artfulcraner

Young Fitzgerald. This is literally the most narcissistic, self involved, preening novel I have ever read. It takes the cake. And that is saying a long among the egos of the authors I've made my way through. However. It is Fitzgerald doing the preening, and he has some reason for it. The writing experiments are very interesting, and they do make you look at the story a different way each time they shift. The prose is beautiful, though out of control and all over the place. I think that's part of the charm of the chaos of this novel and Fitz's personality, but it drove me crazy sometimes, so I can only imagine what it would do to others. As a result of that, the storytelling is also very loose and wandering. Nowhere near as tight as Gatsby, and not even approaching Tender is the Night. I have a personal bias towards reading the early works of geniuses, before they created their masterpieces. And even among that set, I find this one of the nearest and dearest to my heart.

2020-08-22 16:50