Passion and Urgency
"Fire in the Lake" could have been written by Albert Camus or Hannah Arendt, but instead it was written by a 31-year old journalist Frances Fitzgerald, who in writing the book channeled all her society's fears and anger into passion and urgency to write this powerfully disturbing account of a young empire lost and corrupted.

The author analyzes the war through the viewpoints of its participants, and presents a sobering and poignant account of each player.There are the disciplined and organized North Vietnamese, who in knowing the righteousness of their cause have absolute faith in their victory.There are the hapless and hopeless South Vietnamese - the government, the military, the Buddhists, the Catholics, the sects, and political opportunists -- who at first struggle against each other, and then struggle against the Americans before finally resigning themselves to the destruction of their society, culture, and history.But Ms. Fitzgerald focuses her most critical eye on the American empire - the government at home who will sacrifice 45,000 American soldiers to "save face," the military who internalize "Heart of Darkness" and decide that to save the Vietnamese they must first kill every one of them, and the diplomats who in trying to democratize Vietnam end up turning it into a corrupt tyranny that disgusts even the corrupt tyrants who ran it.In the end, Ms. Fitzgerald's verdict is stunning in its absoluteness and in its objectivity:America corrupted and destroyed Vietnam, and America corrupted and destroyed itself.

"Fire in the Lake" is above all prescient.The Pentagon Papers had not yet been released, and Frances Fitzgerald had already expressed to the American public why the war was being fought:not for liberty or to stop Communism or to save the Vietnamese, but simply because powerful men in omnipotent positions had petty egos.Even before the American withdrawal and even as the Tet offensive devastated and depleted the ranks of the Viet Cong, she could already declare that the war was over, and the North Vietnamese were triumphant.Even before there was a full accounting of the war, she could already indict the American military and government for genocide against the people they were ostensibly trying to save.During the book Ms. Fitzgerald would continuously allude to "The Tempest," and she could have just as easily allude to "King Lear":how one man's pride blinded him into unleashing a tragedy where good must die at the hands of evil.

It will be difficult for another work as powerful and passionate as "Fire in the Lake" to appear in the American landscape.Today, there is the War on Terror, and Jane Mayer in "The Dark Side" could indict the Bush administration for crimes greater than the Nixon administration in Vietnam - but it's clear from her nuanced and well-crafted arguments that they're just nuanced and well-crafted arguments.American society is not involved in the War on Terror the way it was involved during the Vietnam War.At that time, the young could sincerely and powerfully feel their future disappearing into a black void, and it was only natural and necessary for one of their own to channel this urgent and passionate fear and hopelessness into "Fire in the Lake."That no one can do that today - despite what's happen at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - does not speak well for the fate of America and of humanity.

The BEST book about the US in Vietnam
If you want to begin to understand the US involvement in Vietnam read this book, then read "The Best and The Brightest" and then read "A Bright Shining Lie".

Book made irrelevant and untrue by history
It is difficult to give this book a critical look because it has become as unquestioned as the Bible is in certain circles.According to the author the Vietnamese are unknown and unknowable to westerners. (Somehow she has grasped their elemental essence.) They share so little in common with the rest of humanity that Stalinist communism is the only political system under which they will prosper and be true to their anthropological roots."The moment has arrived for the narrow flame of revolution to cleanse the lake of Vietnamese society from the corruption and disorder of the American war.It will have to come, for it is the only way the Vietnamese of the south can restore their country and their history to themselves."As it has been seen by the eyes of the world through the history of Southeast Asia since 1975 the South Vietnamese were truly fortunate to have been "liberated" and "brought back to their heritage" by a force as truly benevolent and peaceful as the government of the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam."

Overly academic in an elitist anti-anticommunist way, this book has been required reading in all "revisionist" undergraduate history seminars and lectures since its first publication in 1972. (What was "revisionist" in the 1970s is the Very Truth in 2005.) It has the obligitory academic but irrelevant references to "dead white men" (Shakespeare's Tempest) for mostly incomprehensible reasons.

As I watch the people of Vietnam being pimped by their government to enrich its coffers and those of the Nike Corporation, I think of how stupid, ignorant and ultimately vile this book is and was.As I watch the diaspora of Vietnam succeed and prosper I wonder how Frances Fitzgerald can sleep for all of their brothers and sisters left behind in that unfortunate and misjudged land. For all of its damage done it is regrettable that this book was not the end of Frances Fitzgerald's career, but its beginning. ... Read more

Product Description
Stories in the Travelman Short Stories series take the reader to places of mystery, fantasy, horror, romance, and corners of the universe yet unexplored. In turn, readers take them on the bus or subway, slip them into briefcases and lunchboxes, and send them from Jersey to Juneau. Each classic or original short story is printed on one sheet of paper and folded like a map. This makes it simple to read while commuting, convenient to carry when not, and easy to give or send to a friend. A paper envelope is provided for mailing or gift-giving, and both are packaged in a clear plastic envelope for display. The cost is not much more than a greeting card. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

highly readable
This book contains 5 charming tales that range from the bittersweet ("Bernice bobs her hair") over the cautionary ("The Ice Palace") to the tragic ("May Day") and the grotesque ("The Diamond as Big as the Ritz").The fifth story is "The Bowl".
The stories are indeed set in the jazz age (1920's)and tell about the (mis)fortunes of young men and women, high school kids, college students and the like, at that time. So imagine proms, high school dances, romances, a lot of drinking and fighting done by the men and a lot of gossip and rivalry among the women.
The writing is excellent and brings forth vivid imagery in rich detail. So you've got a book about an interesting subject (1920's American high-life) that is also beautifully written. Where I come from that's called a good deal. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 8906 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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