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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 5 stars
Head and Shoulders: 4.5 stars
The Cut-Glass Bowl: 3 stars
The Four Fists: 2.5 stars
May Day: 4 stars
'O Russet Witch': 4 stars
Crazy Sunday: 4.5 stars
Head and Shoulders: 4.5 stars
The Cut-Glass Bowl: 3 stars
The Four Fists: 2.5 stars
May Day: 4 stars
'O Russet Witch': 4 stars
Crazy Sunday: 4.5 stars
I have mixed feelings about this collection of short stories. For the few strong, there are many weak. I read the free Kindle version.
The Strong:
"May Day" is the truest Fitzgerald-like in the whole set. It's the most developed, with a great cast of the characters. More of a character piece than a plot piece. Typical melancholy thread running through the story. If you're going to read one, try this.
"A Diamond As Big as the Ritz" is entertaining, but it comes off as more of Edgar Rice Burroughs than Fitzgerald. It's a surreal, sci-fi oriented story. It's about a lavishly wealthy family who lives on the top of a mountain, and underneath, is the world's largest diamond.
"Porcelain and Pink" is a cute, short one act play about a girl who is sitting in her bathtub, talking to her sister's boyfriend who cannot see her, and he assumes it is his girlfriend.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" isn't the same as the movie by far. It actually takes place in Baltimore, not New Orleans. I still enjoyed the story. The basic premise is the same.
Everything else was mediocre. I assume that this set includes a large variance in time between publication dates. I think the young, dreary, woe-is-me twenty something male is really overdone by Fitzgerald. He really likes to create this wishy-washy no backbone type male character.
The Strong:
"May Day" is the truest Fitzgerald-like in the whole set. It's the most developed, with a great cast of the characters. More of a character piece than a plot piece. Typical melancholy thread running through the story. If you're going to read one, try this.
"A Diamond As Big as the Ritz" is entertaining, but it comes off as more of Edgar Rice Burroughs than Fitzgerald. It's a surreal, sci-fi oriented story. It's about a lavishly wealthy family who lives on the top of a mountain, and underneath, is the world's largest diamond.
"Porcelain and Pink" is a cute, short one act play about a girl who is sitting in her bathtub, talking to her sister's boyfriend who cannot see her, and he assumes it is his girlfriend.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" isn't the same as the movie by far. It actually takes place in Baltimore, not New Orleans. I still enjoyed the story. The basic premise is the same.
Everything else was mediocre. I assume that this set includes a large variance in time between publication dates. I think the young, dreary, woe-is-me twenty something male is really overdone by Fitzgerald. He really likes to create this wishy-washy no backbone type male character.
The stories are pretty hit-or-miss, I think. Some of them I loved, some of them I thought were alright, and one or two I did not really care for. It's worth reading if you like Fitzgerald's work, as his prose in these is as great as ever.
This collection took on the perspectives and critique of the Jazz Age in a unique way. My favorite short story from this collection is "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz".
F. Scott Fitzgerald remains one of my favorite writers :")
I have mixed feeling about this collection. It was pretty much a half and half of stories I loved and stories I hated. I also found it really rough that almost every story ended with me feeling frustration about the amount of sexism and/or racism in it. I know that I have to take into account the year the stories were written, but I still couldn't help feeling really deflated after most of them. The story "The Lees of Happiness" was definitely my favourite though, I thought it was so visual and beautifully written.
What an incredible and amazing writer. I lack words to describe how much I loved this compilation of short stories. Fitzgerald is a master of story telling, he has some of the most wonderful plots I have ever read. And the humour... I found amazing quotes in here.
My favourites were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Cut-Glass Bowl and The Four Fists.
My favourites were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Cut-Glass Bowl and The Four Fists.