The Rich Boy

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

OK, a much quicker turnaround for a post this time. As all good followers of the alphabet will know, after my previous post, which was about the letter E I would of course next be posting about the letter F next.

So, as the more aggressive types say, "What the F?"


Well, the F is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now, I have never read anything by this chap before so he is the first of the many NEW AUTHORS, who I have come across in the course of this challenge. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect in my reading of this collection of some of Fitzy's short stories.

They are each linked by the process of unobtainable love. A subject I personally wouldn't normally read books about. However, these books are set in a period I quite like, as evidenced by love of people such as Wodehouse. Now Fitzy presents this world in a very different way to how Pelham does. His world isn't always the eternal, humorous summer of Wodehouse. His is just as beautiful in the use of language and the situations seen. Different but in a good way.

The stories themselves are very good and feature the universal feel of love and chasing that unobtainable partner. These are themes that everyone can readily identify with. They aren't presented in an overly sentimental, cloying way that makes you want to slap those in love in a desperate bid to restore sense.

Instead Fitzgerald presents people as what they are. Human. Now, that may seem a somewhat redundant sentence but allow me to explain. I mean that they are simple, flawed and at the same time simple wonderfully beautiful and Fitzgerald really does present this in his writing. He makes everyone recognisable without making them a character type. You read what he writes and see the type of person that he describes clearly.

In summary, Fitzgerald is so far one of my favourites, along with Bond and Conan Doyle for his sheer representation of character and his use of language. I want to read more, even though the loveliness of the language is rather depressingly unobtainable for me just yet.