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Aspern Papers, benjamin button, book review, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Cut-Glass Bowl, f. scott fitzgerald, Great Gatsby, henry james, United States
What would life be like if you lived it in reverse..?
Out of the seven short stories collated in this edition, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button‘, ‘The Cut Glass Bowl‘ and ‘The Four Fists’ are probably the most dynamic and startling. This is the first time I have ever actually read Fitzgerald. There was one botched attempt at ‘The Great Gatsby‘ but that ended in failure as I grew too weary to carry on. However, I am glad to say that Fitzgerald is far more successful as a writer of short stories. For one, all the stories save two (‘May Day’ and ‘Crazy Sunday’) span the lifetime of a character, drawing attention to a certain thread of events and the often irreversible effects of the decisions made by those characters. With ‘Benjamin Button’, we have the unique and surreal premise of a young child who decides to live life backwards. Fitzgerald’s play on chronology itself is a clever plot device and added a doubled effect of absurdity and poignancy to the flow of the narrative. The unnatural chain of events lead us to look at each era of human life at a different angle, rendering every stage from childhood to old age a precious gift not to be wasted.
‘The Cut-Glass Bowl’ is again a moralistic tale of karma, using the Gothic-inspired device of attributing a physical object, this time a glass bowl, as the harbinger of death. With this story Fitzgerald studies the nature of marriage in the 1920’s. He traces with deft descriptions the early bloom and subsequent break-down of husband/wife relationships through a decidedly macabre lens. ‘The Four Fists’ is in the same vein, this time telling the story of how manhood and meaning of ‘becoming’ an adult.
For me, this book was a great re-introduction to Fitzgerald, as it helped me understand his ‘style’ a little better. I often have trouble with certain American authors, especially when their work is concentrated within a specific genre or time-period that is slightly alien to me. I almost had the same problem with Henry James until I read ‘The Aspern Papers’. So if you are like me, and worried that you can’t quite ‘get’ into the flow of certain writers, my recommendation is to get your hands on something shorter and perhaps a little less denser.
I give this book 3/5 stars, but it has helped me tremendously in learning to like Fitzgerald a bit more.
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I love Scott Fitzgerald – I think I have read all of his novels. The short stories are great. I haven’t read them in a long, long time. Is Bernice Bobs Her Hair in this collection?
I was never really able to get into Fitzgerald that much. Shame really considering I have most of his works on my bookshelf. The short stories helped me understand where he was coming from. I suppose I found it a bit strange because I’m not familiar with the ‘jazz age’ he is writing about.
No, Bernice Bobs Her Hair isn’t part of the collection. I’m going to try and get my hands on a few more short stories by him. Do you recommend any?
I loved this movie but never read the book would you recommend reading it after seeing the movie?
Also we would appreciate it if you would check out our blog 🙂
I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t advise you on that, but I enjoyed the short story. I think you’ll find that the story does vary somewhat from the mvoie version (as most do). It has had a lot more added to it to make it feature length.
Of course I’ll check out your blog. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment!
For me it’s illuminating to see a take on Fitzgerald from a non-American reader–glad you got around to it. What about his “style” was making him hard to get into, would you say? Whether it’s an American thing or about the subject matter, etc, I’m curious to know. (But then again, he could write about a trip to go buy a vacuum cleaner and his prose would still have me enrapt.)
You are correct that he’s a better story writer than a novelist, even when he was writing those flapper yarns in his drunken sleep to pay for his wife’s mental hospital bills. Interesting life, that guy.
And yeah, Bernice Bobs Her Hair a fun one to follow up with, but I’d also recommend The Diamond as Big as The Ritz and The Off-shore Pirate.
Hi Pseudo, thanks for those recommendations. I’ll definitely chalk it up on my TBR list.
As to your question (and a very good one it is too), it’s a problem I have encountered with a few American writers. I have nothing to say against Fitzgerald’s style… I love the way his narrative flows and I’m really comfortable with the way he positions his reader in the lens of the action; I think it’s the particular ‘age’ itself that he is writing about that seems to be a bit of a literary blind-spot for me. His use of vernacular is incredible, he has such a fine ear for it, but it can be off-putting for a European who is probably not all so clued up to it.
There are times when I felt frustrated or rather ‘colour-blind’ to the texture of the language he was using. Personally as a reader I’m used to making the deeper intertextual connections and seeing the invisible ‘sign-posts’ the author sets up in a text. It’s not only Fitzgerald that does this to me, but Kerouac and Salinger. I’m going to need to prime myself up on these authors and the particular slim slice or ‘age’ of American history they represent.
Yes I think that’s probably the answer… more familiarity with the ‘Beat Generation’ for Kerouac, the ‘Jazz Age’ for Fitzgerald and teen angst for Salinger lol!