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Babylon Revisited and Other Stories
Written between 1920 and 1937, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was at the height of his creative powers, these ten lyric tales represent some of the author's finest fiction. In them, Fitzgerald creates vivid, timeless characters -- a dissatisfied southern belle seeking adventure in the north; the tragic hero of the title story who lost more than money in the stock market; giddy and dissipated young men and women of the interwar period. From the lazy town of Tarleton, Georgia, to the glittering cosmopolitan centers of New York and Paris, Fitzgerald brings the society of the "Lost Generation" to life in these masterfully crafted gems, showcasing the many gifts of one of our most popular writers.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
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7181 people want to read
About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1,956 books25.3k followersFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews
January 2, 2012
Ten stories that are masterfully created, but I will focus solely on one: Babylon Revisited.
No word is wasted or unnecessary in this greatest of F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories. Perhaps only Gatsby gets us to the finish line in such an eloquent and timely manner.
In this story, the main character, expatriate Charlie, returns to Paris (His home during the 20's boom) after the depression (story is written in 1931). The city has changed, and so has he; broker, soberer, depressed, a widow (which some of the drama derives from), and seeking forgiveness for his sins, he is back solely to regain custody of his daughter whom he has lost touch with after living "high on the hop." A series of conversations and bad encounters try to pull Charlie back into his drunken, selfish ways, of which Fitzgerald writes masterfully. The story is about redemption and maturing, and facing our own demons. The end could be construed as sad or hopeful, although I tend to believe the later.
The autobiographical content is what makes it so much more personal. This is probably the closest we get to Fitzgerald's life (maybe Tender is the Night), as he writes about the responsibility of losing a spouse, (as Zelda was now institutionalized after a decade of hard living) the cost of addiction (which Scott and Zelda could attest to) and materialism over family (which cost Scott his wife and later separated him from his daughter Scottie). After the depression, Fitzgerald was a has been, a writer from a different age, who was passed over by writers who understood human suffering like Steinbeck, Faulkner, and even Hemingway...and yet, this story captures that moment after the crash and puts it into perspective in a way that none of those aforementioned authors could touch: emotional bankruptcy.
I could talk about the language, the beautiful passages, the pitch perfect dialogue between father and daughter, the masterfully plotted pace and setups...but that is what you can discover. I've read a lot of short stories, took classes on them, and taught them for a number of years, and no other story gets as much bang for the buck as this story. It helps having a working knowledge of the booming 20s and the depression, the expatriate crowd in France, and Fitzgerald's biography, but none of it is necessary to appreciate the story of a man moving beyond his personal failures to try and create some semblance of familial normalcy after a lifetime of excess.
No word is wasted or unnecessary in this greatest of F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories. Perhaps only Gatsby gets us to the finish line in such an eloquent and timely manner.
In this story, the main character, expatriate Charlie, returns to Paris (His home during the 20's boom) after the depression (story is written in 1931). The city has changed, and so has he; broker, soberer, depressed, a widow (which some of the drama derives from), and seeking forgiveness for his sins, he is back solely to regain custody of his daughter whom he has lost touch with after living "high on the hop." A series of conversations and bad encounters try to pull Charlie back into his drunken, selfish ways, of which Fitzgerald writes masterfully. The story is about redemption and maturing, and facing our own demons. The end could be construed as sad or hopeful, although I tend to believe the later.
The autobiographical content is what makes it so much more personal. This is probably the closest we get to Fitzgerald's life (maybe Tender is the Night), as he writes about the responsibility of losing a spouse, (as Zelda was now institutionalized after a decade of hard living) the cost of addiction (which Scott and Zelda could attest to) and materialism over family (which cost Scott his wife and later separated him from his daughter Scottie). After the depression, Fitzgerald was a has been, a writer from a different age, who was passed over by writers who understood human suffering like Steinbeck, Faulkner, and even Hemingway...and yet, this story captures that moment after the crash and puts it into perspective in a way that none of those aforementioned authors could touch: emotional bankruptcy.
I could talk about the language, the beautiful passages, the pitch perfect dialogue between father and daughter, the masterfully plotted pace and setups...but that is what you can discover. I've read a lot of short stories, took classes on them, and taught them for a number of years, and no other story gets as much bang for the buck as this story. It helps having a working knowledge of the booming 20s and the depression, the expatriate crowd in France, and Fitzgerald's biography, but none of it is necessary to appreciate the story of a man moving beyond his personal failures to try and create some semblance of familial normalcy after a lifetime of excess.
April 26, 2016
Over the years I've come to realize that my first encounter with "Babylon Revisited" is a crucial reason why I've developed a tendency toward preemptive nostalgia. Even at the moments I'm most blissfully content there's a part of my mind always already mourning the fact any present happiness is destined to quickly slip into the past tense. This line in particular has emblazoned itself into my memory, and still makes me shiver: "I didn't realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and I was gone." What's to ever guarantee that more good times are ahead?
