F Scott Fitzgerald and An Ordinary Reader Becoming Literary Switzerland

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I am an ordinary man with an ordinary not special job but I do like to read which has been one of the most consistent things in my life. But I've never been involved in the book industry in anyway. Not even working in that rarest of places now a bookshop. And what I mean by all of that is that whilst I have opinions on writers and books I cannot claim that it's complete. Other things (ie life) interferes. So what's going to be said is on the understanding that with the writers I'm going to chat about my opinion is based on the books I've read so far.

That being said when faced with reading a book by a "great" writer then liking it is obviously fine. You are in tune with accepted opinion. Funnily enough hating it is equally ok. For you disliked it for a reason and can passionately argue your case. As I've mentioned before of the books I've read nothing has wavered from my view that D H Lawrence is a writer of pretentious tosh and would not be remembered today if it wasn't for Lady Chatterley's Lover. There is also John Galsworthy, author of The Forsythe Saga series of books ..well words fail me...as they do him.

But F Scott Fitzgerald is in a special category. I've finished The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories. That makes two novels (not Gatsby) and a collection of short stories that has been read so far and my position on him that I mentioned when I started the book has not changed. For like The Simpsons and Star Wars with Fitzgerald I am neutral,I am literary Switzerland.

And neutrality is a very difficult position to explain when discussing a writer deemed to be "great". Because being neutral makes you feel you've missed something whereas hating it makes you think everyone else is wrong.

If we take the title story of a person who ages backwards physically and mentally well it was all entertaining enough but then again so was Under Siege with Steven Seagal. When you let your brain go beyond first gear then holes in the story begins to show.

Other stories in the collection were contrived pieces of machinery where you almost felt as if you were reading a literary service manual. But, (and it's a big but) all of the stories were readable. The trouble is at no time did I feel I was in the presence of greatness

So the new Penguin from the great unread is:

Barbara Greene - Too Late To Turn Back

Barbara Greene was a cousin of Graham Greene. This is an account of a trip they made together to Liberia. This is from the Penguin Travel Library Series of the early eighties. Worth a read I think.

Until the next time.