Book Description
Although perceived in his own day as a lightweight chronicler of 1920s trends and fads, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is now recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Whether for his classic novels (The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night), his frequently anthologized short stories ("Babylon Revisited," "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"), or his searing essays of personal examination (The Crack-Up), Fitzgerald is rightly celebrated as a master stylist who plumbs the depths of love, loss, and longing. Unfortunately, much of the interest in Fitzgerald has focused on biographical concerns, including his meteoric rise to fame, his tempestuous marriage to quintessential flapper Zelda Sayre, his rivalry with Ernest Hemingway, and his tragic descent into alcoholism and depression. The resulting, somewhat distorted, image of Fitzgerald has been that of a self-destructive literary playboy. Even scholarly treatments of the author have tended to depict him as a mere spokesman for the Lost Generation, a symbol of the excesses of his era, without properly appreciating the range of his writing or his intellect. This volume of historically minded, newly commissioned essays looks beyond the Jazz Age facade to topics that reveal how Fitzgerald's work both illumines and challenges conceptions of his milieu. Studies of the literary marketplace of the 1920s, the influence of public intellectuals such as Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken, film and its treatment of the New Woman, and the aftereffects of World War I all document the depth and breadth of Fitzgerald's thinking. ... Read more

Book Description
F. Scott Fitzgerald was an artist of extraordinary literary talent who tried to synthesize the ideas and events around him and give them personal expression. And, he was more than that. He and Zelda were personal participants who defined and helped to shape much of what is American. Their lives and American life are so intertwined that they seem impervious to an unwinding. They defined the Jazz Age through self-advertisements; then, Scott gave the epoch its name. Americans generally were obsessed with clever advertising and easy money in a booming stock market. But there is more, much more.

Fitzgerald's life and novels continue to personify the great contradictions in American culture and in American capitalism. Fitzgerald's novels-especially The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night- can tell us about our past but just as much about the present and our future. Notably, Scott had originally set Gatsby in the Gilded Age, an age of excesses similar to those of the 1920s. Today the Casino Economy-beginning in the early 1980s and becoming global-has remarkable parallels to these earlier epochs.

Then, the inevitable; the crashes came. A banking panic in 1907 ended the Gilded Age though not the gild, the Crash of 1929 ended the Jazz Age though not "all that jazz," and the collapse of the technology-driven Nasdaq in 2001 brought an end to the most notorious players in the Casino Economy though not its legacy. Zelda, on the precipice at an earlier age than most supposed then or since, crashed shortly after the stock market. Although the public was unaware of Zelda's plunge, only the Great Depression upstaged Scott's "crack-up." As he dispassionately acknowledged, his literary reputation had gone the way of the economy, as had his earnings from the Saturday Evening Post that sustained his little family.

Though Scott's novels have long been on required reading lists around the world, Fitzgerald and Zelda's cultural presence ebbs and flows. There nonetheless was, of course, a "first" Fitzgerald Revival. It came during the early 1950s-being first literary, but inevitably leading to a renewal of his cultural significance. The Fitzgerald Revival now underway is, if anything, even more confounding because it follows some serious academic studies, yet derives its inert velocity from the vibrant personalities of Zelda and Scott, while its deeper significance once again is properly attributed to Scott. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Welcome Addition to Libraries ofFitzgerald Fans
While F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: UNDER THE INFLUENCE does not ignore Fitzgerald's life, the authors use it to in part explain why Fitzgerald had such a good grasp of the competing economic theories of his time.What makes this book significant, however, is that the authors' primary purpose is to establish that Fitzgerald's works reveal that he "possessed a boldness of intellectual grasp that extends into the economic realm."

Just how much of Thorsten Veblen's THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS is reflected in THE GREAT GATSBY as well as in other works, for example, is thoroughly detailed.And the significance of Gatsby "look[ing] with vacant eyes through a copy of [Henry] Clay's ECONOMICS" while at Nick's house is illuminating.

Perhaps it required such authors as one who has written a book on Wall Street capitalism as well as a novel and an economics professor who teaches interdisciplinary studies to give literature lovers further insight into Fitzgerald/his works and toconvince those who see him as "merely" an intuitive wordsmith that "Fitzgerald deserves more intellectual credit than he received at the time or since." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

so amazing!
i am a huge fan of both f. scott and zelda fitzgerald so it was great to get this glimpse into their personal lives.because their daughter was involved with this book, that gives it even more authenticity and it's like we're being given permission by scottie herself to look at her family's scrapbooks.a very surreal experience!

Stunning collection of Fitzgerald ephemera
My girlfriend, a fellow Fitz enthusiast, bought me this for my birthday and it ranks among the best gifts I've ever received.This is an amazing and exhaustively comprehensive scrapbook of the lives of the Fitzgeralds.If you're a fan and come away from this without wanting to get your hands on every single thing those two touched...there's something very, very wrong with you.;)Beautiful book.

Spectacular Book for F. Scott Fitzgerald Enthusiasts!!
If you are a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, this book is an absolute must-have! While I own just about everything that is written by or about Fitzgerald, this is perhaps my favorite book to peruse. It is compiled just like a personal scrapbook and is replete with photos of the Fitzgeralds as well as articles (by and about Fitzgerald)written in the 20s and 30s. Much of this content you will not find elsewhere, at least not in such abundance. Bruccoli, America's leading Fitzgerald scholar (as well as Fitz's own daughter, Scotty) did a spectacular job of putting this together. The scrapbook format gives the book an intimate nature and the set up is extremely attractive. Best of all, at just around $20, it is an absolute steal for the price! If you love Fitzgerald, don't go without this collection! It would make a splendid addition to any high school classroom that teaches Fitzgerald or any personal library that celebrates true literary classics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A 'must' for high school readers
Eva Weisbrod's A Student's Gudie To F. Scott Fitzerald is a 'must' for high school readers: the career and major works of Fitzgerald are examined in chapters which cover both his full-length fiction and his shorter works. Chapters offer a depth of focus and detail on the major themes begun and created by Fitzgerland's approach and writings which lend particularly well to school research as well as understanding his writings.
... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald assembles over thirty interviews with one of America's greatest novelists, the author of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.

Although most of these are not standard interviews in the modern sense, the quotes from Fitzgerald and the contemporary journalistic reaction to him reveal much about his writing techniques, artistic wisdom, and life. Editor Matthew J. Bruccoli, the foremost Fitzgerald scholar, and Judith S. Baughman have collected the most usable and articulate pieces on Fitzgerald, including a three-part 1922 interview conducted for the St. Paul Daily News.

