Flappers and Philosophers is a collection of 8 short stories written by Fitzgerald (as a matter of fact, it is the first collection of short stories written by him). For some reason I am much more drawn to shorter, more compact writings at the moment – maybe that’s what I got from spending every day for over a month working on Čechov. I don’t know.

Although Flappers and Philosophers has it’s many flaws, Fitzgeralds writing is – for the most part – immensely beautiful. I was originally thinking about making a collection instead of a review, giving you the most beautiful sentence of each story, but then – who am I to decide.

My problem with many of the stories was that there was hardly a character to relate to. All of the selfish, superficial and snobbish girls and boys (excuse me, I meant ladies and gentlemen) acted like spoiled and bored kids and most of them felt the same, especially the female characters – and the fact that almost every single one of them has grey eyes did not help either (at the same time I am aware of the fact that Fitzgerald was obviously trying to portrait exactly THIS kind of person, so I cannot blame him for that).

Now, overall, there are certain elements that will definitely stick with me, but somehow Flappers and Philosophers left me unsatisfied. I guess, I was expecting something less superficial and more elaborate, if that makes any sense at all regarding short stories.

Well, well, well.

A lot was happening for me in the past weeks, so reading for fun was taking the back seat, but I think I am getting back on track now.

"Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story."

…and what a fabulous story The Offshore Pirate is!

Is it possible to be both ambitious and balanced?

The answer is yes, of course it is; there are manifold examples of men and women who have achieved great things while maintaining balanced, rational lives.

Reading books like Flappers though, one can't be blamed for wondering.  No doubt that the more outrageous lives make more exciting reading, but as seems always the case after reading these omnibus biographies, I'm left with the feeling that these women - who inarguably achieved great things in the face of extraordinary obstacles -  are not the ones we should be holding up as shining examples of success.  At least Flappers doesn't outright label them as heroines as one similar recently published book hailed its subjects.

But boy, does the outrageous make for delicious reading (if you can overlook the numerous and egregious copy-editing errors).  These women were rebellious, emotionally starved, unstable sometimes to the point of madness, and ambitious.  Their determination and stubbornness were admirable, if their lack of moral compass was not.  I'm not referring here, by the way, to their collective sexual escapades, of which I can only sit back and applaud with awe.  It's more the way they all believed, no matter how humble or grand their beginnings, that the rules didn't apply to them.

About the only woman I came out of this admiring was Josephine Baker.  While her compass most certainly did not point north, the author seems to chalk up some of this to naivety and ignorance (although I'm pretty sure she knew bigamy was a no-go and just didn't care).  Diana Cooper might have also made it to a happy old age, but Josephine showed the most ability to adapt, to learn, to grow, and to do it all without seeming to compromise her dignity.  

Take all this with a grain of salt, of course; condensed biographies like these are necessarily incomplete and leave out a lot of details that might change the reader's perspective, but the writing is engaging and Mackrell manages to connect all five women's lives into a relatively cohesive narrative.  The women themselves do the rest.

My progress on this one is so much slower than I expected, but this is not because of the book, it's definitely all me.  Slight but obnoxious issues with meds have left me with a shortened attention span and a desire to sleep all day this week.  It's been great news for the BL database, as doing edits keeps me awake, but not great news for Flappers.  

The women's lives are getting more interesting and starting to fray around the edges (at least for some of them).  I don't pretend for a minute to understand the appeal of such frenetic lifestyles, but it certainly makes for riveting reading.