n  "It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being."n

Thinking back in time, I believe that I must have had ADD as a kid because when I was presented with all of the classics in school, I just didn't appreciate them like I am now, with the exception of Poe. Since I finished reading Of Human Bondage, I have had a thirst for devouring the classics and lucky me: it's like an extended Christmas since there are so many!!

When deciding on which classics to read my mind went first to F. Scott Fitzgerald, but not because he is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time, but because he settled for a time in North Carolina (my home state), while his wife Zelda was in an institution for schizophrenia. He stayed in Asheville at the Omni Grove Park Inn in room 441, which has not been remodeled since his time there and people can rent this room out to this day and feel the presence of Fitzgerald himself. I have actually had dinner here where you can eat on a veranda that overlooks the mountains and at one time could view the hospital where Zelda once was before it burned down taking her life with it. Enough about that though and on to the book...

This is a story told from the POV of Amory Blaine. It starts out when he is an adolescent and ends when he is a young man. As with many of the classics that I have been reading lately, this is mainly character-driven and he seems to be on a quest to understand his place in the world and to understand life itself. Of course, as with the other classics, this leads to deep introspection once he fails first at love, career, and convention. Once he is stripped of these things it leads him to finally think:

n  "I know myself, but that is all."n

That one sentence really packs a punch and narrows down the entire book. What I loved far more than the story or the characters within was Fitzgerald's poetic prose and I am not one for saying such things.

n  For a minute they stood there, hating each other with a bitter sadness. But as Avory had loved himself in Eleanor, so now what he hated was only a mirror. Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass. The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between...but naked souls are poor things ever, and soon he turned homeward and let new lights come in with the sun."n

Also as with most of the great classics there is the philosophy that decorates the pages and this one wasn't short of them,

n  "Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood-she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again."

"To hold a man a woman has to appeal to the worst in him." That was the thesis of most of his bad nights...n

I love reading stories about the rich, or so Amory was in the beginning, that just wander the Earth looking for introspect. They tend to get heavy at times, but I love to read the rattlings of their minds.

I kept thinking: "this is pretty good for a 22 year old." I also kept thinking: "this book would never have been published today." I'm not asserting that as a truth about the book. I'm just saying I kept thinking it.

On almost every page I felt reminded that this novel was written by a young writer, someone who hadn't figured out quite how to pace a novel, or how to focus his themes, or how to deal with dramatic scenes without either short-changing them or turning them into bathos. World War I as narrative summary called "Interlude?" I don't care if Fitzgerald hadn't actually been to war--neither had Stephen Crane. Also the different structural choices and narrative voices from one section to the next don't feel like an author with mastery over the material, or an author making conscious choices. They feel like the author doesn't know what he is doing yet.

Almost because the book was such a startling mess to me, I loved the detail in the novel about Amory's reading habits. Throughout the book Fitzgerald assumes that a list of authors' names will telegraph to his readers Amory's current state of mind and maturity. Here is an example:

"He read enormously every night—Shaw, Chesterton, Barrie, Pinero, Yeats, Synge, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Keats, Sudermann, Robert Hugh Benson, the Savoy Operas—just a heterogeneous mixture, for he suddenly discovered that he had read nothing for years."

Of course these passing mentions of authors, some referred to just by last name because they were so well-known back then, can't have the same effect now as they did when Fitzgerald wrote the novel. Many of these authors are out of print or rarely read. But the references to books and authors in This Side of Paradise served to remind me of the mystery of literary endurance, and this became the question that preoccupied me, while reading it: Why do some books stay popular for a few months or years, and others are read for generations? This Side Of Paradise itself is now part of that mystery.

Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of F. Scott Fitzgerald

--This Side of Paradise

Explanatory Notes

Amory Blaine was always a selfish, unsympathetic child. He grows up to be a fine egotist, attending Princeton Academy and always becomes a victim of love in the end.