I actually first read Fitzgerald's celebrated short story during one of the most sustained stretches of happiness I've ever experienced. I was an American student studying in London, my first time away from home for an extended period of time, and I was relishing every minute of it. This story was assigned for a class on expatriate American writers I was taking, and I distinctly remember a startling sensation of imagining myself returning at some point in the future to the large, warmly sunlit sitting room I often and was at that moment reading in, and ruefully recalling how truly wonderful that exact moment was, and how was it possible I didn't manage to recognize it at the time? "Babylon Revisited" haunted the rest of my semester—in a good, productive way, I should note—and, really, ever since.
At his best Fitzgerald composed prose that sparkles like so many diamonds upon the page. But here the crystalline phrasing not only glitters—it lacerates too.
I actually first read Fitzgerald's celebrated short story during one of the most sustained stretches of happiness I've ever experienced. I was an American student studying in London, my first time away from home for an extended period of time, and I was relishing every minute of it. This story was assigned for a class on expatriate American writers I was taking, and I distinctly remember a startling sensation of imagining myself returning at some point in the future to the large, warmly sunlit sitting room I often and was at that moment reading in, and ruefully recalling how truly wonderful that exact moment was, and how was it possible I didn't manage to recognize it at the time? "Babylon Revisited" haunted the rest of my semester—in a good, productive way, I should note—and, really, ever since.
At his best Fitzgerald composed prose that sparkles like so many diamonds upon the page. But here the crystalline phrasing not only glitters—it lacerates too.
February 10, 2019
Αγαπητέ Φιτζέραλντ...μόλις σε γνώρισα και πραγματικά ήταν έρωτας με την πρώτη ματιά...τί να πω...είμαι μια ακόλουθός σου που θα αναζητά τη μορφή σου μέσα σε όλα τα γραπτά σου...
September 9, 2017
Reading Fitzgerald is my favourite thing ever. There's this very naked and very stark beauty to Fitzgerald's writing that I haven't found in any other writer. I hadn't read a lot of his short stories before this, and I'm really glad I picked this up. Loved every story (except The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, which despite hearing good things about it I thought was just okay) in this particular collection, my favourite being The Rich Boy and Babylon Revisited. I'm starting to pick up that a few themes are common to most of Fitzgerald's work which bring to fore the ugly underbelly of the Jazz Age, and most of them also seem to have some semblance of an autobiographical element to them. Reading these stories reminded me a lot of Gatsby (one of my all time favourites) and I'm eager to finally read my next Fitzgerald novel although I'm not sure which one I'll pick up first.
May 22, 2020
I just have to say, I love Fitzgerald the person-- with all his faults and foibles and brilliance-- in a way that feels deeply personal to me that I can't quite explain. But I also have to say that his writing can be very uneven at times. Of course, there's Gatsby. No doubt it's one of The Great Books. Full stop, thanks for playing, Hemingway eat your heart out.
But as far as his fictional output goes, I think there's a lot of ups and downs. Gatsby stands as a beacon, a triumph. Tender is the Night captivated me for an afternoon in a pizza shop when I was in High School, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about it. Always meant to re-read it. This Side of Paradise was very fun when I read it, as a young person, which is when you should. And I tried looking over at it again and was like whaaat?
Then there's the stories. I wrote recently about The Great Gatsby: https://thebaffler.com/latest/gatsbys...
And I decided I'd try out this little dozen story collection, which I'd read some of before many years ago and thought it would be worth trying again.
You can really see him improving over the years. The first stories are from the early 1920's when he was just burning and churning his way to literary immortality, one cigarette and martini at a time. They progress dramatically in terms of depth, wider canvases, and more interesting characters as the years and the disillusionment progressed.
It shouldn't be forgotten that his career skyrocketed up to superstardom early and then plummeted steadily, to the point where he died thinking himself a drunken failure who would be forgotten. And ironically, his writing got better and better. I wonder how his shade might feel if it looked at the way he's venerated (and rightly so) these days, and how obviously he's assumed to be Great; both for his famously, fabulously Lost Generation and just in the general pantheon of American writers.
That posthumous greatness is sweet in a certain way and deeply bitter in another-- it represented everything he'd ever hoped for, after he'd gotten everything he'd ever wanted, and it was everything he thought he'd lost forever.
Here's my quick and nasty take on each of the stories:
The Ice Palace: Meh, kind of labored and conceptual. Not super convincing that he understands much about the Deep South setting. The eponymous palace is fairly convincing at times, though. And some nice moments of suspense. Maybe it's just something that went over better for Saturday Evening Post readers. You get the sense that FSF is getting a little bit high on his own supply.
May Day: Big improvement, in terms of writing stuff that is more lived-in, more vivid. Writing more clearly about what he knows, the drink-sodden screwups in the Ivy League set. Larger canvas, lots of small but pointed moments between very disparate groups of people. Doesn't really seem to understand some of the historical gravitas of That Day. Ending's a bit rushed, and you can tell that he sort of ran out of narrative gas and decided to end it with a flourish. Again, he was probably playing to the readership that was paying his bills, which I don't judge him for.
The Diamond As Big As The Ritz: This one really surprised me. I remember being blown away by it when I read it in the High School library. Kind of surreal, elaborate imagination, very cinematic. There is a more sarcastic sense of social critique-- really, the guy's family LIVES in the house that is a diamond that's in a mountain? Whaa?-- and the pilots sort of weirdly stuck in the crevice. It's wild, almost sci-fi, I didn't expect it to be so strange.