Fitzgerald (1896-1940) died before the authorial interview became a literary subgenre after World War II. Although Fitzgerald enjoyed his celebrity, as is clear in these pieces, he had a poor sense of public relations and provided interviewers with opportunities to trivialize him. As a result, Fitzgerald was often treated condescendingly in the press. Seven of his interviews---five printed before 1924---have flapper in their headlines. In the Jazz Age---a term Fitzgerald coined---he was regarded as a spokesman for rebellious youth, as a playboy, as an authority on sex and marriage, as an expert on Prohibition, and as an immensely popular writer for his work published in the Saturday Evening Post. Yet his literary ambitions were sizable and his impact on American fiction immeasurable. ... Read more

Book Description
Probably the best candidate for the author of the great American novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald is primarily known for his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. He had fallen out of favor by the time of his death in 1940, while Ernest Hemingway attained worldwide fame. But there has been a tremendous renewal of interest in his works, and he is one of the most important writers in the high school English curriculum. While there are other biographies of Fitzgerald, this work meets the need of high school students for a concise, accessible, and informative survey of Fitzgerald's life and career. Because Fitzgerald drew extensively from his own experiences, his life is especially helpful in illuminating his works. This book approaches his life and writings chronologically. It explores how his parents and upbringing shaped his values, how he creatively presented his life experiences in his fiction, and how he participated in and influenced American culture during the Jazz Age of the 1920s. The volume closes with a timeline and bibliography. ... Read more

Book Description
In The Perfect Hour, biographer James L. W. West III reveals the never-before told story of the romance between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his first love, Ginevra King. They met in January 1915, when Scott was nineteen, a Princeton student, and sixteen-year-old Ginevra, socially poised and confident, was a sophomore at Westover School. Their romance flourished in heartfelt letters and quickly ran its course–but Scott never forgot it. Ginevra became the inspiration for Isabelle Borgé in This Side of Paradise and the model for Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Scott also wrote short stories inspired by her–including “Babes in the Woods” and “Winter Dreams,” which, along with Ginevra’s own story featuring Scott are reprinted in this volume. With access to Ginevra’s personal diary, love letters, photographs, and Scott’s own scrapbook, West tells the beguiling story of youthful passion that shaped Scott Fitzgerald’s life as a writer.
For Scott and Ginevra, “the perfect hour” was private code for a fleeting time they almost shared and then yearned after for the rest of their lives. Now West brings that perfect hour back to life in all its freshness, delicacy, and poignant brevity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Focusing on FitzgeraldBZ - Before Zelda!
This very slight little book explores the here-to-fore little known facts regarding Fitzgerald's early infatuation with the upper class Chicago deb Ginerva King. The Kings were a very wealthy family from Lake Forest and their daughter on the surface quite out of Fitzgerald's league. As Fitzgerald wrote about all this in 1916, "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls." Ginerva was athletic and very personable - and attractive - in 1918 simultaneously announcing her engagement while appearing on the cover of Town and Country magazine. Yet before this a romance of some sort with the poor Fitzgerald ensued, and the author compiles a remarkable amount of information about this youthful relationship, mostly from unknown letters and diaries saved and put away by Ginerva, and donated in 2003 by her granddaughter to the Fitzgerlad archives at Princeton.
These are full of interesting things, and for any Fitzgerald scholar or even just an ardent fan are a must. As one reads through the book the ghosts of early Fitzgerald heroines float in and out of our consciousness. Reminders of this moment in a particualr story, or how someone spoke or felt about a moment in one story or novel can suddenly quite vividly hit us. And it is not only the earlier material. The Perfect Hour serves to remind us all, again, that Daisy and Zelda are not interchangeable - Daisy is much more of a composite character, and many of her traits, from the voice that sounded like money, as Gatsby put it, to her best friend, the tennis champ, are taken from Ginerva's life.
Moreover, Ginerva's stockbroker father who owned a string of polo ponies is yet another source for the composite that is Tom Buchanan. And that rather subtly incestous concept reminds us that Fitzgerald's next novel after Gatsby was initially planned to be about a boy who killed his mother. There is much more going on in Fitzgerald than is generally thought.

Star Crossed Lovers
The story takes you to a different time, a time before cell phones, when letter writing was the main form of communication and young ladies wrote their private thoughts in a journal instead of a blog.Ginevra was rich, privileged and flirted with love.F. Scott Fitzgerald was handsome, charming and in love with Ginevra.Their lives would cross and uncross.Both would marry others.But their love lived on in F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing and in Ginevra's heart.I thoroughly enjoyed reading it -- and knowing it is the true love story about a man who wrote love stories made it all the more interesting.

The Perfect Love? Not Quite.
It's a small book but a very important book For FSF Scholars & Lovers
of the writings & biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I believe most of us can relate to that, 'that first love'...'that perfect love' &
'that lost love'.
Many readers for the first time will realise that all of Fitzgeralds Heroines
were not based on Zelda alone. Zelda was Scott's True Love but many of his most important heroines were based on Ginevra. e.g. 'Daisy'...
'she loves me she loves me not' in 'Gatsby.
Theofanicus Cosmicos August 29 2005

The author is an expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald
This book illustrates one facet of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing, which is based on his sensitivity to his family's financial situation, which was not quite what the top social strata in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Chicago, Illinois, New York City, or at Princeton University considered enviable.In August 1916, the summer after Fitzgerald left Princeton, he saw Ginevra King in Lake Forest, Illinois and someone there told him, "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls."(p. 61, 62).The subtitle describes Ginevra as his first love, but they rarely saw each other, and the major literary contribution to this book by Ginevra is a story on pages 51-56 in which they can finally get together for a perfect hour after she has already married a Russian count and he remarks, "My wife ought to be home directly!"--(p. 56).Among the parallels to THE GREAT GATSBY pointed out in this book, I was most impressed that "Fairway Flapper" Edith Cummings, who won the U.S. Women's Amateur tennis title in 1923, was a friend of Ginevra with an identical pinky ring and obviously the original for character Jordan Baker in THE GREAT GATSBY.

Fitzgerald wrote a tremendous number of letters to Ginevra, but we don't have them.Before he destroyed the letters Ginevra sent him, he had a typed transcript made, 227 double-spaced pages, and kept it in a ring binder.After his death, the transcript was returned to Ginevra King Pirie after she had married John T. Pirie, Jr., who would become chairman of the department store, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co.Surprisingly few original sources are actually quoted in this book, THE PERFECT HOUR, by James L. W. West III.

