Although I gave up on F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (sorry F. Scott--it was a timing thing I'm afraid), I haven't given up on Joshua Zeitz's Flapper. It's an absolute delight to read, which sounds like a strange description for a history book, but I find all he writes about really fascinating. There's so much to take in I'm not sure how I will write about the book when I do finish, though I'm certainly enjoying it as I go. Flappers often got a bad rap, though coming out of the Victorian Age they longed for freedom and independence. But with modernization, living through a World War, and so many social changes, it's not at all surprising really that they wanted to break a few boundaries.
I'm sharing a double teaser today as two books I'm reading have crossed paths. Nonfiction meets fiction. I was reading the Zeitz book in the morning and a mystery in the afternoon and both talked about the Flapper. First, this is some of what Zeitz had to say:
"Experts agreed that it would cost the average working girl at least $117--more than $1,2000 in today's money--to affect the flapper look with passing success. Even then, 'she must have good taste, practice self denial and steer away from the impractical garments'."
"Yet if the revolution in morals and manners was sweeping the entire country, in many people's minds she was a product of the best neighborhoods in New York and Chicago. This popular image of the flapper was owed in large part to the new prominence that middle-class urbanites came to enjoy in the 1920s. Flush with money and able to dominate the national conversation through newspapers, magazines, and radio, this new urban elite assumed broad license to teach Americans what to buy and how to dress. They self-consciously developed ideas about style, poise, and humor. And the rest of the country often followed suit."
Flappers weren't just found in large American cities. Have you met Phryne Fisher yet? My first encounter with Phryne came in Cocaine Blues a few years back. I had this overwhelming urge recently to start reading Murder on the Ballarat Train, the second in the series...so I did just that. Out came the book and I've been glued to it ever since. Phyrne might not appeal to everyone, but I get a huge kick out of her. The series is set in a rather gritty 1920s Melbourne and Phryne is totally incorrigible. Beautiful and wealthy, she didn't start out in life with many advantages, but she knows what she wants and how to get it. She's smart and sophisticated and has a wardrobe to die for (that $117 would have been a piece of cake for Phryne). And she's very strong-willed. Did I mention she carries a .32 Beretta in her purse and dabbles in private investigations?
I had to laugh over a scene I read where Phryne is chatting with a police officer in a small town over a murder that occurred on the train she was traveling on.
"Are you going to keep this case, or will it go to CID in Melbourne?"
"Probably CID, Miss, which is a pity. I would have looked forward to working with you," he said, greatly daring, and Phryne took his face between her hands and kissed him soundly."
"I would have liked that too, my dear Sargeant Wallace, but I'm afraid that I must love you and leave you. Farewell," she breezed and left to catch the train to Melbourne, abandoning a deeply impressed policeman without a backward glance."
"If she's a flapper," mused the sergeant, wiping Passionate Rouge lipstick off his blameless mouth, "then I'm all for 'em, and I don't care what Mum says."
Somehow I can picture Phyrne fitting in perfectly with her New York counterparts!