Winter Dreams: Another story I remember just tearing me up back when I read it, in English class, with the teacher with the famously squeaky voice who seemed kind of caught up with the poignance of the story when he was going through the motions of teaching it to a bunch of bored sophomores in a mid-level English class. I like the premise, remembering old relationships that coulda shoulda gone another way. I think it could have more potential if I re-read it. The ending is intended to be almost a soliloquy for the main character, but it rings a bit hollow. People don't really talk like that, that grandiosely, even in the twenties. It's a little telegraphed, how this person is trying to explain how he feels. It makes the first-person character sound like an omniscient narrator.
Absolution- It was once intended to be a part of TGG, as Gatsby's backstory, which is interesting. A little bit too blatantly allegorical, a little creepy even. A priest who is babbling incoherently about guilt and avoiding sin to an emotional and ambitious young man? Huh. Better to have cut it and let it stand on its own.
The Rich Boy- More of a novella than a story. Did the lit magazines have really small print back in the day? Hundreds of pages? I guess two editions of Redbook (!?!) were enough to do the trick.
Here's one of the FSF scholars on the story, which I saw on Wiki and I think is pretty apt: "'The Rich Boy' is a key document for understanding Fitzgerald's much-discussed and much-misunderstood attitudes toward the rich. He was not an envious admirer of the rich, who believed they possessed a special quality. In 1938 he observed: 'That was always my experience—a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton...I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.' He knew the lives of the rich had great possibilities, but he recognized that they mostly failed to use those possibilities fully. He also perceived that money corrupts the will to excellence. Believing that work is the only dignity, he condemned the self-indulgent rich for wasting their freedom."
Here's the often-misquoted and drastically shortened line about the rich being very different from you and me:
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves."
Today, we'd talk about entitlement and toxic masculinity, which would be totally appropriate to apply to this story. And the satirical, precise, and fiercely observed class distinctions are there. That's something FSF doesn't necessarily get as much credit for as he deserves to, since he tended to play the fop.
The Freshest Boy- Surprisingly detailed and sensitive character study of an insecure college kid. I didn't realize I would be as touched as I was by the end. Some people need the smallest things to get through life. "It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords."
Babylon Revisited: Kind of a let down. I'm not a big fan of stories that are structured as a series of conversations and that flit around from place to place.
Crazy Sunday- A real gem. A little glimpse of that intimate side of Hollywood, the shady resentments and subtle backbiting, careerism, and the way people with real possibilities for advancement use and are used by each other. People love to want to be one of the beautiful people but the beautiful people aren't all their cracked up to be.
The Long Way Out- Another gem. A compact, tightly controlled story about willful delusion and the need to sustain it. It can't be an accident that it's about someone who's gone off the rails, which FSF knew about perfectly well from both inside and outside, and about how the people around her deal with and sustain her delusions. By that point, 1937, he'd hit enough bumps in the road to know something about the beauty and the price of delusions.
January 15, 2018
There are some kooky stories here, but classics, too. Short stories were FSF's bread and butter, but they can't shine as much as the novels. Always a good, solid read.
October 9, 2024
เรื่องสั้นสามเรื่อง คนสามคน ผู้ไม่สมปรารถนา
1
แซลลี่ แคลรอล สาวจากรัฐทางใต้ มุ่งหวังที่จะออกไปหาความท้าทายใหม่ที่เมืองอื่น เมื่อไปเยือนบ้านคนรักที่รัฐทางเหนือ เธอเผชิญความขัดแย้งกับหลายสิ่งซึ่งแตกต่างจากเมืองที่เธอจากมา เธอไม่คุ้นเคยกับอากาศหนาว สัมผัสถึงความไร้เสน่ห์ของบ้านที่แม้จะดูใหม่และเมืองที่แม้จะดูทันสมัย อึดอัดกับการวางตัวและทัศนคติของผู้คนที่แม้ว่าภายนอก "พวกเขาช่างดูดี" ถึงที่สุดเธอต้องเผชิญความหนาวเหน็บน่าหวาดหวั่นสุดขั้ว
ผมชอบเรื่องนี้ตั้งแต่ฉากเปิด อันที่จริงก็ฉากปิดด้วย มันดูราวกับภาพยนตร์ ที่แสดงทั้งภาพ เสียง และสื่อความหมาย คิดเล่นๆ ว่า ฉากสุดท้ายถ้าแซลลี่ แคลรอลได้แผลเป็นที่หน้าผากมาด้วยคงเป็นตอนจบที่เก๋ดี แต่ก็คงซ้ำกับเฮมิงเวย์ สิ่งที่สงสัยคือความหนาวเย็นนั้นได้ดับไฟในใจของเธอลงแล้วตลอดไปหรือไม่? เธอสูญสิ้นความปรารถนาที่จะออกไปแสวงหาความท้าทายใหม่แล้วหรือไม่?