They knew each other about a year before Ginevra wrote to Scott on January 31, 1916, "Honestly and truly, it would be wonderful to have that perfect hour, sometime, someday and somewhere."(pp. xiii, 50).Ginevra's diary entry for Monday, January 4, 1915, when they met.(p. 21, 22).Place cards from a party, preserved by Scott in his scrapbook.(p. 23). Her diary entries for January 5, 14 and 15.(p. 25).Draft of a telegram written by Scott on a train with a shaky hand.(p. 26).Diary entries for January 23, 28, and February 6 and 12, and letter she wrote him on February 7.(p. 26).Her first letter, written on January 11, and letter of October 13.(p. 27).Her letter of January 11 and 25.(p. 28, 29-30).By January 29 she wrote, "I want you to apologize for calling me a vampire.(p. 31).Letter of January 20 and telegram of February 6.(p. 31).Letters of January 25 and February 8.(p. 33).Letters of January 29 and April 4.(p. 34).Letter of February 8 and diary on February 20.(pp. 35-36).Letter of March 10.(pp. 36-37).Letters of February 25 and March 12.(p. 37).Letters of March 12 and 25 and diary for March 16.(p. 38).Letters of March 25 and 26 and April 26.(p. 39).Diary for June 8 (pp. 40-41) and letter of August 25 stating, "I told you, didn't I, that I figured out that we have seen each other for exactly 15 hours."(p. 40).Letter of May 14 and "She would turn seventeen in November;"(p. 43).All of this has been about a high school girl?So she could go to the Yale-Princeton football game in New Haven in November 1915, so the next letter of January 27 must be 1916.(p. 44).Fitzgerald had written a Princeton University Triange Club show with future literary critic Edmund Wilson, and Ginevra saw two performances in Chicago and sent him a letter on January 17, 1916.(p. 45).She also wrote a letter May 22 about getting kicked out of school for leaning out the windows of the dormitory to talk to boys.(p. 48).

The remainder of the book furnishes details about stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, after her wedding march to Rolls-Royce to large grand piano story.After Scott sent her a story, she wrote him on May 24.(p. 61).The "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls" in Scott's ledger is on page 62, with "It would be slick to have you write a story about me," she told him on November 3rd.The romance was over by the end of January, 1917.(p. 64).She announced an engagement to the son of a bank president who was an ensign in naval aviation on July 16, 1918.They were married September 4, 1918, just a few months before she was twenty.An exciting robbery during a dinner party on the evening of Saturday, November 21, 1931, involving four armed thieves (p. 81) was thwarted and most of her jewelry was recovered inside the pockets of an overcoat that had snagged on a wire fence.(p. 82).She lived until 1980.

There are a few times in the book when privacy issues are raised, but most of the events in the book take place when Ginevra King was too young to be allowed to get into trouble, and the thrill is all about trying to get things down on paper.There are so many people in modern society that few of them ever develop much sense of who they are talking to.Scott had Ginevra's attention long enough to help define who he wanted to address and why.But he could never write for enough money to put him in her class.Scott and Zelda were spending as fast as it came to them and never could have caught up.There is an intellectual problem here, but it looks more emotional than economic.

A Good Book to Start
I have to admit that I really don't know that much about the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. But I had read such good things about this book that I wanted to read it.
That being said, I think this would be a good book for anyone who doesn't know alot about this man. It gives some interesting information about his first romance. Plus, it is a short book and easy to read.
Also, the historical background on the way life was back then was very interesting. ... Read more

Book Description
The Four Books that Defined and Chronicled the Jazz Age! Here in one eBook is the quartet of books that catapulted F. Scott Fitzgerald to literary immortality. Meet the flappers, the indolent young men, the speakeasies, the gangsters, the illegal hooch, and the easy money that characterized the Roaring Twenties. From This Side of Paradise to Flappers and Philosophers, The Beautiful and the Damned, and Tales from the Jazz Age Fitzgerald will light the way on a very special insider's tour of the Jazz Age. The age that made Fitzgerald and killed him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Polly Parker Stories
I am really shocked that this first rate Fitzgerald collection does not have the "Polly Parker" stories that originally were printed serially in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST in 1922. Apparently these uncollected stories remain unavailable anywhere in book form.

Polly Parker was a typical Fitzgerald heroine -- a blue-eyed flapper with a pert nose and golden hair bobbed very short. The reason her stories are omitted, I gather, is that they were slightly more sexual in tone and also addressed taboo subjects such as alcoholism, racial violence, incest, and insanity.

"GRANDPA'S GOLD" the first Polly story, deals with lasting echoes of the Civil War. Spoiled Polly goes to Vermont for the summer to stay with her aging grandfather -- the last remaining Union army veteran in Vermont. Ultimately she robs him of a small fortune in gold coins which he had originally intended to donate to a Negro orphanage. This story highlights Fitzgerald's ambivalence towards the young women of the day -- Polly is cruel and selfish, but also winningly spontaneous, free and independent. Fitzgerald's racism is in full flower here as well. The fact that she is "only" robbing colored people seems to make her crime an amusing prank rather than a vicious crime.

"ALLIGATOR QUEEN" is both darker and more sophisticated. Polly is a houseguest in Georgia, where she meets Eleanor Hiss, a jazz age siren who may or may not have negro blood. The two girls deliberately lead a young Harvard man out into quicksand, then go joy riding in his car while he slowly drowns. Fitzgerald later wrote that Eleanor seduced Polly in an early draft -- but in 1922 the SATURDAY EVENING POST would never have carried a story with an explicit lesbian seduction.

"HOLY MATRIMONY" is the ironic finale to the Polly Parker stories. Invited on a weekend yachting party, Polly is compromised by an Eastern Prince and forced to marry silent movie star Reginald Dashwood. Dashwood is a homosexual who needs "discreet companionship." Polly marries him, assuming he is a pushover, but instead he is cruel, domineering and controlling -- and aided by an iron-willed mother who treats Polly like a servant. Polly's "punishment" is ironic, since she now has unlimited wealth and a dazzling husband -- but no freedom and no hope of either sexual or spiritual release.

Taken together, these three stories represent Fitzgerald's darkest early work -- and they should be included in any "definitive" collection.

Short Stories
I bought this book for the short stories. They are like small diamonds on a necklace, sparkling in a row, each one a wonder. Fitzgerald's short stories are like that.

"The Off Shore Pirate" is hilarious. The "Ice Palace"is strange and beautiful."The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is about a baby born very old who gets younger every year.

"The Diamond As Big As The Ritz" is classic Fitzgerald, about the rich.

The story that is missing is "The Rich Boy." This is the story that started the famous spat between Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

In this short story, Fitzgerald writes: "The rich are very different from you and me."Hemingway responds inhis short story, "The Snows Of Kilimanjaro:""Yes, they have more money."

