The Crack-Up

Rating:
Summary: Vintage Fitzgerald
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the dreams and aspirations of so many people when he wrote of the fabulous excesses of the 20's - a time not unlike the recent "get-rich-quick" mania of the Internet bubble, which also crashed, destroying many fortunes and lifestyles.
In The Crack-Up Fitzgerald writes equally poignantly of the agony of the aftermath of such excess and unfulfilled desires and social insecurities. He was able to capture all of this so clearly because it was the life that he and Zelda aspired to and, from time to time, lived. But they were always just on the outside, depending on the generosity of others both financially socially. He takes no prisoners.
It is no surprise that he is still being widely read. Don't miss Fitzgeral - it doesn't really matter which of his books you start with, you will find yourself moving through the collection.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage Fitzgerald
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the dreams and aspirations of so many people when he wrote of the fabulous excesses of the 20's - a time not unlike the recent "get-rich-quick" mania of the Internet bubble, which also crashed, destroying many fortunes and lifestyles.
In The Crack-Up Fitzgerald writes equally poignantly of the agony of the aftermath of such excess and unfulfilled desires and social insecurities. He was able to capture all of this so clearly because it was the life that he and Zelda aspired to and, from time to time, lived. But they were always just on the outside, depending on the generosity of others both financially socially. He takes no prisoners.
It is no surprise that he is still being widely read. Don't miss Fitzgeral - it doesn't really matter which of his books you start with, you will find yourself moving through the collection.

Rating:
Summary: Goodbye to the Jazz Age
Review: Fitzgerald and Wilson are two writers who mean a lot to me. (Tender Is the Night and To the Finland Station being among my favorite books.) I have to confess that I was expecting more from this collection of Fitzgerald essays, letters and journals. The selection is thin, and there is no clear line for why some pieces were chosen and others were not. It seems to me that there would be room on the market for a more comprehensive collection of the non-fiction prose and letters.

The Crack-Up was originally published in book form while Fitzgerald was still alive, which may explain the somewhat odd selection. The obituaries collected at the end were added after his death for the 1945 edition.

Even with the flaws, The Crack-Up is still worth taking the time to read. Particularly if you are a fan of Fitzgerald, the bitter thought-provoking autobiographical essays provide a nice counterpoint to the exuberance of the novels. Aside from the title essay, "My Lost City" is particularly nice.

Fitzgerald arranged fragments of his writing notebooks into a series of conceptual categories for publication in this volume. These fragments serve as a very nice reminder just how good of a writer he really was. The combination of skilled turn of phrase and careful eye for detail is a powerful one. The journal section could serve as a very good lesson in observation for would-be writers of today.

Wilson himself notes that the letters included represent "merely a handful that happened to be easily obtainable". The most interesting letters are those written to his daughter and some of the letters that he received after the publication of the Great Gatsby. It is fascinating to read the reactions of Stein, Wharton and Eliot.

Time for a new edition of (at least) the collected letters?

Rating:
Summary: The dark night of the soul
Review: Fragments of Fitgerald here do not really shore up his ruin. The most romantic of American novelists tells the story of why in the lives of American writers there are no second acts. The title essay 'The Crack - Up' is a very moving one. The tale of ' the dark - night in the soul in which it is always three o'clock in the morning ' of his breakdown and loss of a real feeling for life. He struggled back, and he made his efforts, most admirably perhaps as a father in trying to educate a daughter with two very problematic parents. He was finished at forty- four and did not make it to some other better world in his work and his life. No second act for him. But these fragments show the very beauty of perception and fineness of literary line which enabled him to write his one, and one of America's great masterpieces, Gatsby.

Rating:
Summary: FSF gets personal
Review: I came to this collection of autobiographical and other short stories after having read THE GREAT GATSBY for english A level. The contents of this book unlike Gatsby, are a backward look at the Jazz age, from the perspective of one of it's greatest godfathers. I never tire of reading these stories, whereas I found the Great Gatsby a little bit silly, this collection shows the true talents of FSF. It was the short autobiog pieces that really impressed me, specifically, My Lost City, and The Crack Up. I strongly urge everyone to read this.

Rating:
Summary: first crack,last light
Review: If you ever wondered what the down side of the twenties were read this. The excess was all a grand show, an escape from post war realities. A whole generation seemed to refuse to grow up, at least for awhile. Maturity was forced upon Scott and in these short confessions he reveals that all was not well in paradise. He lived in a haze of liquor, that was the dream preserving liquid illusion. But reality was not to be fought off forever. This is as close to a biography as we have from Scott, and it is moving in the way it is moving to see an athlete we all wanted to believe would live forever come to his day of retirement. He had the ability or charisma compounded by artistic talent to embody not just his but a whole societies dreams. But his moment passed and by the time Scott wrote this his books were no longer the rage. What makes him such a tragic figure is that he never altogether let go of those first illusons, never went through a moment where he learned from them and let them go. And one senses just as he had the egotists ability to romanticize his life with his words he also had the ability to perhaps overdramatize his own demise. He was not a person to learn, become made of harder stuff, and continue. Still there is some good stuff in this book. His letters to his daughter( who also wished to become a writer) in which he urges her to read great authors including his own favorite Browning are touching and revealing.