2
แคดดี้หนุ่มน้อย เด๊กซเตอร์ กรีน เขาพบสาวงามผู้จุดไฟในใจ สร้างแรงผลักดันให้เขาทุ่มเทเพื่อเลื่อนสถานะของตนขึ้นสู่ความมั่งคั่ง เขาทำสำเร็จ ในที่สุดเมื่อได้คบหาใกล้ชิดกับเธอ เขาจึงตระหนักว่า เธอคือความงามที่ไม่อาจครอบครอง แต่กระนั้นก่อนจากกันเขายังมีช่วงเวลาแสนสั้นอันแสนสุขที่ได้อยู่ร่วมกับเธอ นานหลังจากนั้นเมื่อรู้ข่าวว่าความงามของเธอถูกพรากไปตามเวลา ไฟปรารถนาอันกระตุ้นเเร้าให้เขาผลักดันชีวิตจึงมอดดับลง
เรื่องนี้ทำให้นึกถึงแก็ตสบี้ ชอบตัวละครผู้หญิง แล้วก็ชอบอารมณ์แบบ ความทุกข์ทรมานอันเกิดจากรักที่ไม่อาจครอบครอง แต่ก็ยังไม่ค่อยสุดขั้ว อาจเพราะเป็นเรื่องสั้นด้วย แนวนี้เกรตเอ็กซเพคเทชั่นบีบหัวใจกว่า
3
ชาร์ลส์ เจ. เวลส์ (ชาร์ลี) ชายผู้สูญเสียความมั่งคั่งจากภาวะเศรษฐกิจถดถอย เขายังสูญเสียภรรยาที่ตายจากไปด้วยโรคร้าย สูญเสียลูกสาวไปอยู่ภายใต้การดูแลของน้องภรรยา เขาเพียรสร้างธุรกิจกอบกู้ฐานะทางการเงินจนสำเร็จ จึงออกเดินทางไปยังปารีส เมืองแห่งความผิดบาปของช่วงชีวิตในอดีต เขาปรารถนาฟื้นคืนครอบครัวขึ้นใหม่โดยรับลูกสาวกลับไปอยู่ด้วย เพื่อให้น้องภรรยายินยอมเขาต้องพิสูจน์ตัวเองจากความผิดพลาดครั้งเก่า แต่แล้วผลพวงจากช่วงเวลานั้นได้หวนกลับมาแสดงผลร้าย
ผมชอบเรื่องนี้ตรงที่ ถึงที่สุดแล้วแม้ความปรารถนาจะยังไม่บรรลุผล แต่ก็ยังเหลือความเป็นไปได้ให้คาดหวังกับช่วงเวลาสั้นๆ ที่เหลือ (ก่อนที่ลูกสาวของเขาจะเติบโตผ่านช่วงวัยเด็ก)
บีบหัวใจหลวมๆ สงสารเด็กน้อย
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ผู้ไม่สมปรารถนาทั้งสามคน มีจุดแตกต่างกันอยู่
แซลลี่ แคลรอล เธอกลับมาลงเอยที่จุดเดิม อยู่ในพื้นที่ปลอดภัย
เด๊กซเตอร์ กรีน หมดความสนใจในทุกสิ่ง
ชาร์ลส์ เจ. เวลส์ ยังไม่สิ้นความหวัง
1
แซลลี่ แคลรอล สาวจากรัฐทางใต้ มุ่งหวังที่จะออกไปหาความท้าทายใหม่ที่เมืองอื่น เมื่อไปเยือนบ้านคนรักที่รัฐทางเหนือ เธอเผชิญความขัดแย้งกับหลายสิ่งซึ่งแตกต่างจากเมืองที่เธอจากมา เธอไม่คุ้นเคยกับอากาศหนาว สัมผัสถึงความไร้เสน่ห์ของบ้านที่แม้จะดูใหม่และเมืองที่แม้จะดูทันสมัย อึดอัดกับการวางตัวและทัศนคติของผู้คนที่แม้ว่าภายนอก "พวกเขาช่างดูดี" ถึงที่สุดเธอต้องเผชิญความหนาวเหน็บน่าหวาดหวั่นสุดขั้ว
ผมชอบเรื่องนี้ตั้งแต่ฉากเปิด อันที่จริงก็ฉากปิดด้วย มันดูราวกับภาพยนตร์ ที่แสดงทั้งภาพ เสียง และสื่อความหมาย คิดเล่นๆ ว่า ฉากสุดท้ายถ้าแซลลี่ แคลรอลได้แผลเป็นที่หน้าผากมาด้วยคงเป็นตอนจบที่เก๋ดี แต่ก็คงซ้ำกับเฮมิงเวย์ สิ่งที่สงสัยคือความหนาวเย็นนั้นได้ดับไฟในใจของเธอลงแล้วตลอดไปหรือไม่? เธอสูญสิ้นความปรารถนาที่จะออกไปแสวงหาความท้าทายใหม่แล้วหรือไม่?