But you will not find "The Rich Boy" in this book. Too bad.

Included with the short stories are two novels:: This Side Of Paradise and The Beautiful And Damned.They are very adolescent novels. High school students might enjoy them.

Maybe not.

The short stories do more to describe the Jazz Age than his novels.

If you are serious about this author, his greatest novel is The Great Gatsby.His next best novel is Tender Is The Night."The Rich Boy" is his best short story.

Good Collection of Pre-Gatsby Work
This is a very attractive packaged, comprehensive collection of Fitzgerald's early work, containing his first two novels (This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful & Damned) and his first two short story collections.Included are some classic short stories such as May Day and The Diamond As Big As The Ritz.Some of the other stories are less than classic, but all are enjoyable.As is the case with all Library of America volumes, the book is very easy to handle and read.There is a useful set of notes and chronology of Fitzergald's life in the back.All in all, this is well worth the price. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1939, F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Hollywood, in failing health, trying to work—write for the movies, sell some stories—and to continue to be the mainstay and anchor for his family, paying Zelda’s substantial hospital bills, educating Scottie and remaining, through letters, a protective and anxious father. The magazines were no longer clamoring for his stories; his books had nearly disappeared from the bookstores. The fame, money and high times of the early years seemed to have evaporated. Fortune had not deserted him entirely, however—Frances Kroll applied for the position as Fitzgerald’s secretary. Young and a little shy, but nevertheless level-headed, intelligent, practical, versatile and resilient, Miss Kroll played a vital role during the last quiet but difficult twenty months of Fitzgerald’s life. They worked at home where she typed from his handwritten pages, ordered groceries, made appointments and listened while he talked out ideas. Finally, it fell to her to make his funeral arrangements and deal with the modest belongings.Nearly a lifetime later, Frances Kroll Ring gives us both the youthful experience of Fitzgerald, and her mature vision of it. This frankly admiring and respectful memoir of the extraordinary writer creates a uniquely domestic picture. We see an admirable and talented man carrying on with dignity, purpose and commitment against a tide of troubles and disappointments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Rediscovered Snapshot
The Los Angeles Times review got it right: This book "is like a rediscovered snapshot, bringing a legendary figure into brief, vivid focus." That snapshot also includes a perceptive young woman and her family, Fitzgerald's inner circle (Sheilah Graham, Scottie, Maxwell Perkins, and Edmund Wilson), and a slice of Los Angeles during its most creative period.Hollywood is the backdrop for this book and *The Last Tycoon*, which Fitzgerald was writing at the time, but there's no glitzy melodrama here, and Ring mostly steers clear of "the Fitzorama"--her term for the literary-industrial complex that has grown up around Fitzgerald.By telling her story simply and beautifully, she produces the vivid focus mentioned above.The book also includes reproductions of letters, notes, and telegrams composed by Scott, Zelda, Perkins, and Wilson. Highly recommended.

being filmed in Toronto- Spring release....
To be featured on ShowTime-TV channel..by Henry Bromell,aFitgerald expert-writer,(NY). It's neither a docu, nor a BioPic.Kroll's memoir, 1985..details his last frantic attempt in Hollywood--to finish.."The Last Tycoon"...Scott died-at 44- heart attack-Dec.21,1940 after years of smoking/ drinking. His wife..Zelda is played by Sissy Spacek...who read the 1960's bio.."Zelda".
Kroll,now 85 has visited the set in Canada-where producers found Spainish-style hacienda..like Scott's in LA.

Poignant little memoir
This is a wonderful, unassuming narrative about the final days of F. Scott Fitzgerald which paints him as a real human being with real problems, writing immortal fiction with a dying hand.His fragility and beauty is evident, and this quick read is a must for anyone determined to learn about the real Fitzgerald.

A Chronicle of a Dying Star
This is a wonderful book, poignant yet revealing, just like the man it is about. Frances Kroll Ring was Fitzgerald's secretary in the last few years of his life. What she details in her memoir will enlighten anyone who hasonly ever thought of Fitzgerald as merely an alcoholic who just stumbledinto writing. Yes, she records that he was drinking well up to his death,but he was also doing something important. He was in the middle of writing"The Last Tycoon", a work that was to be unlike his previousefforts, more mature and reflecting a different sensibility. But, as onefinds out at the end of "Against the Current", he never realizedhis goal. The great work was left unfinished, and therefore one moretragedy closed the curtain on an already sad life. ... Read more

Book Description
Since its first publication in 1981, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur has stood apart from other biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald for its thoroughness and volume of information about Fitzgerald's life and career. It is regarded today as the basic work on Fitzgerald and the preeminent source for the study of the novelist. In this second revised edition, Matthew J. Bruccoli provides new evidence discovered since its original edition. This new edition of Some Sort of Epic Grandeurimproves, augments, and updates the standard biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Some Kind of Wonderful
I am an absolute diehard fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, both his life and his literature. So, I knew when I purchased this book I was bound to scrutinize its every nook and cranny. Well, my scrutiny proved to be a wasted effort. Without question, Matthew Bruccoli is the number one Fitzgerald scholar in the country, and after reading this biography, it is impossible to question why.
Bruccoli covers every aspect of Fitzgerald's life and includes several bits of correspondence to really give readers a look inside Fitzgerald's thinking. --Perhaps my favorite thing about the book is that it does not sentimentalize the author (which I myself have a habit of doing). Fitzgerald is spelled out here in all his glory, yet, we also get to see his unflattering side...paranoia, arrogance, unharnessed alcoholism, and downright neurosis.
F Scott Fitzgerald was a brilliant man whose life became legend. It is my humble opinion that Bruccoli has written the most thorough and best possible biography. Simply put, the read isfascinating. It might be 600 pages, but you will fly through it. It is "never dry" (like Fitzgerald :)) and always entertaining. For Fitzgerald fanatics like myself, this book is a must, but I am convinced that anyone who takes to "human interest" stories would find themselves engulfed in its pages.
Also recommended: "The Romantic Egoists"...a scrapbook collection put together concerning the lives of the Fitzgeralds. It is packed with pictures and is a wonderful companion to the biography. It was also published by Bruccoli.

Outstanding biography
This is an excellent biography, full of a great wealth of detail.In truth, Fitzgerald is a pretty easy biographical subject, because his fiction was so closely based on his own life and experiences and because he wrote so many letters and kept such detailed notebooks and ledgers accounting for his own life.He also had relationships with many people (Zelda, other writers, etc.) who left behind many accounts of him.Still, Bruccoli does an extremely thorough job and the book is very well-written.

