Joseph Conrad & F.Scott Fitzgerald

I was first introduced to F.Scott Fitzgerald in U.S. when I was in high school. A first book I've ever read by him was "The Great Gatsby" which I haven't reread in a long time. I can truly say the aforementioned novel is amongst my favorite novels of all time.

On a side note, it is true that I love reading the classics in general, but this doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading modern, post-modern and current novels. So while I devour through the classics this by no means is true that I love all classics. There are many classics that I don't like and cannot understand that it has become a classic, like "The Wuthering Heights".

But I digress. Recently, I've read a lot of Joseph Conrad. His novel "The Heart of Darkness" along with a collection of his short stories, amongst which "Amy Foster" is included. I had often heard of Conrad, but had not read him before. I am deeply impressed to say the least. I think mostly, it's due to the fact that Conrad, an immigrant like myself uses the English language very differently than say, an English at the time or an American today. The descriptions are detailed and the paragraphs are flowery, intricate and also very thoughtful. There is much illuminated and given into philosophical thought. Transitions are smooth, the language has it's own natural rhythm and it flows well as it reads easily. What I mean when I say it reads easily is the point that it's easy to get lost in the imaginary world that Conrad paints, easily forgetting which character is saying what and what the language is trying to highlight, symbolism is highly veiled and metaphors are carefully disguised. Conrad writes a lot like I used to, before I've decided to cut a lot of the flowery language out of my writing and have concsiously made the decision to be more unified and concise, and write more clean prose. It's far more of a heavy duty.

On the other hand I've started reading Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise" yesterday morning. I'm nearly half way there and obviously the styles are different, syntax and character focus are also varies. But what has changed dramatically is the way they tell their story, the narration, the mood and the language they use. Fitzgerald is a lot more simplistic with no room for flowery sentences, however focuses on well developed and thoughtful sentences instead.

It's been a quite a bit of a radical change for me as far as reading habits goes as I tend to read similar writers for a while and slowly shifting away from the time period. Rather this time made a big jump.