Random F. Scott Fitzgerald Podcasts

A shy and dowdy country girl, Berenice feels socially inept beside her vivacious and sophisticated cousin, Marjorie. But Marjorie decides to groom her and when Berenice turns out better than she expected, Marjorie is delighted, till Berenice catches the eye of one of Marjorie’s own faithful admirers. Will Berenice remain the timid and diffident country girl, or will her newfound success give her courage? Lois, a young girl engaged to be married, suddenly becomes unsure about the relationship with her fiancé Howard. She decides to visit Keith, her much older brother who has been a Jesuit priest for many years. In the church, Lois suddenly has an intense spiritual experience, which helps her make up her mind. Benjamin Button’s story is one that most readers would be familiar with, through the Hollywood adaptation. The strange tale of a child born to age backwards is both allegorical and fascinating. The last story in the collection, The Lees of Happiness is a poignant tale of love, friendship and the harsh realities of life. Selected Short Stories by F Scott Fitzgerald is a superb collection of stories that symbolize the Jazz Age (a term he coined himself) of the 1920s. He wrote more than 43 stories, some of which were adapted successfully for film, stage and television. His eternal appeal to every generation of youthful readers has been one of being able to relate to the universal problems of young people everywhere in the world – the problems of identity, the pursuit of happiness, the gradual dawning of responsibility and despair. Fitzgerald’s own colorful personal life, his problems with alcoholism and romantic relationships added to his mystique. Fitzgerald’s fundamental scholarship and knowledge are subtly displayed in the first story, Berenice Bobs Her Hair, where the heroine is named after the Greek myth of Berenice who sacrifices her hair to save her lover. A treasure trove for Fitzgerald fans! More great books at LoyalBooks.com

Categories: Arts

Tags: audio books, audiobook, ebooks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, fiction, free audio books, Loyal Books, loyalbooks.com, Selected Short Stories, Short stories

In 1929 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Ernest Hemingway that because his short stories now earned $4000 a pop he was “an old whore” who had “mastered the 40 positions” when “in her youth one was enough.” But were the upwards of 180 stories he cranked out when not writing The Great Gatsby really the work of a literary prostitute selling out his talent for a fast buck? Kirk Curnutt and Robert Trogdon don’t think so. Each episode they draw a random title from a hat and explore its place in Fitzgerald’s career, in the magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post or Esquire where it may have appeared, and in the overall development of the American short story. Along the way, they talk literary politics, history, and gossip from the 1920s and 1930s, rediscovering the lively personalities and rivalries that tried to define the porous boundaries between commercial and artistic fiction, between the popular and the avant-garde, between the forgotten and the canonized.

Categories: Arts

Tags: 20th-century American literature, American short story, F. Scott Fitzgerald, modernism, Zelda Fitzgerald

A life lived backwards, with events happening in reverse order forms the strange and unexpected framework of one of F Scott Fitzgerald’s rare short stories. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was published in Collier’s in 1927 and the idea came to Fitzgerald apparently from a quote of Mark Twain’s in which he regretted that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst at the end. Fitzgerald’s concept of using this notion and turning the normal sequence of life on its head resulted in this delightful, thought provoking fantasy tale. The story was later incorporated in a Fitzgerald anthology, Tales of the Jazz Age. The story opens with a young, high society couple who are shocked beyond belief when they discover that their much awaited first born child resembles an elderly gent of seventy, complete with a white beard and whiskers, sitting up and querulously demanding to know, “Are you my father?” Their young son is born to live out a peculiar destiny. And so begins a grotesque journey through life, with the child, Benjamin “growing down” instead of up. Set in the Baltimore of the 1860s the story is also a satire of contemporary American society of the time. Though Fitzgerald maintains a cool and light tone throughout the story, it is in fact, deeply reflective and a very interesting take on the human condition. For contemporary readers who are familiar with the problems of aging and “second childhood” Benjamin Button’s difficulties with dealing with the demands of his chronological age vs his mental age are extremely interesting. As we find more and more older people succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, requiring the kind of care that an infant does, the story is strangely prophetic of the condition of geriatric care in our century. The plot is not exactly new to literature, with several stories and novels being written on a similar theme by many other writers. However, Fitzgerald’s take on growing old and how we humans deal with it is what sets The Curious Case of Benjamin Button apart. The style is extremely readable, the premise is intriguing and refreshingly different and appeals to readers of all ages. The story was adapted into a film in 2008 and continues to fascinate Fitzgerald fans the world over. More great books at LoyalBooks.com

Categories: Arts, Comedy

Tags: audio books, audiobook, Comedy, Dramatic Works, ebooks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, fiction, free audio books, humor, Literature, Loyal Books, loyalbooks.com, Short stories, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button