Deep into this book in the middle of a rainy summer night, and just found the best sentence yet: "...it is well known among ladies over thirty-five that when the younger set dance in the summer-time it is with the very worst intentions in the world, and if they are not bombarded with stony eyes stray couples will dance weird barbaric interludes in the corners, and the more popular, more dangerous girls will sometimes be kissed in the parked limousines of unsuspecting dowagers."

I really enjoyed these short stories. The first story in the collection, "Benediction," was my least favorite - the motivations of the characters were a little too opaque. I'm glad I continued reading, however, since there were a number of great stories in this book. I particularly enjoyed two stories for their humor: "Head and Shoulders" (light and amusing) and "May Day" (dark, but with a very funny - and true - sequence involving two drunk young men). "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was also very funny and a wonderful character study.
I didn't particularly enjoy "Winter Dreams," but it was interesting to read the story as a sort of proto-Gatsby tale. Also, "The Ice Palace" should be required reading for anyone who wants to move to the Upper Midwest - Fitzgerald knew his people very well!
Overall a very strong short story collection.

Done with most some of the stories here, as they were in Flappers and Philosophers. Methinks the Fitzgeralds (Yes--Zelda too, as indicated in an essay she contributes toward the end of this book) are overdoing this focus on the flapper as a curiosity unique to that particular era (to be replaced by the vapid Valley Girl of today?). Anyhow, as with Flappers and Philosophers, two stories stand out here: the hilarious Head and Shoulders, and Bernice Bobs Her Hair (I applaud the ending--brava, Bernice!). And dated as the plot may be by today's standards, Benediction stands out for its disturbing end--we WANT to know if Lois kept her tryst with her lover!

elibrary

Loved this collection for one story: The Offshore Pirate. Why didn't this story get more attention? It is completely fantastical in its whimsy. Loved it.

My mother sent me this book for my 29th Birthday in May, the joke being that he was the great poet of the 20's and I was on my way out -- she also slipped ten $20 bills between the pages of the book, one for each year spent as a twentysomething -- which, really, is the peeerfect gift.

A very slow read that requires lots of attention. Some great short stories in the collection I must say, but the rest was a bore.

It's weird reading this from when Fitzgerald was writing to make ends meet, cos one story will be incredibly beautiful and cool and incisive about the intersection between class and interior consciousness, and then the next one will be about a zany pirate named Carlyle.

An interesting collection of short and not so short stories. Took me a while to get through them all but I enjoyed being transported to another world with each one!
Some quotes that I would like to remember:

Benediction:
A story about a girl who goes to visit her Seminarian brother whom she hasn’t seen in a very long time.
“What is more beautiful than the landscape of loss? What is more heart-breaking, more haunting, more romantic?”
“I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to.”
Head and shoulders:
“Poor gauzy souls trying to express ourselves in something tangible. Marcia with her written book; I with my unwritten ones. Trying to choose our mediums and then taking what we get—and being glad.”
THE ICE PALACE:
The Opening line: “The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an art jar,”
“I couldn’t ever marry you. You’ve a place in my heart no one else ever could have, but tied down here I’d get restless. I’d feel I was—wastin’ myself. There’s two sides to me, you see. There’s the sleepy old side you love; an’ there’s a sort of energy—the feelin’ that makes me do wild things. That’s the part of me that may be useful somewhere, that’ll last when I’m not beautiful anymore.”
Was it all a dream?

BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR:
“People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”
Story started slow….works out to a jolly good and thrilling ending!

THE OFFSHORE PIRATE:
“All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase—‘I love you.”

MAY DAY: The longest story, couldn't get through. Listened to the book and the monotonous voice made it even more boring.
THE JELLY-BEAN: It was like watching an old movie!
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ:
“Under the stars,” she repeated. “I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to someone. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth.”

“It was a dream,” said John quietly. “Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.”
“How pleasant then to be insane!”
WINTER DREAMS
"The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on SherryIsland and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.

For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself now. He did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands. He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.

“Long ago,” he said, “long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.”

Absolution: All so real feelings of youth in the midst of rigid Catholic beliefs, confession and contrition!

"There go fifty thousand dollars worth of slaves," cried Kismine, "at prewar prices. So few Americans have any respect for property."

"I want to advise you--about raps. Don't answer them! Let them alone--have a padded door!"

It's been exactly two hours since I finished it and I swear I can't remember the plot of a single one of these short stories. The man did grow to be a literary genius so maybe these were just sketches that were never supposed to see the light.

This book was my first experience reading anything non-Gatsby written by Fitzgerald, and the charm of it came from locating the touchstones of Gatsby before it became Gatsby. For example, in the penultimate story of the work, "Winter Dreams," Fitzgerald lifts whole quotations from his own text and recycles them into Gatsby when describing Daisy's house in Chapter 8. The turn of phrase here and there echoes across his work, and although I found the short stories evocative and not compelling, the window into Fitzgerald's world and point of view is enlightening. I think in advance of teaching Gatsby next year I will read This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and The Damned. Since the only person who taught me Gatsby was Mr. Anstett in 10-Honors in 1993, I think the Independent Study must beat on, and the more non-Gatsby I read, the more luminous and unique Gatsby becomes.