2
แคดดี้หนุ่มน้อย เด๊กซเตอร์ กรีน เขาพบสาวงามผู้จุดไฟในใจ สร้างแรงผลักดันให้เขาทุ่มเทเพื่อเลื่อนสถานะของตนขึ้นสู่ความมั่งคั่ง เขาทำสำเร็จ ในที่สุดเมื่อได้คบหาใกล้ชิดกับเธอ เขาจึงตระหนักว่า เธอคือความงามที่ไม่อาจครอบครอง แต่กระนั้นก่อนจากกันเขายังมีช่วงเวลาแสนสั้นอันแสนสุขที่ได้อยู่ร่วมกับเธอ นานหลังจากนั้นเมื่อรู้ข่าวว่าความงามของเธอถูกพรากไปตามเวลา ไฟปรารถนาอันกระตุ้นเเร้าให้เขาผลักดันชีวิตจึงมอดดับลง
เรื่องนี้ทำให้นึกถึงแก็ตสบี้ ชอบตัวละครผู้หญิง แล้วก็ชอบอารมณ์แบบ ความทุกข์ทรมานอันเกิดจากรักที่ไม่อาจครอบครอง แต่ก็ยังไม่ค่อยสุดขั้ว อาจเพราะเป็นเรื่องสั้นด้วย แนวนี้เกรตเอ็กซเพคเทชั่นบีบหัวใจกว่า
3
ชาร์ลส์ เจ. เวลส์ (ชาร์ลี) ชายผู้สูญเสียความมั่งคั่งจากภาวะเศรษฐกิจถดถอย เขายังสูญเสียภรรยาที่ตายจากไปด้วยโรคร้าย สูญเสียลูกสาวไปอยู่ภายใต้การดูแลของน้องภรรยา เขาเพียรสร้างธุรกิจกอบกู้ฐานะทางการเงินจนสำเร็จ จึงออกเดินทางไปยังปารีส เมืองแห่งความผิดบาปของช่วงชีวิตในอดีต เขาปรารถนาฟื้นคืนครอบครัวขึ้นใหม่โดยรับลูกสาวกลับไปอยู่ด้วย เพื่อให้น้องภรรยายินยอมเขาต้องพิสูจน์ตัวเองจากความผิดพลาดครั้งเก่า แต่แล้วผลพวงจากช่วงเวลานั้นได้หวนกลับมาแสดงผลร้าย
ผมชอบเรื่องนี้ตรงที่ ถึงที่สุดแล้วแม้ความปรารถนาจะยังไม่บรรลุผล แต่ก็ยังเหลือความเป็นไปได้ให้คาดหวังกับช่วงเวลาสั้นๆ ที่เหลือ (ก่อนที่ลูกสาวของเขาจะเติบโตผ่านช่วงวัยเด็ก)
บีบหัวใจหลวมๆ สงสารเด็กน้อย
-------------
ผู้ไม่สมปรารถนาทั้งสามคน มีจุดแตกต่างกันอยู่
แซลลี่ แคลรอล เธอกลับมาลงเอยที่จุดเดิม อยู่ในพื้นที่ปลอดภัย
เด๊กซเตอร์ กรีน หมดความสนใจในทุกสิ่ง
ชาร์ลส์ เจ. เวลส์ ยังไม่สิ้นความหวัง
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 22, 2020
A 1960 paperback, likely from somebody's academic past. Pretty good shape.
1 - "The Ice Palace" - Southern belle goes North and doesn't like winter so much. FSF was a Minnesota native, but it would seem that he was more of a Southerner at heart.
2 - "May Day" - Lives and events criss-cross in annoying, amusing and deadly ways over the course of a long chaotic evening/night/morning in Manhattan. An exercise in impressionistic, verbal creativity.
3 - "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" - I'm lost as to what to make of this story. It takes place in fantasyland, but I assume it has to be about SOMETHING. I have the very vaguest recollection of having read this before - a LONG time ago.
4 - "Winter Dreams" - Probably the most anthologized of FSF's short stories and a precursor to "The Great Gatsby." Young goddess Judy Jones is the love/obsession object in the story. Very, very bitter melancholy ending. If you're on the edge of depression, leading this might push you over. My third read of the story.
5 - "Absolution" - Another re-read. This story features great prose skills to murky effect. A suggestion of the early life of Jimmy Gatz is there. Reminds of an Alice Munro story about an angry, abusive father.
6 - "The Rich Boy" - The longest story in the collection is a low-key mini epic about the love life of a privileged young Manhattan-ite. It's kind of an emotional and relationship inventory of aloofness. If that makes any sense.
7 - "The Freshest Boy" - A possibly autobiographic tale of a brash lad who learns to smarten up a bit and thereby get along better with the rest of the world. A side character in this tale is a Yale football hero named Ted Fay. There was real-life Yale football hero of the time named Ted Coy. Wikipedia actually mentions this.
8 - "Babylon Revisited" - I think I read this one many years ago. In the wake of that "Lost Generation" thing. Party party party. The the Great Depression "ruined" everything.
9 - "Crazy Sunday" - Life in Hollywood in the early 30's = lots of drinking and fooling around.
10 - "The Long Way" - What some people might do to avoid suffering. Interesting.
- And so to the rating of a satisfying, though not transcendent read - a solid 3.75* rounds up to 4* Nothing's as good as "The Great Gatsby" = it's tough to compete with yourself.
1 - "The Ice Palace" - Southern belle goes North and doesn't like winter so much. FSF was a Minnesota native, but it would seem that he was more of a Southerner at heart.
