My Thoughts on F. Scott Fitzgerald

dagny

Oct. 1, 2023

My Thoughts on F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald has written many engrossing short stories, but my favorite one is The Offshore Pirate, which is included in his first short story collection, Flappers and Philosophers.

In Fitzgerald's eyes, his era represented a time when Americans became disillusioned with prevailing social norms and were plunged into self destruction and self-indulgence. Therefore, a lot of his stories mirrored the hedonistic excesses of the Jazz Age, as well as his own ephemeral happiness.

But The Offshore Pirate is just so unique and different from many of his stories. What shines through in the entire story is the novelist’s enthusiasm for life. One can feel his expectation of finding something wonderfully unexpected in life when reading through the breathtakingly beautiful passages. This story is imbued with his dazzling virtuosity and inexhaustible imagination.

Apart from the compelling storyline, one of the things that stands out to me the most about this story is his writing style: it's vivid and intoxicating, but not overly flowery. This an unlikely story, but the descriptive narrative is so evocative that you feel like you're experiencing the female protagonist's journey alongside her.

Another book by him that I appreciate is Tender is the Night. I perceive Tender is the Night as a reflection of Fitzgerald's own life with his wife Zelda, a genuine representation of how their relationship had unfolded. He wished for intoxication and wished he'd never wake from it. But in the end, he was the one who got the most drunk, only to wake up the most sober. After reading Tender is the Night, all of the previous books seem like a dream, a bizarre detour, a mere prelude to the irretrievable breakdown of his marriage. They leap from youthful excitement to breathtaking tenderness to desperately melodramatic anguish.

I've also read many of his other books, and as I've grown older, many of them have taken on new meanings. I first read The Great Gatsby in translation when I was 14, but I felt nothing in particular after reading it because many things got lost in translation. At that time, I could only relate to the themes of idealism and the pursuit of dreams depicted in the novel. Recently, I’ve been trying to re-read it in English. This time, the greatness of the book became more apparent. The final sentence of The Great Gatsby is truly amazing. It beautifully captures the theme of the novel and the human condition. It's a real shame that his books fell into near obscurity when he died, and he only achieved posthumous renown.

Although his stories mainly reflect the empty, hedonistic, and conflicting spirit of Americans after the First World War, they don't have a nihilistic feel to them. I think Fitzgerald crafted many of his stories to be a romanticized world that is desirable and full of optimism and youthful energy. It might go contradictory to popular ideas, but I believe such a free, joyous sense of life is one of the things that makes him an enduring legend of modern American literature. More than many other writers, he represents the bliss and gaiety of youth.

en 1

Correct

Corrections

viktor_shlay

My Thoughts on F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald has written many engrossing short stories, but my favorite one is The Offshore Pirate, which is included in his first short story collection, Flappers and Philosophers.

In Fitzgerald's eyes, his era represented a time when Americans became disillusioned with prevailing social norms and were plunged into self -destruction and self-indulgence.

Therefore, a lot of his stories mirrored the hedonistic excesses of the Jazz Age, as well as his own ephemeral happiness.

But The Offshore Pirate is just so unique and different from many of his stories.

What shines through in the entire story is the novelist’s enthusiasm for life.

One can feel his expectation of finding something wonderfully unexpected in life when reading through the breathtakingly beautiful passages.

This story is imbued with his dazzling virtuosity and inexhaustible imagination.

Apart from the compelling storyline, one of the things that stands out to me the most about this story is his writing style: it's vivid and intoxicating, but not overly flowery.

This an unlikely story, but the descriptive narrative is so evocative that you feel like you're experiencing the female protagonist's journey alongside her.

Another book by him that I appreciate is Tender is the Night.

I perceive Tender is the Night as a reflection of Fitzgerald's own life with his wife Zelda, a genuine representation of how their relationship had unfolded.

He wished for intoxication and wished he'd never wake from it.

But in the end, he was the one who got the most drunk, only to wake up the most sober.

After reading Tender is the Night, all of the previous books seem like a dream, a bizarre detour, a mere prelude to the irretrievable breakdown of his marriage.

They leap from youthful excitement to breathtaking tenderness to desperately melodramatic anguish.

I've also read many of his other books, and as I've grown older, many of them have taken on new meanings.

I first read The Great Gatsby in translation when I was 14, but I felt nothing in particular after reading it because many things got lost in translation.

At that time, I could only relate to the themes of idealism and the pursuit of dreams depicted in the novel.

Recently, I’ve been trying to re-read it in English.

This time, the greatness of the book became more apparent.

The final sentence of The Great Gatsby is truly amazing.

It beautifully captures the theme of the novel and the human condition.

It's a real shame that his books fell into near obscurity when he died, and he only achieved posthumous renown.

Although his stories mainly reflect the empty, hedonistic, and conflicting spirit of Americans after the First World War, they don't have a nihilistic feel to them.

I think Fitzgerald crafted many of his stories to be about a romanticized world that is desirable and full of optimism and youthful energy.

It might go contradictory to popular ideas, but I believe such a free, joyous sense of life is one of the things that makes him an enduring legend of modern American literature.

More than many other writers, he represents the bliss and gaiety of youth.

Feedback

Very well written!

My Thoughts on F. Scott Fitzgerald