Short Stories 26-32: More late Fitzgerald stories

I finally finished the cluster of stories published after Fitzgerald's death.  Some of these were not his best and others showed that he was coming back.  I wrote in more detail over at Fitzgerald Musings and will link to the stories over there.

The stories I really enjoyed included:
Lo, The Poor Peacock
Dearly Beloved
On Your Own

I don't think I hated any of them but the others did not rise to the top.
Discard
The Woman from Twenty-One
Last Kiss
On An Ocean Wave

In Lo, The Poor Peacock, the daughter character reminded me of Audrey which may have swung the story to my favor.

and 

Dearly Beloved is very poetic, but very short

For short stories, the next cluster I will be tackling are from 1920-22.

Short Stories 24 & 25: "Death of My Father and "My Generation" by FS Fitzgerald

I have written an much more detailed post on these short stories over on the Fitzgerald Musing Blog.  You can check it out here.

I really enjoyed "My Generation".  It is this kind of essay that I enjoy from him.  He has an insight and a way of getting to the heart of a topic.  It makes me sad that he died so young and that we were not able to see how he would have seen the world as he aged.  It think it would have been interesting on how he would have dealt with aging and how society treats you.  Also how he saw the younger generations. What would he have thought of the hippies and free love?  Oh well.

"The Death of my Father" was good, but ultimately an unfinished piece.  I find it interesting more in the context of the lack of talk from him regarding his family.  He seems to keep that part out of his fiction, where everything else seems to be free game for his stories.  I wish there was more.  I am sure the death of his sisters (even if he never knew them) had to play a role in his young life.  I mean his mother had to be a wreck and I am sure that effected how he was raised.


So, shifting gears...  My plan is to finish all the works of Fitzgerald.  I am so slow on getting through these, and I don't want to kid myself that I can race right through them, although if I had a month or two of isolation I am sure it would be done.  I have created some clusters of stories that I will be tackling.  I broke them down by year published and then on cluster of Scott and Zelda works (which I will read last).  Right now I am finishing the post 1940 published work.  I think this will be the most difficult as they were not published during his life for various reasons, like being unfinished or not very good.  They can range from a any period in his life, so there is not a lot of continuity to them.  The ones I have left are:

After 1940
The Woman From Twenty One
The Kingdom in the Dark
On an Ocean Wave
Discard
Last Kiss
Dearly Beloved
Lo, the Poor Peacock
On Your Own

I have about 100 left- Wow that seems high, but that' s what the numbers say.

Book 12: The Real Midnight in Paris by Paul Brody

No denying I am a F Scott Fitzgerald enthusiast, which eventually leads me to the "Lost Generation" and the expats that lived and created in Paris in the '20s, which of course was wonderfully portrayed in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris".  This book was obviously created in the wake of that movie.

The Real Midnight in Paris: A History of the Expatriate Writers in Paris that made up the Lost Generation, by Paul Brody

It is a good little book, but I had hoped for more.  Really, it is a primer book on some of the players of that time, but if you are hoping for more of a feel of how things were at that time and place this is not the book.  However, if you are unfamiliar with the "Lost Generation" it is a good place to start. 

Personally, I am unfamiliar with a lot of the artists and writers that were sprinkled in "Midnight in Paris" and was hoping to get a bit of information on who they were when I pick this book.  I did not get that.

Currently Reading Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

Book 11- Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

So for book 11 I finished a kids book.  Yep, I am by no means a kid, but hey, it was laying around and I picked it up and it was good.

I purchased the book for my kids to read.  They loved "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," so I thought they would enjoy this one as well.  So far my son is still a bit young to read this on his own, and my daughter is a tad intimidated by the sheer size of the book, and that the main character is a twelve year old boy.  She would rather read about girls at this age.

If you are not familiar with his earlier book, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret", you need to know that Wonderstruck is written in the same half written word and half pictorial storytelling, which makes the 400+ book much quicker to read.

Wonderstruck is a story that takes place in both 1977 and 1927 with characters who are deaf, and have a connection to the Natural History Museum.  Personally, I wished the girl portion of the story was written versus being mostly picture based, like with my daughter I would prefer to follow the girl.