I am in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing. I have been ever since I read The Great Gatsby. I would kill to be able to write like him.
His descriptions, his flow, are so beautifully executed that it takes some of the attention away from a boring and non-active story.
Okay, in my last status update, I said this book was amazing. Literally, right after that page, it slowly deteriorated into something like 'meh'.
If I had stopped at page 224, I would have probably given this book five stars. But those last forty pages...I could not make sense out of them. Maybe because I was tired but I wanted to finish it last night, that it just didn't make sense to me. But lordy, was that difficult to follow. The ending was disappointing and I almost wish he had ended it on page 224, because that was beautiful.

About around page 157 is where the book picks up and sweeps you into a heartbreaking love and the tragedy of lost love. After page 224, it's still interesting but kind of, I don't know, odd? Okay fine, up till page 234 was alright too but THEN, then it got goddamn confusing.
Fitzgerald starts to get far too political and I couldn't make odds or ends of it. Mind you, I was trying to read very intently, in order that I could understand what the heck they were talking about.

Anyway, the first 150 pages are pretty slow and at times, admittedly, confusing. But it is still a great book. Some of the things Amory and his friends spoke about could relate perfectly to what is going on right now, in modern time and culture. Even though it was written in the early 20's, so much of it can be connected to things happening now.

It's a story that shows being selfish and an egotist gets you nowhere, in life and in love. For you will know yourself very well and admire yourself, but that is all. That is all you would know.

I sometimes wonder what happens to reviews that disappear. I wrote this one before I began keeping copies and will not try to replace it. Just a note to say, as I remember it, this was not Fitzgerald at his best.

Perhaps read better as diary of an artist who is also a writer rather than a novel - in this, it is similar to Joyce's 'The portrait of an artist a young man'. has something existential despite its characters, as Fitzgerald's characters often do, possessing very shallow values. There is also a lot of philosophical talk going in here which is another thing I didn't expect from Fitzgerald.

I have read only two of Fitzgerald's works but I believe Anthony might be the only character he created that has an intellectual bent of mind. His stock characters are materialist-hedonists who just want to get drunk and have sex and their big problems are they may not be filthy rich to be able to do so (though they mostly are), or they might have to work for it or they might be married to wrong people. To sum up, they want to forever retain the privilege of being adolescent and beautiful. Even Anthony shares some of these values including an arrogant lookism. Such sensual people rarely make great lovers of literature.

The prose was far superior IMO compared to The Great Gatsby - but in terms of metaphors, symbols etc, it doesn't really come together and that was only reason I could have considered giving it like 4 stars instead of 5.

This novel is a lot of things at once:
It is a virtuoso’s exercise, it is philosophical, contains interesting political observations, it is a Bildungsroman, it is naïf and sometimes it is boring.
It is difficult not to compare it with The Great Gatsby, but it is unfair to do so, very few novels would pass that comparison.
It is amazing that he wrote it at 23. But it is also obvious in some of his observations.
In my opinion Amery’s love for Rosalind is quite conventional and immature. I loved Eleanor though, such a clear thinking feminist with a touch of “Thelma and Louise”!!
The description of the social structure at Princeton was interesting because, sadly, I don’t think things have changed that much in the Ivies despite the 100 years lapse.
All and all a thought provoking, sometimes lyrical read defining of an era and a tragic generation. This book has not aged and it is still very relevant.

Lots of cool quotes! :

“very few things matter and nothing matters very much."

“The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.”

“Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn; Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed foreborne?”
Swinburne’s “Triumph of Time”

“Rotten, rotten old world,” broke out Eleanor suddenly, “and the wretchedest thing of all is me—oh, why am I a girl? Why am I not a stupid—? Look at you; you’re stupider than I am, not much, but some, and you can lope about and get bored and then lope somewhere else, and you can play around with girls without being involved in meshes of sentiment, and you can do anything and be justified—and here am I with the brains to do everything, yet tied to the sinking ship of future matrimony. If I were born a hundred years from now, well and good, but now what’s in store for me—I have to marry, that goes without saying. Who? I’m too bright for most men, and yet I have to descend to their level and let them patronize my intellect in order to get their attention. Every year that I don’t marry I’ve got less chance for a first-class man. At the best I can have my choice from one or two cities an”“ and, of course, I have to marry into a dinner-coat.”

“Oh, just one person in fifty has any glimmer of what sex is. I’m hipped on Freud and all that,but it’s rotten that every bit of real love in the world is ninety-nine per cent passion and one little soupçon of jealousy.”

