Customer Reviews

Flappers and Philosophers

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4 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(1)
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Fitzgerald may not have been overly fond of his short stories, but his writing skill and insight shine through anyway. In The Ice Palace and Bernice Bobs her Hair and the Four Fists in particular, Fitzgerald captures individuals struggling with themselves. Who/what should they be, and why? While I wasn't too fond of the pirate story, as it lacked these elements, the other stories in the book show a depth of understanding and introspection that makes for a wonderful, thoughtful read.

This collection of short stories takes a candid look at America in the early 20th century. There isn't a stinker in the lot, but I think "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is my favorite. Fitzgerald has a way of making his readers connect with unlikeable characters that seems almost magical.

Fitzgerald's stories manage to unite his otherworldly grasp of the fluctuations in the human soul. He is a master at presenting its contrivances and vanities as things that happen to people. The tension in these tales rises with almost unconscious force. Red herrings of possible conclusions are whispered but almost in the style of a trickster. Someone always gets conned and someone unmasked- all within that now long-gone era that held a fullhouse of interesting details and premonitions of an ominous future. "Beatrice Bobs her Hair" always has something more to say about savage young ladies. It deserves its place, I think, in every highschool English curriculum. The spoiled rich girls inevitably fall madly in love- with the cads or the tricksters. It was interesting to read "Benediction" in this era of the priest scandals. How priests were seen by Fitzgerald, or perhaps how he conceived his alter ego- is apparent in his return to his natural self through the heroine's choice at the end. This writer always has a trick up his sleeve for the unpredictable conclusion.
I am surprised that there are not more raves over this collection, but perhaps that is the nature of the post modern era. I on the other hand -rave. Story, resolution, all those little formulas that separate the artist from the amateur in the impossible short story form. Fitzgerald, except for perhaps in Gatsby, never achieved such form and plotting in his novels. His youth too, can be sensed in the humorous and rather light-hearted manner by which he casts his characters and those obstacles that they encounter.

Fitzgerald's stories manage to unite his otherworldly grasp of the fluctuations in the human soul. He is a master at presenting its contrivances and vanities as things that happen to people. The tension in these tales rises with almost unconscious force. Red herrings of possible conclusions are whispered but almost in the style of a trickster. Someone always gets conned and someone unmasked- all within that now long-gone era that held a fullhouse of interesting details and premonitions of an ominous future. "Beatrice Bobs her Hair" always has something more to say about savage young ladies. It deserves its place, I think, in every highschool English curriculum. The spoiled rich girls inevitably fall madly in love- with the cads or the tricksters. It was interesting to read "Benediction" in this era of the priest scandals. How priests were seen by Fitzgerald, or perhaps how he conceived his alter ego- is apparent in his return to his natural self through the heroine's choice at the end. This writer always has a trick up his sleeve for the unpredictable conclusion.
I am surprised that there are not more raves over this collection, but perhaps that is the nature of the post modern era. I on the other hand -rave. Story, resolution, all those little formulas that separate the artist from the amateur in the impossible short story form. Fitzgerald, except for perhaps in Gatsby, never achieved such form and plotting in his novels. His youth too, can be sensed in the humorous and rather light-hearted manner by which he casts his characters and those obstacles that they encounter.

Flappers and Philosophers consists of 8 short stories authored by a youthful F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some of the stories are light hearted fun while others are rooted in tragedy. My personal favorite is "The Cut-Glass Bowl", a poignant account of the life of a married woman as she ages over a twenty year period.
Each story serves as a showcase for Fitzgerald's prodigious talent. The plots are well structured and the prose is richly descriptive.
All in all, an excellent collection of short stories by a highly skilled author at the outset of a legendary career. Highly recommended.

This little book of eight short stories took me about a week to read, and now I'm very sorry that it's over. All of the stories were very entertaining and vivid. In between reading it, I would feel I was a nineteen-year-old girl in the first or second decade of the twentieth century. Many of the stories in this book are focused on girls of that age, and I thought it was quite strange that Fitzgerald could write so well about them. Almost all of the stories can be classified as "coming of age" stories in the early twentieth century.

The book starts off with a strong and rebellious nineteen-year-old girl in "The Offshore Pirate." That first story was probably my favorite. My second favorite was probably "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," which was also about a nineteen-year-old who was figuring herself out a lot more than the heroine from the first story, who knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. I also liked "The Ice Palace" in which a very vivacious teenager named Sally Carroll visits a Northeastern city in the hopes of marrying, and finds out that she misses the colorful southern town where she grew up.

The last story in the collection, "The Four Fists," features a manly man who gets knocked down by four punches in his lifetime, each of which teaches him an important lesson, and the story takes him from New York to the oil fields of Texas and the ranches of New Mexico. It's rather refreshing to read a burly story after all the quite feminine ones, but I truly liked them all. The second-to-last story, "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong," also features a male character and his descent into shadiness. What I noticed is how differently Fitzgerald writes about male characters than female characters - there's less internal monologue and descriptions of thoughts and conversations, and more action at a swiftly moving pace. One story, "Head and Shoulders" does a beautiful job of explaining a role reversal of sorts, in which the female character shines and the male character withers.

To read this book was to be transported back to a totally different time - anywhere from the 1890's to the 19-teens, and to totally different places - usually New England towns, Ivy League educational institutions, and country clubs. I enjoyed the scenes about fox trots and flappers and jazz music and I wished, sometimes, that I could have lived back then. But Fitzgerald had great sympathy for his female characters - "The Cut-Glass Bowl" featured a downfall of one of them, and the strong character of Marjorie in "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" explains how they can become withered and unloved housewives, many of whom are disapprovingly interspersed into that story.

In fact, if I carry one thing away from Flappers and Philosophers other than hours of entertaining reading, it is a remark on the position of young women in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The stories feature girls at the cusp of womanhood who wear rose-tinted glasses and think that life is about dances and social events. Yet the men are the ones getting an education, seeing the world and taking part in all of the action (again with the exception of the uniquely witty "Heads and Shoulders" plot). In this sense I am very happy to be living in the 21st century and just reading about these female characters in the early 20th century.

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The book was great. It included some of Fitzgearld's best short works. It was hard to put down during a story. The emotions of the character are real for their time period.

Not a bad set of stories. "The Offshore Pirate" was the best---its one of the sweetest stories I have ever read.

Fitzgerald has established that he _can_ write, and well in his other works. This one, however, leaves more than a little to be desired. Cartoonish brassy debs and Horatio Alger-style golden boys with island paradises mark the basic theme. Futher, Fitzgerald can't seem to finish a paragraph without some reference to "darkies" or some more insulting epitaph. I mean - Twain's references were bearable, because we have the feeling that he's on the right side. But Fitzgerald's omniscient narrator (read: Fitzgerald) is pretty objectionable in his characterizations. And then he makes the cardinal sin of being decidedly unclever with the story. Even Maugham is better.