Book Review: On Booze is not quite as described on the tin: "A collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's best drinking stories." Rather, these are pieces cherry-picked from the assemblage The Crack-Up (1945) edited by his friend Edmund (Bunny) Wilson and published by New Directions after Fitzgerald's death. (Wilson also edited Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel, The Last Tycoon.) Most of the content (consisting of autobiography, notes, and letters) mention drinking at some point, but few are drinking stories. Much of it reads like sketches for some future novel or story. As with the original source, On Booze is hit or miss, but generally entertaining in a morbid, melancholy, miserable sort of way. Many of the pieces are intensely personal as they were written at a time when Fitzgerald was usually drunk, depressed, desolate, down and out; he appears to have had a nervous breakdown. His writing is always a joy, though. As these works weren't selected by Fitzgerald and are found in the original book, On Booze isn't a necessary part of the canon and is probably of little interest for the casual Jazz Age reader. For the true F. Scott fan in your life, however, this small book would make a perfect "thinking of you" gift. [3★]
No comments:
Post a Comment