The Library Annex

First of all, I really appreciated Bruccoli’s collection. The introduction is personable and informative and the small explanations before each story help to place the writer within his context.

Some might say that so many stories might become drab. How much rich whining and “poor in spirit” can one take? I think this is something we take for granted now. Then, before and after the Crash and The Great Depression, when the national identity and arrogance was wrapped up in the frivolity of day-to-day vacationing and swollen bank accounts, such a view on the “Rich” was either inconsequential, beyond surface acknowledgement, or pure fantasy and scholastic foreplay. I think it unfair to discount Fitzgerald’s perspective and clarity of mind simply because of his subject matter.

As was so poignantly captured in “Dearly Beloved”, youth was the strength of Fitzgerald’s understanding. Not the physical vigor or potential prowess of it, but the dreaming and looking to a better day. But what better day is there than being in youth? It’s one plague the distraction toward the future. Perhaps Fitzgerald tried to remain in his youth, much to his own disillusionment.

This was an excellent collection, an excellent read and I feel I now know the writer and would tell anyone that I prefer his short stories to his novels.