Recently Read: Taps at Reveille, the Cambridge Edition, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Taps at Reveille, first published in 1935, was F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth collection of short stories and the last published in his lifetime. The Cambridge Edition, edited by James L. West III, excludes the Basil and Josephine stories, as these were published in a separate Cambridge Edition. It does include nine short stories written in the same time period which weren't included in the original collection (as well as a short story only relatively recently published for the first time in The New Yorker magazine). Nearly all of these short stories were originally published in The Saturday Evening Post magazine, but heavily edited (one could say practically censored). This edition publishes the unexpurgated versions.

Although Fitzgerald's previous short story collection, All the Sad Young Men, is probably his strongest, Taps at Reveille is never boring and, in many ways, seems his most autobiographical. The range of the tales runs from a ghost story to a parable, but the basic thrust of the book is the theme of squandered opportunities and middle-aged spousal infidelity. Exemplified by "Babylon Revisited", one his most famous shorts, Reveille has many tales of bored, confused, drunk or down and out Americans set, or trapped, in Europe. The amazing number of short stories Fitzgerald wrote at the time, most of which he hoped to sell to the Post, were necessary to pay Zelda Fitzgerald's medical bills; F. Scott, himself, was struggling with health issues and his books were, unfortunately, not selling well.

The stories in Taps at Reveille, though largely written for a wide audience, are filled with beautiful prose; only occasionally does it step over the line into floridity (and, sadly, casual racism in spots). I'm very much looking forward to reading the Basil and Josephine Cambridge edition.

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Recently Read: All the Sad Young Men, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Cambridge Edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's third collection of short stories (originally published in 1926) contains eleven additional short stories, all written within the same time period as the original collection. The editor, James L.W. West III, moreover, presents the original, uncensored versions of stories toned down by magazines like The Saturday Evening Post for their mainstream readers.

Though written at a time of emotional, marital and financial troubles, this is by far the most accomplished and adult short story collection Fitzgerald had yet written. There's a broad range of subject matter and scenarios in the book, but a connective, thematic throughline of middle-aged, married, adult concerns, with a clarity of objectivity that comes from lived experience impossible in his earliest works - making the collection a joy to read from beginning to end.

If you should decide to read All the Sad Young Men, I suggest this edition. It includes historical, explanatory notes, illustrations of historical events stories allude to, and detailed listings of changes made for magazine publication.

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Recently Read: The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western

This Cambridge Edition, edited by the most important Fitzgerald scholar, Matthew J. Bruccoli, is the ultimate resource for Fitzgerald's last and unfinished novel.

The partly ironically titled book tells the story of a Hollywood producer, Monroe Stahr, based on Fitzgerald's observations and meetings with MGM second-in-command Irving Thalberg, as well as many other Hollywood denizens. Like the three novels he wrote before it, it's a tragic love story.

The novel, what we can read of it, is structurally flawed (i.e., and regrettably, a mess). Like The Great Gatsby to an much lesser extent, The Last Tycoon suffers from problems of viewpoint, relating scenes which the narrator didn't witness or is awkwardly retelling from having talked to other sources. Fitzgerald's then editor, Maxwell Perkins, believed Fitzgerald would have solved these problems before completion, but I don't see how. To make the matter more convoluted, Fitzgerald's notes indicate he considered having Monroe Stahr's story told three levels deep: that is, told by someone else, whose story is then told by someone else.

I don't know why Fitzgerald had such difficulties in this regard because his writing is, in so many other respects, exquisite. He captures the feel, the atmosphere, the backstage chaos and absurdities and the simpler business methods of Hollywood in the '30s. His descriptions in the novel are as fine as his best work. Those interested in film history (and, especially, the history of MGM) will find much to enjoy here.

This edition features seventy pages of photocopies of Fitzgerald's notes, his letters from the time period, a history of the novel's publication and much more.

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