2 - "May Day" - Lives and events criss-cross in annoying, amusing and deadly ways over the course of a long chaotic evening/night/morning in Manhattan. An exercise in impressionistic, verbal creativity.
3 - "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" - I'm lost as to what to make of this story. It takes place in fantasyland, but I assume it has to be about SOMETHING. I have the very vaguest recollection of having read this before - a LONG time ago.
4 - "Winter Dreams" - Probably the most anthologized of FSF's short stories and a precursor to "The Great Gatsby." Young goddess Judy Jones is the love/obsession object in the story. Very, very bitter melancholy ending. If you're on the edge of depression, leading this might push you over. My third read of the story.
5 - "Absolution" - Another re-read. This story features great prose skills to murky effect. A suggestion of the early life of Jimmy Gatz is there. Reminds of an Alice Munro story about an angry, abusive father.
6 - "The Rich Boy" - The longest story in the collection is a low-key mini epic about the love life of a privileged young Manhattan-ite. It's kind of an emotional and relationship inventory of aloofness. If that makes any sense.
7 - "The Freshest Boy" - A possibly autobiographic tale of a brash lad who learns to smarten up a bit and thereby get along better with the rest of the world. A side character in this tale is a Yale football hero named Ted Fay. There was real-life Yale football hero of the time named Ted Coy. Wikipedia actually mentions this.
8 - "Babylon Revisited" - I think I read this one many years ago. In the wake of that "Lost Generation" thing. Party party party. The the Great Depression "ruined" everything.
9 - "Crazy Sunday" - Life in Hollywood in the early 30's = lots of drinking and fooling around.
10 - "The Long Way" - What some people might do to avoid suffering. Interesting.
- And so to the rating of a satisfying, though not transcendent read - a solid 3.75* rounds up to 4* Nothing's as good as "The Great Gatsby" = it's tough to compete with yourself.
February 8, 2010
Wonderful stories that are filled with a sensitivity and tenderness that only a few writers can achieve. Overlaid throughout the entire anthology is the vivid reality of the human experience. These attributes combine within each story to form miniature portraits of life that are unmistakably and uniquely Fitzgerald (as I unassumingly understand him to be).
Want to read
November 1, 20212.5 stars
March 21, 2018
το διάβασα σε μια νύχτα γιατί τα Τρελή Κυριακή, Το Πλουσιόπαιδο, και Η Χαμένη Δεκαετία τα έχω διαβάσει ήδη, ωστόσο η μετάφραση είναι εξαιρετική όπως και η επιμέλεια του βιβλίου στο σύνολο της. Η Κατάρρευση το δοκίμιο με το οποίο κλείνει η ανθολογία είναι εξαιρετικό για το πως σκέφτονταν ο συγγραφέας και πως αποτυπώνει την ανάγνωση της μέχρι τότε πορείας του.
January 6, 2024
Nobody captures the America of the 1920s and early 30s like F. Scott Fitzgerald - the greed, the snobbery, the decadence, the heartlessness, the rampant alcoholism, the optimism, the potential, and then the reckoning: the dark descent into the Great Depression. (The biggest and most glaring flaw in these stories of Americana is that he doesn’t touch on racial issues, however.)
These short stories are a brilliant display from a giant of American literature. So glad I forced myself to pick this book up after possessing it since my long ago college days.
These short stories are a brilliant display from a giant of American literature. So glad I forced myself to pick this book up after possessing it since my long ago college days.
April 23, 2023
Out of the stories, Babylon Revisited was the only one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's that was assigned to read.
A great tragedy and shame, if you ask me, especially since I much prefer Fitzgerald over Hemingway.
Oh well. It is what it is, and I know I'll be rereading The Great Gatsby before the year is over.
Now, onto the actual review.
Babylon Revisited was the short story I liked out of this week's assigned readings for the course, but the ending just doesn't agree with me. I feel like there should be something more to it. But that's just personal preference speaking.
A great tragedy and shame, if you ask me, especially since I much prefer Fitzgerald over Hemingway.
Oh well. It is what it is, and I know I'll be rereading The Great Gatsby before the year is over.
Now, onto the actual review.
Babylon Revisited was the short story I liked out of this week's assigned readings for the course, but the ending just doesn't agree with me. I feel like there should be something more to it. But that's just personal preference speaking.
December 7, 2024
3,5 Sterne
Einige Geschichten sind großartig, manche leider nicht...
Einige Geschichten sind großartig, manche leider nicht...
June 14, 2023
A selection of the best shorts from each stage of his life. (All but “Long Way Out” are in earlier collections.)
August 29, 2014
I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it makes me sad that I've already read all his novels, but I'm happy that he wrote so many short stories for me to enjoy. I like this collection because the first story, "The Ice Palace," was written in 1920, pre-Gatsby, and the last one, "The Long Way Out," was 1937, when Zelda was already in the sanitarium, and Scott already lived in California. His writing is drastically different as is his subject matter. The book is a great cross section of a great writer's career, from beginning to almost end.