I would give it five stars except for an extremely irritating tendency Bruccoli has to be dismissive of almost all of Fitzgerald's short stories.Bruccoli is way too arrogant about pronouncing dozens of the stories F. Scott wrote as being "minor," or "disappointing," or even "embarrassing," while reserving his praise for a select few, such as "May Day" and "The Rich Boy."Personally, having read every one of FSF's currently collected short stories (well over 100 in all), I don't rate "May Day" or "The Rich Boy" very highly, but I love lots and lots of the "commercial" ones Bruccoli dismisses.I think he should leave the assessment of which stories are good up to the reader.Bruccoli's literary analysis -- of Fitzgerald's novels -- is outstanding, but the short stories should not be so dismissed (even if Scott himself at times dismissed them and hated having to write them to earn money).

Amazing reading material for anyone
I am a writer, and first took out the book suffering from similar problems to Fitzgerald's at the beginning of his career, hoping to get some guidence.Reading it, I was struck by the profundity of the advice on writing he gave his daughter Scottie, which is copied in excerpts.I felt like I was getting the same benefits he gave her, and I also got the sense that he would want this.He meant what he had learned to be accessable to everyone;in a way, it was what his life was based around.Then, I got a good deal out of the analyses the biographer devotes to transcibing the process Fitzgerald went through in mapping out each of his extaordinary novels-I took notes I'll keep for ever.I only wish I could find a source like this on my other favorite writers.I'll have to appeal to Amazon's reccomendations for advice.

Excellent Reference Book but Choppy on Its Own as a Story
I bought this book and read it before reading any of the works of F. Scott Fitgerald.

The book opens with an interesting literary hook as we follow the last few hours in the life of Fitzgerald on December 21, 1940. He is an unemployed screen writer living in Hollywood at the apartment of his companion Sheilah Graham. On the previous day, he had symptoms of a heart problem. That morning on the 21st, he was working on "The Last Tycoon." He was sitting in a chair, stood up, grasped the mantlepiece, collapsed, and died at age 44.

That book is one of seemingly dozens of short stories on F. Scott, Zelda his wife, and others. The book is not a seamless story but is a chronoligcal collection of short - almost disconnected - stories about his life and works.

It is an excellent reference book to consult as you read the works of Fitzgerald. I found the book on its own too dry with too many facts and it gives no idea of what the writing was like. It was not until I read "This Side of Paradise" did I understand what all the fuss was about with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it was at that point the present biography came to life. For example, I quote a passage from Chapter 2 of Book I, as Amory sits on the steps of his dorm at Princeton after his first day on campus:

"Now, far down the shadowy line of University Place a white-clad phalanx broke the gloom, and marching figures, white-shirted, white-trousered, swung rhythmically up the street, with linked arms and heads thrown back:

"Going back-going back,
Going-back-to-Nas-sau-Hall,
Going back-going back-
To the-Best-Old-Place-of-All.
Going back-going back,
From all-this-earth-ly-ball,
We'll-clear-the-track-as-we-go-back-
Going-back-to-Nas-sau-Hall!"

Amory closed his eyes as the ghostly procession drew near. The song soared so high that all dropped out except the tenors, who bore the melody triumphantly past the danger-point and relinquished it to the fantastic chorus. Then Amory opened his eyes, half afraid that sight would spoil the rich illusion of harmony."

One learns more about Fitgerald's writing from that passage than the entire biography.

Having said the above, this is a fact filled reference book that acts as a wondeful guide and supplement to the F. Scott's life and the background for the works. There are many photographsand other documents among the 61 short chapters. I especially liked the ledger notes that were kept by Fitzgerald that clearly outline the characters and plot details for the books. Bruccoli has included a huge notes section and appendix at the back of the book, about 100 illustrations, plus many more documents. I have read many interpretations of "Tender is the Night" but it is a lot clearer when you actually read the author's own notes as produced here in the present biography.

Highly recommend: excellent collection of short stories and documents.

An excellent biography
I've admired Fitzgerald all my life and regard his work as singularly underrated as time goes on. He was a brilliant and witty writer who could turn a phrase as well as any American author of the 20th century. This biography is the best I've ever read on Fitzgerald. It's particularly strong in the depiction of his gaudy, booze-soaked life with Zelda, especially when they were ex-pats living in France. Bruccoli really draws the reader in with deft descriptions of their marital rows, woes, break-ups and innumerable reconcilations. I was happy to see that their daughter, Scottie, was also illuminated so brilliantly.

The material on Sheila Graham, Scott's lover in Hollywood, was also intriguing. Graham's own book about Scott is a great read, but the author brings out elements to the story which Graham omitted. I was genuinely sad when Scott dies and the narrative concludes. The debauchery, booze and high times of the Flapper era are all here. This is a highly recommended, beautifully tribute to one of the great writers of the past 100 years. ... Read more

Book Description
Edited and with an Introduction by Bryant Mangum
Foreword by Roxana Robinson

Benediction • Head and Shoulders • Bernice Bobs Her Hair • The Ice Palace • The Offshore Pirate • May Day • The Jelly Bean • The Diamond as Big as the Ritz • Winter Dreams • Absolution

In the euphoric months before and after the publication of This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the flapper’s historian and poet laureate of the Jazz Age, wrote the ten stories that appear in this unique collection. Exploringcharacters and themes that would appear in his later works, such as The Beautiful and Damned and The Great Gatsby, these early selections are among the very best of Fitzgerald’s many short stories.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic includes notes, an appendix of nonfiction essays by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and their contemporaries, and vintage magazine illustrations. ... Read more

Book Description
By exploring often through fresh evidence his involvement with a bizarre mother, a popular girlfriend, a neurotic wife, a devoted lover, and other fascinating females, Mr. Donaldson has managed, in very readable fashion, to reveal the complex man behind the simplistic legend.
-- John Kuehl, editor of Dear Scott Dear Max

Customer Reviews (1)

Zelda was the most important ?
Six years in the making, this book provides a new approach to understanding a writer. This narrative examines Fitzgerald's all-consuming quest for attention and approval-and love. His constant search for perfect love, the perfect life, and women.
He need and demanded the admiration of women and courted them assiduously, and indiscriminatley.