It is a good book and one I would recommend for kids, but I think his first book is better.

Books 9 & 10: Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I can now say I am no longer out of the Hunger Games loop, and I am not sorry I decided to give it a read.

Being a YA book, it was not a challenging book for me, but I do see how it is a book that will challenge younger readers, maybe not by the writing, although that is not dumbed down, but certainly by the subject matter.

So here is where I play stupid.  I am so out of the current literature scene and even more out of the YA book scene I may be just talking out my tookis, but I can't say I know of a ton of books for teens that deal with a strictly dystopian future, maybe Lord of the Flies? (have to admit I have not read this).  I think it is a good book to introduce such a concept, gives you something to think about.

I can see why this trilogy caught on.  I love the heroine, Katniss and I loved Peeta even more.

Currently reading:

The Real Midnight In Paris: A History of the Expatriate Writers in Paris That Made Up the Lost Generation by Paul Brody and HistoryCaps (Jul 27, 2012)

Book 8: The Real F Scott Fitzgeral: Thirty-Five Years Later by Sheilah Graham

After reading Beloved Infidel, I wanted to see what else Sheilah Graham had to say, and I found she wrote another memoir regarding her time with F Scott Fitzgerald, this one Thirty-Five years after his passing.

Sheilah Graham had help writing Beloved Infidel, and because of this that memoir feels more polished than this one.  However, The Real F Scott Fitzgerald does feel more personal.  Even 35 years later, you feel the significance of their relationship on Sheilah Graham.  I do wonder if she still has some gauze over her eyes when it comes to Fitzgerald, she often tries to put him in a good light.  Their relationship was cut short, and I understand how this can alter how you see and feel about person.  Their relationship ended at a time when things were getting better and the future was golden, who knows if he would have continued clean or if the alcohol would take over, but that is something we will never know.

I did get the feeling that Sheilah Graham is still trying to claim her significance in relation to the famous author.  Which is understandable as at the time they kept the relationship away from the public.  Even with all of this you get the feeling that she was trying very hard to be objective and present the Scott she knew and try to reconcile it with the public version of the man.

Currently reading: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Short Stories 20-23: A Full Life, The World's Fair, Three Hours Between Planes, News of Paris-Fifteen Years Ago

My plan is to read all of Fitzgeralds short stories and essays.  It seems to come and go in spurts, which is fine.  Currently I have divided the remaining stories into the years published and trying to read through them that way.  Currently I am reading the stories published after his death in 1940.

A Full Life was published in 1988
The World's Fair was published in 1948
Three Hours Between Planes was published in 1941
News of Paris- Fifteen Years ago was published in 1947

A Full Life:
A strange little story of a daring woman who appears in papers for crazy acts and then disappears, but there is one man who follows her escapades and wonders what she is all about.  I didn't feel like this was a complete story, but more like FSF was working out his feelings of helplessness and futility.  So I don't feel like this is a strong piece, but it does feel like he is searching for something, some meaning, and then just when it is within reach it withers away and is never recoverable.

The World's Fair:
Although published after his death, it fits chronologically between Gatsby and Tender, which is good to know while reading it, as it feels like it is just a partial story within a large context.  This story belongs to Tender is the Night, when it was in the Matricide story line, which was completely abandoned before taking a different tack to the story.  There are some wonderful descriptions in this little piece.  I wrote more about it here.

Three Hours Between Planes:
I believe this is one of the stories he had been working on at the end of his life while he was getting his confidence back and writing well once again.  It is a great little story about a man who has a layover and looks up his long lost crush of his youth.  The meet and have a little tryst.  It is soon discovered that Nancy who thought this Donald was the Donald of her memories, was wrong, and discovers too late that he is someone who she barley remembers.  I love this one.

Oh and it looks like someone made a short film about it... Three Hours Between Planes

News of Paris-Fifteen Years Ago: (Collected in Afternoon of an Author)
This is another story he was working on in the last years of his life.  It was found in his among his papers, but was unfinished, and it reads as such.  But it does have promise, although I thought the story line was a tad confusing and had to read it twice.