I love Scott's writing, so I enjoyed all the stories, but rereading "Babylon Revisited" reminded me of how good Scott was at his best. There's always that something in his writing for me, an undertone that makes all his stories and books feel like magical realism even though they contain no "actual" magic. But "Babylon" is him at his peak, just as Gatsby is. The writing, the tone, the characters,the plot...they're all perfect, not one word misplaced, no awkwardness, everything is essential, and it all works and comes together to leave the reader with a feeling, an uncomfortable longing and understanding. It's brilliant.
I'm obsessed, obviously, but regardless of my obsession, Scott is a classic American writer for a reason. He always will be, I hope, but you have to read him, so I'm recommending this. Read!
I love Scott's writing, so I enjoyed all the stories, but rereading "Babylon Revisited" reminded me of how good Scott was at his best. There's always that something in his writing for me, an undertone that makes all his stories and books feel like magical realism even though they contain no "actual" magic. But "Babylon" is him at his peak, just as Gatsby is. The writing, the tone, the characters,the plot...they're all perfect, not one word misplaced, no awkwardness, everything is essential, and it all works and comes together to leave the reader with a feeling, an uncomfortable longing and understanding. It's brilliant.
I'm obsessed, obviously, but regardless of my obsession, Scott is a classic American writer for a reason. He always will be, I hope, but you have to read him, so I'm recommending this. Read!
February 25, 2009
i can't find my exact copy of what i purchased from half priced books, so i'll just claim i'm reading the same one that jamie read. this book is so old. it smells like 1955, and the pages are a sickly yellow-brown. i cannot wait. for the stories of course.
of course.
despite smelling great the whole time, the book wore me down halfway through. if nothing else, this is a timeline for fitzgerald's own life, and the amout of autobiography one can extract from each story is immense. going in chronological order more or less, the beginning traces a plethora of gay old cocktail parties and debutante balls and all of the roaring 20s one could stand. leaving me very thrity for a high ball during each tale, the characters' predicaments are just ridiculous enough and their handling, equal parts lovable and detestable.
through the depression, his stories become more and more cloaked or shall i say soaked in the author's own alcoholism. you feel you're reading stories about the same dashing young men from the Yale club on page 60, only now, on page 400 they're crying into their soda water in some hazy French bar about the millions they lost.
all in all, a perfect picture of the author's life.
of course.
despite smelling great the whole time, the book wore me down halfway through. if nothing else, this is a timeline for fitzgerald's own life, and the amout of autobiography one can extract from each story is immense. going in chronological order more or less, the beginning traces a plethora of gay old cocktail parties and debutante balls and all of the roaring 20s one could stand. leaving me very thrity for a high ball during each tale, the characters' predicaments are just ridiculous enough and their handling, equal parts lovable and detestable.
through the depression, his stories become more and more cloaked or shall i say soaked in the author's own alcoholism. you feel you're reading stories about the same dashing young men from the Yale club on page 60, only now, on page 400 they're crying into their soda water in some hazy French bar about the millions they lost.
all in all, a perfect picture of the author's life.
July 3, 2018
Like looking at the night from a library window.
January 14, 2021
I’m not really much of an F Scott Fitzgerald fan nor do j care for short stories, so what was I thinking when I started this book? Therefore take my whole review with a big grain of salt. In addition some of the short stories were as crazy as all get out. If they had been written by a no-name, nobody would have paid the least bit of attention to them.
So why did I read this book? Our library, which is closed due to Covid for everything except drop-off and pick-up has started this great idea of “bundling books” by genre. So I picked up a “classic” bundle. Looking forward to the others!
So why did I read this book? Our library, which is closed due to Covid for everything except drop-off and pick-up has started this great idea of “bundling books” by genre. So I picked up a “classic” bundle. Looking forward to the others!
June 2, 2022
loved. gilded and romantic and whimsical and also so many people die or go crazy. all the necessary things in a short story collection.