This book probes the influence of women on Fitzgerald's world-from doting mother to Sheilah Graham and how he captures all these delights and despairs in his work. ... Read more

Book Description
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald remains one of the most recognizable literary figures of the twentieth century, his legendary life - including his tempestuous romance with his wife and muse Zelda - continues to overshadow his art. However glamorous his image as the poet laureate of the 1920s, he was first and foremost a great writer with a gift for fluid, elegant prose. This introduction reminds readers why Fitzgerald deserves his preeminent place in literary history. It discusses not only his best-known works, The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934), but the full scope of his output, including his other novels and his short stories. This book introduces new readers and students of Fitzgerald to his trademark themes, his memorable characters, his significant plots, the literary modes and genres from which he borrowed, and his inimitable style. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fresh approach to Fitzgerald
I would never have thought that someone could still write a fresh approach to Fitzgerald, especially in an introductory book. However, Curnutt has done just that here. I read this book with both wonder and admiration at how Curnutt has reformulated the old critical approaches into something fresh and new, without having the whole thing weighted down by theoretical baggage. I recommend this book to experienced and novice readers of Fitzgerald alike. ... Read more

From the Publisher
Collections of early writings of famous writers can often be dreary affairs, but F. Scott Fitzgerald's early work abounds with life. Because he served such an unusually short apprenticeship he wrote his first, highly successful book, This Side of Paradise, soon after graduating Princeton...his undergraduate work is of special interest. In fact, his college and professional writing careers overlapped. Both This Side of Paradise and Flappers and Philosophersincorporated (with some reworking) some of the early Princeton stories gathered in this volume. In this first complete and chronologically sequenced collection of Fitzgerald's writings for two Princeton publications, The Tiger and Nassau Lit, we can witness Fitzgerald's dramatic growth. We can almost hear him find his voice as a writer.Opportunities to trace the development of style of so significant a writer are rare. These early works of his provide a mirror to his times. His words and the often whimsical sampling!

Fitzgerald stands at center stage throughout this book, but some of the "supporting characters" are notable figures in their own rights. Two of Fitzgerald's closes Princeton friends also opted for writing careers: author/poet John Peale Bishop and Edmund "Bunny" Wilson, who was Fitzgerald's editor at Princeton and became his lifelong "literary conscience" not to mention the most important literary critic in America. These two names will be seen on the masthead of the Nassau Lit along with Fitzgerald's. Scholars will also be fascinated to note that key themes found in Fitzgerald's mature fiction come into focus in his undergraduate work. Heroes and heroines recognizably Fitzgeraldian populate these pages. And the abundant original artwork culled from back issues of The Tiger and Nassau Lit gives the book a delightful visual appeal found in no other Fitzgerald book. ... Read more

Book Description

More critical writing exists onThe Great Gatsby than on any other work of American fiction. ThisColumbia Critical Guide introduces and contextualizes the key critical debates surrounding Fitzgerald's novel. The extracts and essays included here reflectThe Great Gatsby's place as one of the first American novels to make significant use of modernist techniques and explore the influence of this "Lost Generation" work on later American writings. In considering secondary sources from the twenties to the present, this smart and sophisticated study guide offers readers an invaluable resource on this complex rendering of a moment in American history.

Customer Reviews (3)

Maybe Gatsby wasn't great, but the story is...
There is a reason why this is required reading in advanced literature classes throughout the country.This is without a doubt one of the best tales ever told.It should be used as an example to any aspiring writer of what great writing can be.The thing that makes it so great is Fitzgerald's ability to formulate characters, both large and small, and his ability to have them interact in a manner that is at once both imaginative and realistic.This makes the story, which in and of itself is not more amazing than other books, more amazing because you are compelled to believe the plausibility of a story that is incredible.Even if you are not a literature student you will find this book an enjoyable read that is intellectually stimulating, yet easy reading for those reading to relax.Many have copied this story directly and indirectly because of the lesson it teaches (that in the story about life and that about creating a story) and many will continue to do so in the future.

The Failure of Gatsby's American Dream
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was published by Simon & Schuster Inc. in New York in 1925. The book is about the American Dream and the failure of the attempt to reach its illusionary goals, especially the Gatsby's. The attempt to capture the American Dream is central theme to many stories of all times. For Gatsby, the dream is that one can acquire love and happiness through wealth and power. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) was born in St Paul, Minnesota. He was an American short-story writer and novelist. The Great Gatsby is considered as Fitzgerald's finest novel.
The story was set in New York and Long Island in 1920's. Nick Carraway is a young man working as a bond broker in New York. He is used as the narrator throughout the story. Nick acts as an insider as well as an outsider. He eyes everything that is happening in between, but has no intention to interfere. I think he chooses not to lose anybody close to him in the story. This arrangement makes it easy for Fitzgerald to give the audience detailed inside information and to back out as an outsider as needed. The core character, Jay Gatsby, is a character that longs for the past. He devotes most of his adult life trying to recapture it and he finally pays his life as the price in his pursuit. When he was young in the military, Gatsby fell in love with the beautiful Daisy, but he could not marry her because of the difference in their social status. So he left her to acquire wealth. When he got the wealth legally or illegally, he moved near to Daisy, who has already married to another wealthy man, and threw extravagant parties every week hoping Daisy might show up one day at the party. Finally, he set up a meeting with Daisy through her cousin Nick. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby's personal dream to symbolize the larger American Dream where all have the opportunity to get what they want.
Nick is a multi-functional character to the author. He uses Nick as the approach for Gatsby to Daisy. The author naturally arranges all these. Gatsby cannot accept that the past is gone and done with. Nick once attempts to show him the folly of his dream, but Gatsby innocently replies to Nick's assertion that the past cannot be relived. For Gatsby, his American Dream is not material possessions, although it may seem that way. He only comes into wealth to fulfill his Dream, Daisy.
Gatsby believes that he is acting for good beyond his personal interest and that should guarantee success. However, he is terribly wrong. He is so determined and so blind that he would do anything to get Daisy, even covering her up for the fatal accident. His dream never comes about and he ends up paying the ultimate price for it. The idea of the American Dream still holds true in today's time, which is wealth, love, or fame. But one thing never changes about the American Dream. That is everyone desires something in life and strives to get it. Gatsby is a good example of pursuing the American Dream.
A society naturally breaks up into various social groups over time. Members of the lower statuses constantly suppose that their problems can be solved if they gain enough wealth to reach the upper class. Fitzgerald believes in his story that many people interpret the American Dream as being this passage to high social status. They believe once reaching that point, they do not have to worry about money any more. Though, the American Dream involves more than the social and economic standings of an individual.
It seems that the more Gatsby tries to obtain, the less he ends up with. The saddest part of Gatsby is the funeral, which symbolizes the ultimate failure of Gatsby to ever achieve what he has wanted. The women he loved and died for was not present. None of the people who frequented the parties over the summer showed up. Wolfsheim, whom Nick believed to be a close friend to Gatsby, refused to attend. The idealism conflicts with the materialism and is torn apart. However, it is his father who lives at the bottom of the society, who is the most natural and native person in the story, whom Gatsby has never mentioned about, finds his way to his son's mansion for the funeral. What greatness of a father's love is in contrast to the love that Gatsby died for? That is the love of eternity. The father loves his son no matter his son is rich or poor. At this moment, both the idealism and materialism are eclipsed by the truthfulness and naturalness. And that is why Nick was tired of the life there, the carelessness of the people, and the corruption of the society in the American East. He decided to head back to his origin, to the more natural and traditional American Mid-West.
Gatsby possesses an extreme imbalance between the material and spiritual sides of himself. Fitzgerald uses him as a portrait of the ultimate failure of the American Dream in that individuals tend to believe wealth is everything. Maybe what Fitzgerald wants to say is that a nation cannot operate solely on materialism. The spirits of individuals are the true composition of a nation.

