F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Stories - A Review

While I haven't read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work, here are some of my condensed thoughts on some of his short stories.

Bernice Bobs Her Hair: Overall this was a light fluff piece with a slightly darker ending. An interesting fact is that Fitzgerald himself labeled this short story as trash. While I wouldn’t go that far, this story does lack the substance that normally fills Fitzgerald’s more serious work. As well, I found the slightly racist Indian references to be largely unnecessary.

The Offshore Pirate: The romance itself is much like any modern romance: a formulaic guilty pleasure that is slightly sexist. Ardita, the main female character, does manage to pull off the impossible by not completely annoying me. Seriously, Fitzgerald has a talent for writing rich, entitled female characters in way that keeps me interested and not off-the-handle angry. However, the romance aside, I was most surprised by the unnecessary blatant racism in it, and I don’t just mean he used the word “negro”. In the background, the black characters thanklessly push forward the plot along with odd moonlit dinners and atmospheric “exotic” dance music…but, like seriously, whyyy? Plus, the plot twist at the end unravels any characterization the black characters may have had.

The Cut-Glass Bowl: Oh, God, how I’m torn on this piece! Let me list all the things for you. First, the beginning is a bit hard to follow without a clear focus for a while. Second, the writing, especially at the end, is phenomenal, gorgeous, insane, beautiful, dark. No doubt about it. Third, it does worry me a little that the message behind the cut-glass bowl in the piece is almost a revenge fantasy for guys who have been rejected and that’s totally not okay and is so disturbing. You see my problem?

The Ice Palace: This full circle story was less problematic than the rest but because of this it also did not stand out as much. The atmosphere is well-established and beautifully written, but I’m afraid that the main character’s dilemma came across as a bit melodramatic to me.

FINAL VERDICT: If you aren’t a Fitzgerald fan or scholar, check out “The Cut-Glass Bowl” and give the others a pass. If only for that ending, “The Cut-Glass Bowl” has some dark and beautiful imagery in it while the others fall shy of writing home about. If you liked The Great Gatsby, read “The Cut-Glass Bowl” and skip the rest. Remember Fitzgerald as a lovely writer and nothing more my friend. If you LOVE Fitzgerald’s work and I mean you read This Side of Paradise and/or The Beautiful and the Damned and still LOVE his work, then read all of these short stories, if you haven’t already. 

This Side of Paradise Review

Fiction

By: F. Scott Fitzgerald

288 pages

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. 

Completion: I finished it. I suppose that's a good thing? I did read this for school though so that helped me get through it.

Writing/Style: You can definitely tell this is Fitzgerald's debut. You get glimmers of his gorgeous imagery and style, but it's not there nearly enough.

Characters: Tired of all those angsty YA heroines? Meet Amory Blaine. He'll make you want those YA heroines back as he goes through his privileged white boy life. The other characters aren't anything to write home about either.

Plot/Pacing: What plot? What pacing? But, seriously, we follow Amory through a large chunk of his life from childhood to post-college, and the pace meanders through as Amory slowly discovers himself. If Amory was more likable, this might not of been as much of a negative, but as it is, the slow pacing makes the book even more of a struggle to finish.  

World-building/Atmosphere: When you are able to look over Amory's big egotistic head, you can really see what it was like in the 1920's. In particular, I wish college today was more like it was in Fitzgerald's time where you went to class but didn't worry about tests or homework and just went on wild adventures. Well, like college back then but minus the racism and sexism, of course.

Sub-genres (Romance, Mystery, Humor, etc.): No mystery, for sure. If there was humor, I didn't catch it. As far as romance goes, Amory is in several romantic relationships, but I never felt emotionally attached to any of them. This is probably because the relationship he shared with the "love of his life" was a very narcissistic relationship for the both of them. It's very melodramatic, and it technically fits what the story is going for, but it lacks that investment from the reader which is a shame because it could have helped to make Amory more likable. 

FINAL VERDICT: If you are a huge fan of Fitzgerald's, then you'll probably want to check this book out. Or rather, you probably already have. From a certain angle, it is interesting to see how Fitzgerald progressed in his writing, and to see bits of his own life mixed in the fiction. However, for most of you, if I were to recommend a Fitzgerald work, I would recommend The Great Gatsby. There's just more of everything there because Fitzgerald has figured out his own writing and polished his ideas.