December 21, 2024
What a snoozefest this book was! The best part about this book is that it eventually ends. The worst part about it is that it doesn’t end sooner. I will never read another book by this bum ever again unless compelled to do so against my will. “The great gatsby” more like “the great fatsby”
August 9, 2015
The Fitzgerald short stories in this collection were selected well after Fitzgerald's death so do not reflect a particular time in his life or career; indeed the first story, the Ice Palace, was written in 1920 well before Gatsby was written and the last three, Babylon Revisited, Crazy Sunday and The Long Way Out, were written in 1931, 1932, and 1937 respectively-after the roaring twenties that is so closely associated with Fitzgerald and after America's great depression and also after Fitzgerald and his wife were on the losing side against the demons in their lives
Babylon Revisited is one of my all time favorite short stories. Charlie comes to Paris to visit her daughter who is living with his sister and brother in law. As the narrative of his visit unfolds the reader learns that Charlie and his wife lived wildly in the excesses of 1920s Paris, that Charlie lost his fortune, his wife lost her life and Charlie lost custody of his daughter to his sister in law who clearly despises Charlie. As the story progresses we learn that his daughter clearly loves Charlie, that Charlie has turned his life around, is sober and regained much of his fortune but that he is still battling temptations from his past
This is as good a picture of regrets for past mistakes in the midst of a difficult battle toward redemption as I've ever read as shown by the following excerpt when he visited an old haunt of his excesses shortly after having dinner with his daughter
"..All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of 'dissipate"-to dissipate into thin air, to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion
He remembered thousand franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
But it hadn't been for nothing
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember--his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont"
While this is my favorite in the collection, the other nine are all good and the appeal of this collection is to follow the development of Fitzgerald's writing from a 1920 story about the tension between the laid back south and the ambitious north to stories set in the midst of the roaring twenties to the final three that were written and set in a time after the roaring twenties came to a crashing end
Babylon Revisited is one of my all time favorite short stories. Charlie comes to Paris to visit her daughter who is living with his sister and brother in law. As the narrative of his visit unfolds the reader learns that Charlie and his wife lived wildly in the excesses of 1920s Paris, that Charlie lost his fortune, his wife lost her life and Charlie lost custody of his daughter to his sister in law who clearly despises Charlie. As the story progresses we learn that his daughter clearly loves Charlie, that Charlie has turned his life around, is sober and regained much of his fortune but that he is still battling temptations from his past
This is as good a picture of regrets for past mistakes in the midst of a difficult battle toward redemption as I've ever read as shown by the following excerpt when he visited an old haunt of his excesses shortly after having dinner with his daughter
"..All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of 'dissipate"-to dissipate into thin air, to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion
He remembered thousand franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
But it hadn't been for nothing
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember--his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont"
While this is my favorite in the collection, the other nine are all good and the appeal of this collection is to follow the development of Fitzgerald's writing from a 1920 story about the tension between the laid back south and the ambitious north to stories set in the midst of the roaring twenties to the final three that were written and set in a time after the roaring twenties came to a crashing end
September 7, 2016
Literature from the 1920s and 30s is some of my favorite. The "Lost Generation" writers (including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and others) captured a moment when the world struggled with its loss of innocence following World War I as it realized the horrors people could commit on a mass scale. Though writers like Fitzgerald often captured the decadence of the times, under the surface of the parties is a tension that suggests that decadence is not much more than an escape from the horror of the first world war and an unsatisfactory denial of the evil in humankind.
This collection of short stories by Fitzgerald, though somewhat uneven, is a fine introduction to the short works of the author who wrote one of the great novels of the United States-- The Great Gatsby. In fact, several of the stories in this collection present an early development of themes the author explored to greater effect in that novel. The stories explore the loss of innocence and decadence of the time while also hinting at the impotence of men back from the horror of war. The stories also explore the changing relationships between men and women, the growing income gap, and the confusion that arose as the US became a world power and a modern culture.
In short, to better understand life today, we can learn much from this book and others from the early 20th century.
This collection of short stories by Fitzgerald, though somewhat uneven, is a fine introduction to the short works of the author who wrote one of the great novels of the United States-- The Great Gatsby. In fact, several of the stories in this collection present an early development of themes the author explored to greater effect in that novel. The stories explore the loss of innocence and decadence of the time while also hinting at the impotence of men back from the horror of war. The stories also explore the changing relationships between men and women, the growing income gap, and the confusion that arose as the US became a world power and a modern culture.
In short, to better understand life today, we can learn much from this book and others from the early 20th century.
December 12, 2015
"Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and find that you have created—nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves. When I hear a man proclaiming himself an "average, honest, open fellow," I feel pretty sure that he has some definite and perhaps terrible abnormality which he has agreed to conceal—and his protestation of being average and honest and open is his way of reminding himself of his misprision."
October 23, 2017
Most of the stories in this collection were less than memorable, and the whole "Poor me, I'm so rich and no one loves me" thing gets old fast. (Needless to say I'm not a fan of Fitzgerald.) But I did like "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," a satire of capitalism that's pretty entertaining.
March 16, 2023
I think I really like f scott fitzgerald after all
November 26, 2023
An interesting collection from F Scott. At the sentence level this text, like much of the author’s work, is wordsmithing at its finest. How does one take what would be lame observations and craft something so delicious on the tongue? The stories themselves are creative and also shadow Fitzgerald’s moderate to severe obsession with indulgence while failing to see the tailwinds of privilege. Alas, it was a different time, but wouldn’t it be lovely if some of our favorite classic literature artists had a dose of social awareness? I do forgive Fitzgerald his faults of injustice, as we all, myself included, must practice forgiveness for our own.
August 14, 2020
It’s kind of funny that I finished this book on my wedding anniversary. I read this book because my husband loves F Scott. And through him, I have learned a lot about this young author 😉. I have only read “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott, so I knew it was time to try something else. I haven’t read short stories in a long time, so it took me a while to get in the flow. But some lines were so beautiful and timeless. I’m glad I read these stories!
August 29, 2020
It is a shame that such talented writer died so young. I liked “Babylon Revisited”, “The Ice Palace”, and “Crazy Sunday” the best. Fitzgerald’s short stories and novels give the reader inside views of the “lost generation” and Hollywood.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2021
Wie immer ist jede Geschichte, die Fitzgerald zu Papier bringt, durchdacht und grandios. Nicht mein Lieblingsband, aber ganz nett für zwischendurch.
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