The Great Gatsby: What a novel!
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fiction novel that took the world by storm. Nick, Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan a tangled mess of social relationships, some intended for love, some for friendships, others stemmed from old running love. Nick lives on West Egg, near the Gatsby mansion, Gatsby a man whom Nick comes to know well, as well as possible.

Gatsby throws huge social gatherings that people come to even if not familiar with the man Gatsby himself. Nick goes to these gatherings and soon meets Gatsby and becomes friends of leisure. When reading of these lavish parties of Gatsby's F. Scott Fitzgerald makes you feel as though you have been there and wish to stay one second and leave the next by feelings of discomfort. But yet you will want to continue to read to see what is in store next.

Gatsby throws these gatherings in hopes of meeting Daisy once again, for in the past they were lovers. Tom, who is Daisy's husband, is also Nick's old college buddy, is clueless of Gatsby's intentions with Daisy. Which Tom himself is not so faithful to Daisy. Nick agrees, not so whole heartedly, to help Gatsby and Daisy meet. As all of this falls into place Tom continues to see a mistress by the name of Mrs. Wilson, a woman who is married to a mechanic living in a dreary place. Meanwhile Nick starts to fall for a flirtatious and wildly mannered Ms. Jordan Baker. The parties continue to exist, and the company continues to fall into a social web of deceit and denial. As this all takes place you feel for Gatsby because of his longing for Daisy, but are struck by a weak appalling feeling for the way he seems to go about his business.

As the story continues to fall into place some find true love, some find old love, while others find the truth. The plot thickens as a death occurs causing an uproar of suspension of motive and a scandalous cover up causing suspension and tension among the old acquaintances.

F. Scott Fitzgerald throws twist and turns at you in this novel just when you think nothing else could happen. He has quite the talent for hooking a read and slowly reeling them in to feel every slight bump and jerk before reaching the shore, or the end. Which leads to another misfortunate death in the novel that was a great mistake, but yet made a great ending to a great novel that will have you intrigued from the first page to the last. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

I Could Write Greater "Literature" in My Sleep!
Tragically, in Grade 11 we were forced to read "The Great Gatsby" and I thought it was the stupidest book pretty much ever. Gatsby was too full of himself, Daisy was a blonde ditz, Nick I just really didn't care about, and all in all Jordan was the only one I really liked. My teacher said I was looking at things too much in the black and white perspective, but when it really comes down to it this book was about stupid people who did stupid things. Wish I could have put that in my essay. It barely showed anything about the twenties lifestyle for those who say it's a great commentary on those times unless you count descriptions of cars and clothes. It was like "Romeo and Juliet" only not tragic and you wanted to kill off Daisy and Gatsby yourself half way through it. I don't know who says what Great Literature is, but if this is among them, then that's a tragic commentary on our times. I can normally appreciate most literature we're made to read: "The Glass Menagerie", "Hamlet", "To Kill a Mockingbird" even "The Bean Trees" I had to read, but "The Great Gatsby" is just a lot of stupid nonsense I really could have cared less about. My apologies to those who liked it, but for myself it was the biggest waste of time in school. Math made more sense and trust me, I usually hate math a whole lot more than literature.

The Great Gatsby and The American Dream
F SFITZGERALD - THE GREAT GATSBY The best descriptions of Fitzgerald was made by one of his critics : "he stood outside the ballroom , a little boy with his nose to the glass , wondering how much the tickets cost andwho paid for the music " .His place in American literature wasclearly defined . He records an age and a particular social circle withinthe age .The Great Gatsby is a character study of a wealthy Long Islandparvenu , Jay Gatsby . Gatsby , who had aquired his fortune through shadymeans , is the archietype of the American self made man , seen in thehurried -crazy alchooldominated haze of the Jazz age , but through the eyesof Nick Carraway , an objective cold blooded observer who representsthethe older values of the American Middle west before the war; The GreatGatsbygives expensive parties , he recalls his struggled youth withromanticism and he seeks to rearrange his friends lives to suit himself .In fact through this behaviour he tried to escape his loneliness of fear ofremaining alone . When he rencounters Dasy Fay , a youthful love romancewhose memory he has long cherished but who is now married to Tom Buchanan ,he seeks to take up the affair where he left off . Dasy ,driving Jay fromNew York to Long Island in his car , runs over and kills a woman namedMyrtle Wilson , who by improbable coincidence is TomBuchanan`s mistress.Myrtle`s husband , who has seen the car before in the possession of Buchanan , follows Jay , murders him and kills himself .Gatsby`s funeralis attended only by Nick and Jay`s father .The Great Gatsby is a study ofsuccess and presents the evolution and developement of the american dream :a poor boy is hurted by a rich and beautiful girl , spends his life in order to aquire wealth and this way to become worthy ofher , then finds ,after he has achived success that the girl was not worthy of his struggle .The "mystery " of Gatsby , uncovered by Nick Carraway as thenovel evoluates , is that hisextravagant and vulgar way of liferepresents an attempt , perhaps subconscious freudian struggle , to win therecognition of the beautiful Dasy who rejected him years before because hewas poor and unknown .

GATSBY
AH THE GREAT GATSBY THIS IS A VERY UNIQUE NOVEL IT'S ALMOST LIKE WHAT WE TODAY WOULD CALL A JERRY SPRINGER SHOW THIS NOVEL IS A NOVEL WITH A LOT OF SYMBOLISM IF YOU LOOK FOR IT BUT IF YOU DON'TIT'S STILL A VERY CLEVERLYWRITEN NOVEL. BECAUSE OF THE LOVE TRIANGLEAND THE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS IGAVE IT 3 STARS

Great Gatsby recaptures the atmosphere of the roaring 20s
The Great Gatsby is one of the best novels I have ever read. The story centers on Jay Gatsby, a millionaire, whose past is a mystery, but with his tremendous wealth, he is able to attract everyone into his life circle. Nevertheless, his entire motive is to win back his old lover, Daisy.Hisloyalty for love eventually paved the road toward his tragic ending.

