Scott Fitzgerald Turns a Corner By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ALL THE SAD YOUNG MEN
By F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Scott Fitzgerald Turns a Corner

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

March 7, 1926

 

ALL THE SAD YOUNG MEN By F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The publication of this volume of short stories might easily have been an anti-climax after the perfection and success of "The Great Gatsby" of last Spring. A novel so widely praised-by people whose recognition counts-is stiff competition. It is even something of a problem for a reviewer to find new and different words to properly grace the occasion. It must be said that the collection as a whole is not sustained to the high excellence of "The Great Gatsby," but it has stories of fine insight and finished craft.

That Scott Fitzgerald has realized the promise of his brilliant juvenilia in a short writing period of six years must be a bitter shock to those who saw in him a skyrocketing flash in the pan. To begin with he had the gift of words-of writing colorfully, movingly, of projecting emotions and humors through his language, shocked the purist. Also his early short stories see-sawed between the extremes of having matter and little form and slight form and something to say. He wrote the popular magazine story; he wrote delightfully amusing yarns, such as "The Camel's Back," and he wrote driveling hokum with a dash of cleverness. Then, as though to make up for pot boiling, he wrote strange and fantastic stories in unconventional magazines-most in the late-departed gayety of the old Smart Set. During this time he was slowly bringing the extremes of manner and matter into a more balanced saturation of craft and feeling.

Dr. Henry Canby has recently argued that men are "getting a poor deal" in modern fiction. He complains that "to get real men in books one must go back to Dickens." This is hardly applicable to Mr. Fitzgerald. He, at least, has been occupied with the affairs of young men for some time. Of late his point of view has taken a satiric slant toward the grown-up children of the Jazz Age. In fact, the philosopher of the flappers has never neglected his sad young men, from the groping adolescence of Amory in "This Side of Paradise" to Gatsby; he has been an interested chronicler of the efforts of his sad young men to wrestle beauty and love from the world and the ladies. This pursuit continues, as is fairly obvious, in the present collection of tales. Thus it is that Mr. Fitzgerald has come to irony and pity, and the peace and wisdom that is inherent in partial success, as well as the disillusionment of dream.

Something of the poet has always lingered near Mr. Fitzgerald. Like so many young men, he has a great respect for Dreiser. He tried realism as the medium for what he had to say. It wasn't quite the right approach. His temperament had too much of fantasy in its make-up. So more and more he has found in this indirect method of expression the way to express his feeling for what is lovely and his criticism of life. Here the poet, satirist and realist mingle in a world of make-believe that impinges sharply on reality.

It is in this manner he calls out his overgrown flappers. His stories of "Gretchen's Forty Winks," "The Adjuster," and "Rags Martin-Jones" are topsy-turvy fantasy shot through with realistic detail that produces a poignancy of more than wistfulness. These gracious and selfish young dames discover that this world isn't their special toy. In these brief histories of vanity, restlessness, boredom, the sad young men struggle to hold their tinctured beauties until they discover that escape isn't across the horizon but within themselves.

To "The Adjuster," Fitzgerald brings this observation, that "it is one of the many flaws in the scheme of human relationships that selfishness in women has an irresistible appeal to many men. Luella's selfishness existed side by side with a childish beauty, and, in consequence, Charles Hemple had begun to take the blame upon himself for situations which she had obviously brought about. It was an unhealthy attitude..." But before Luella can escape across the horizon to disenchantment beyond, she is caught in the movement of life, which we call experience. Instead of being bored and annoyed by persistent trifles, she suffers, feeling takes the place of precious sensibility and self pity, and she becomes aware of that:

"We make an agreement with children that they can sit in the audience without helping to make the play... but if they still sit in the audience after they're grown, somebody's got to work double time for them, so that they can enjoy the light and glitter of the world. You've got to give security to young people and peace to your husband, and a sort of charity to the old."

In spite of the fact that "Gretchen's Forty Winks" appeared in The Saturday Evening Post-still, after three readings-this simple story of misunderstanding between a young married couple remains our choice of this group of stories. It is written with insight and a lightness that deftly realizes the situation. It is rounded out with a craft that is about perfection. It accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do-and no more than that could be asked for.

Yet it must be said, immediately, that "Absolution" is a penetrating and profound effort to articulate life in primal and dark conflict. It is simple and stripped of artifice. The poet and humanist in Fitzgerald is in this counting of the search of a boy and an elderly priest for absolute truth, in the conflicting presence of the demands of daily life with its common everydayness of people and trivial affairs.

This book is a big advance over his previous stories. It distinctly marks a transition. The nine tales have a much greater variety. It is also time that Fitzgerald be given credit for creating other than youthful characters; his elderly people are excellent portrayals. He has written a book of mellow, mature, ironic, entertaining stories, and one of them, at least, challenges the best of our contemporary output.