Babylon Revisited: Like his classic novel The Great Gatsby this story is set in the Jazz Age and much is based on Fitzgeralds own experiences.
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Narrated by Christopher Ragland and Ghizela Rowe
5/5
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About this audiobook
His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.
In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army. In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre. Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life. For them this was The Jazz Age. For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic.
He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names. The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews. As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.
Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936. His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check. His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents. Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit.
The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers. On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack.
In this bittersweet story of a man who enjoyed the boom years of la dolce vita and now, in more straitened times, is unable to get what he really wants; the custody of his daughter. He returns to Paris to meet the ghosts of those good times and to make amends for his past.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896. He attended Princeton University, joined the United States Army during World War I, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. That same year he married Zelda Sayre and for the next decade the couple lived in New York, Paris, and on the Riviera. Fitzgerald’s masterpieces include The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. He died at the age of forty-four while working on The Last Tycoon. Fitzgerald’s fiction has secured his reputation as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.
More audiobooks from F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender is the Night (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Babylon Revisited
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A poignant story about a father who is trying to regain custody of his daughter from his sister in law. The story is set in 1930, with flashbacks to the Roaring 20s.
Before the stock market crash of 1929, Charlie Wales and his wife were part of Paris’s free-spending, boozy party scene. After the crash, Charlie’s wife dies, he suffers financial losses, and he loses custody of his daughter due to his alcoholism. After getting back on his feet and cutting back on his drinking, he returns to Paris to persuade his wife’s sister and her husband that he has changed his ways and can be trusted again.
The writing is classic F. Scott Fitzgerald. With a few deft strokes and well-chosen scenes, he evokes the personal and emotional impact of the Jazz Age and its aftermath.