Nothing Is Greater Than Gatsby
This book was excellent in my opinion.It contained love, lust, undying devotion, betrayal, and every other element that makes for a good love story.But it was more than that, meaning can be found in each and everycharacter.Some characters such as Daisy represented the times (the 20's),as she was dependent upon her husband and was nothing more than the visionher husband held in his eyes. While a character such as Gatsby representedthe struggle that we shall face until the end of time. The struggle I speakof is one of the heart. If you are at all romantic, I suggest this book toyou, and if you are not I suggest it to you because of its intrigue andcontent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Slightly Obscure Fitzgerald
Lesser known work by FItzgerald is powerful and amazingly relevant in 2007.

The Crack-Up
"This is too real and there ain't no escape"-- Nick Lowe, "Cracking Up"


I carried F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE CRACK-UP around with me for almost ten years before I got around to reading it last month. It was one of those books that I felt I was literarily required to read, what with my affection for all things Fitzgerald -- especially Gatsby. Once I got into the book, I found parts of it fairly impenetrable, which must have been Fitzgerald's state of mind while writing some of the material, a posthumous hodgepodge of uncollected pieces, samplings of notebooks, and unpublished letters (both from and to the author).

An excellent companion piece to the book is the PBS American Masters documentary, F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: WINTER DREAMS, which draws heavily from THE CRACK-UP. The film, in its quest to simulate the elegance that its subject so desperately tried (and failed) to attain, unfortunately breezes over some key points in the writer's life; but the DVD is well worth checking out (literally, either from your local library or Netflix). (PBS's website makes up for some of these omissions with a nifty timeline that puts all of Fitzgerald's accomplishments into context with the tragic goings-on in his life. It also offers some additional footage that does not appear in the film, most notably interviews with E.L. Doctorow and Budd Schulberg, who wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront and who, as a young screenwriter, was rewritten by Fitzgerald.)

Originally written as three essays for Esquire in 1936, "The Crack-Up" was Fitzgerald's bearing of his soul, his confession, his mea culpa to the world at large for letting them -- and himself -- down. It begins: "Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work -- the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside -- the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within -- that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again."

The literary world at large found such brash honesty unseemly, and Ernest Hemingway especially was disdainful of his friend's candor. But just as "The Crack-Up" essays unnecessarily confirmed that Hemingway was indeed a bastard, they also demonstrated that Fitzgerald could still write.

One of the most poignant and telling passages in THE CRACK-UP anthology appears in Fitzgerald's 1932 essay about New York, "My Lost City." Returning a couple of years after the stock market crash of 1929 ("I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives," he writes, "but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days"), Fitzgerald found a new skyline awaiting him. The Empire State Building, all 103 floors and 1,454 feet, had risen out of the dust of the Big Crash. Fitzgerald "went to the roof of the last and most magnificent of towers. Then I understood -- everything was explained: I had discovered the crowning error of the city, its Pandora's box. Full of vaunting pride the New Yorker had climbed here and seen with dismay what he had never suspected, that the city was not the endless succession of canyons that he had supposed but that it had limits -- from the tallest structure he saw for the first time that it faded out into the country on all sides, into an expanse of green and blue that alone was limitless. And with the awful realization that New York was a city after all and not a universe, the whole shining edifice that he had reared in his imagination came crashing to the ground."

Perhaps at that moment Fitzgerald discovered he had his limits, too, and that they were already in his past. One wonders how many times in the eight tortured years he had left, dealing with the insanity of Zelda and Hollywood, book sales all but evaporating, he looked back on that moment atop the Empire State Building and wished he had jumped.

(c) 2006 - Visit chidder.livejournal.com

Thedark night of the soul
Fragments of Fitgerald here do not really shore up his ruin. The most romantic of American novelists tells the story of why in the lives of American writers there are no second acts. The title essay 'The Crack - Up' is a very moving one. The tale of ' the dark - night in the soul in which it is always three o'clock in the morning ' of his breakdown and loss of a real feeling for life. He struggled back, and he made his efforts, most admirably perhaps as a father in trying to educate a daughter with two very problematic parents. He was finished at forty- four and did not make it to some other better world in his work and his life. No second act for him. But these fragments show the very beauty of perception and fineness of literary line which enabled him to write his one, and one of America's great masterpieces, Gatsby.

A nice collection, but it could be better.
Fitzgerald and Wilson are two writers who mean a lot to me. (Tender Is the Night and To the Finland Station being among my favorite books.) I have to confess that I was expecting more from this collection of Fitzgerald essays, letters and journals. The selection is thin, and there is no clear line for why some pieces were chosen and others were not. It seems to me that there would be room on the market for a more comprehensive collection of the non-fiction prose and letters.

The Crack-Up was originally published in book form while Fitzgerald was still alive, which may explain the somewhat odd selection. The obituaries collected at the end were added after his death for the 1945 edition.

Even with the flaws, The Crack-Up is still worth taking the time to read. Particularly if you are a fan of Fitzgerald, the bitter thought-provoking autobiographical essays provide a nice counterpoint to the exuberance of the novels. Aside from the title essay, "My Lost City" is particularly nice.

Fitzgerald arranged fragments of his writing notebooks into a series of conceptual categories for publication in this volume. These fragments serve as a very nice reminder just how good of a writer he really was. The combination of skilled turn of phrase and careful eye for detail is a powerful one. The journal section could serve as a very good lesson in observation for would-be writers of today.

Wilson himself notes that the letters included represent "merely a handful that happened to be easily obtainable". The most interesting letters are those written to his daughter and some of the letters that he received after the publication of the Great Gatsby. It is fascinating to read the reactions of Stein, Wharton and Eliot.

Time for a new edition of (at least) the collected letters?

Vintage Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the dreams and aspirations of so many people when he wrote of the fabulous excesses of the 20's - a time not unlike the recent "get-rich-quick" mania of the Internet bubble, which also crashed, destroying many fortunes and lifestyles.
In The Crack-Up Fitzgerald writes equally poignantly of the agony of the aftermath of such excess and unfulfilled desires and social insecurities. He was able to capture all of this so clearly because it was the life that he and Zelda aspired to and, from time to time, lived.But they were always just on the outside, depending on the generosity of others both financially socially.He takes no prisoners.
It is no surprise that he is still being widely read. Don't miss Fitzgeral - it doesn't really matter which of his books you start with, you will find yourself moving through the collection. ... Read more