Bits of Paradise

by Zelda Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684139022
• ISBN13: 9780684139029
• Release Date: September 1973
• Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company
• Length: 385 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Scott and Zelda together again

First the good news: Zelda Fitzgerald was not as bad a writer as I was lead to believe. I prefer to describe her stories as "colorful" rather than to say that she had a tendency to raid Roget's Thesaurus for flowery adjectives, phrases and overly flamboyant metaphors. The first line in one of her stories, "Bitter things dried behind the eyes of Miss Ella like garlic on a string before an open fire," would be considered a bit much by any reasonable critic. Still, "Miss Ella," a bitter-sweet love story, is touching and sad. The primary themes of Zelda's stories, romantic love and women's career aspirations, especially in the movies, were topics probably close to her heart and she wrote about them with much sincerity. "Our Own Movie Queen," which she and Scott co-wrote, was my favorite by her. This story about a small town girl chosen by her co-workers to star in a movie made by people in her town is both charming and funny. The bad news is that Zelda's stories, told almost completely in a narrative form with virtually no dialogue, had a tendency to drag badly; most of them are forgettable. Scott's stories, like Zelda's, also cover the various aspects of human relationships, including love, alcoholism, and the heartbreak often encountered by those seeking film stardom, are all wonderfully and, of course, professionally written. Few twentieth century American authors wrote better and with as much wit about human psychology and foibles than the great F. Scott Fitzgerald. The alcoholic always promising to reform in "A New Leaf, and the struggling young movie starlet broken by the Hollywood system in "Last Kiss," are among my favorites in this generally very entertainingly written volume of short stories.