Take a photo of a barcode or cover
emberology 's review for:
Flappers and Philosophers
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
It's time. A while ago I decided to slowly reacquaint myself with Fitzgerald, and I feel it's now the perfect time, because my taste in prose has somewhat evolved since my experience with The Great Gatsby (1925), so I want to see whether there's something I've missed or if there's a quality to it I can appreciate more now that I'm older. First, though, I was intrigued by Fitzgerald's first short story collection.
Published the same year as his debut novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), Flappers and Philosophers is mostly a subtle and sensitive look into the 1920s with echoes of Fitzgerald's private life here and there. There's the mismatched pair of Head and Shoulders, where at its melancholic conclusion comes a realization that romance comes with a price. There's Bernice Bobs Her Hair, where bobbing your hair (a recognizable feature of flappers) becomes a symbol for courage and a way to attract boys, but which in the end is only revered as an image (a wet dream of the conservatives), not a concrete act.
However, only two of the stories stood out to me and to which the rest don't measure up (especially the four I haven't mentioned). The Offshore Pirate, the opening story, was a big surprise for me, because it's essentially a love story. It's not your typical cotton candy fare, though. It's as zesty as the main character, Ardita, in all her spoiled flapper glory, and as glimmering as a turquoise sea during a summer day. It's a glass of bubbly under a starry sky and the sound of waves hitting against the sides of a boat. The Ice Palace, on the other hand, is mostly about the difference between the South and the North. Sally's growing disillusionment and the abstract need for something big culminates in an ice palace, where loneliness turns into a hazy and dreamlike wave of crystal clear ice, and Fitzgerald's prose tinkles like ice cubes in a glass.
For me, Flappers and Philosophers wasn't a complete success, but the few diamonds made me confident to continue with more Fitzgerald. More zestiness and tinkling, please!
Published the same year as his debut novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), Flappers and Philosophers is mostly a subtle and sensitive look into the 1920s with echoes of Fitzgerald's private life here and there. There's the mismatched pair of Head and Shoulders, where at its melancholic conclusion comes a realization that romance comes with a price. There's Bernice Bobs Her Hair, where bobbing your hair (a recognizable feature of flappers) becomes a symbol for courage and a way to attract boys, but which in the end is only revered as an image (a wet dream of the conservatives), not a concrete act.
However, only two of the stories stood out to me and to which the rest don't measure up (especially the four I haven't mentioned). The Offshore Pirate, the opening story, was a big surprise for me, because it's essentially a love story. It's not your typical cotton candy fare, though. It's as zesty as the main character, Ardita, in all her spoiled flapper glory, and as glimmering as a turquoise sea during a summer day. It's a glass of bubbly under a starry sky and the sound of waves hitting against the sides of a boat. The Ice Palace, on the other hand, is mostly about the difference between the South and the North. Sally's growing disillusionment and the abstract need for something big culminates in an ice palace, where loneliness turns into a hazy and dreamlike wave of crystal clear ice, and Fitzgerald's prose tinkles like ice cubes in a glass.
For me, Flappers and Philosophers wasn't a complete success, but the few diamonds made me confident to continue with more Fitzgerald. More zestiness and tinkling, please!
"And courage to me meant ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life - not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living. A sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things."
"We're going through the black air with our arms wide and our feet straight out behind like a dolphin's tail, and we're going to think we'll never hit the silver down there till suddenly it'll be all warm round us and full of little kissing, caressing waves."