“That’s your panacea, isn’t it?” she cried. “Oh, you’re just an old hypocrite, too. Thousands of scowling priests keeping the degenerate Italians and illiterate Irish repentant with gabble-gabble about the sixth and ninth commandments. It’s just all cloaks, sentiment and spiritual rouge and panaceas. I’ll tell you there is no God, not even a definite abstract goodness; so it’s all got to be worked out for the individual by the individual here in high white foreheads like mine, and you’re too much the prig to admit it.” She let go her reins and shook her little fists at the stars.”

“Their poses were strewn about the pale dawn like broken glass. The stars were long gone and there were left only the little sighing gusts of wind and the silences between ... but naked souls are poor things ever, and soon he turned homeward and let new lights come in with the sun.”

““A POEM THAT ELEANOR SENT AMORY SEVERAL YEARS LATER
“Here, Earth-born, over the lilt of the water, Lisping its music and bearing a burden of light, Bosoming day as a laughing and radiant daughter ... Here we may whisper unheard, unafraid of the night. Walking alone ... was it splendor, or what, we were bound with, ”

“Deep in the time when summer lets down her hair? Shadows we loved and the patterns they covered the ground with Tapestries, mystical, faint in the breathless air.
 That was the day ... and the night for another story, Pale as a dream and shadowed with pencilled trees—Ghosts of the stars came by who had sought for glory, Whispered to us of peace in the plaintive breeze, Whispered of old dead faiths that the day had shattered, Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon; That was the urge that we knew and the language that mattered That was the debt that we paid to the usurer June.
 Here, deepest of dreams, by the waters that bring not Anything back of the past that we need not know, What if the light is but sun and the little streams sing not, We are together, it seems ... I have loved”

“you so ... What did the last night hold, with the summer over, Drawing us back to the home in the changing glade? What leered out of the dark in the ghostly clover? God! ... till you stirred in your sleep ... and were wild afraid ... Well ... we have passed ... we are chronicle now to the eerie. Curious metal from meteors that failed in the sky; Earth-born the tireless is stretched by the water, quite weary, Close to this ununderstandable changeling that’s I ... Fear is an echo we traced to Security’s daughter; Now we are faces and voices ... and less, too soon, Whispering half-love over the lilt of the water ... Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon.”

One of the least likable "protagonists" I've ever read. That being said, the writing was wonderful and he did grow as a character, at least somewhat, in the end. If Fitzgerald was trying to so me how horrible and shallow young men of privilege are...mission accomplished.

At last I have read all the novels of Fitzgerald and now I can officially say that this novel is my favourite. Yes that is true, many professional literary critics consider it to be the most immature and imperfect work of Fitzgerald, but still I like it and nothing will change my opinion.

n  This novel is a story of Amory Blaine. Or of Scott Fitzgerald?n Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the author and the main characters for there are so many events and people taken from the writer's life - Princeton, military service in Europe and the Triangle Literary Club as well as Monsignor Darcy, Beatrice Blaine and Clara who are almost accurate copies of Fitzgerald's closest people. However we can't say that Fitzgerald and Amory Blaine are one and the same person. Amory is a collective image of many young people of the time including Fitzgerald himself.

So n  who is this Amory Blaine?n Let us see. he author himself labels him as "The Romantic Egotist". That is not quite true. Amory is self-centred but not selfish. how is that possible? Let the character speak for himself: "There is no virtue of unselfishness that I cannot use. I can make sacrifices, be charitable, give to a friend, endure for a friend, lay down my life for a friend—all because these things may be the best possible expression of myself; yet I have not one drop of the milk of human kindness". An extraordinary position, isn't it? And believe me, Amory does live according to this statement.

Now it is understandable why Amory is "an egoist" but why "romantic"? The matter is that his notion of life is very idealized, his expectations about other people are high which often leads him to disappointment. Amory can see that emotions of many people surrounding him are false and he doesn't like it on the one hand but on the other has no idea what to do about it.

Sometimes Amory becomes snobbish and arrogant but in this way he just tries to hide his self-doubt and in fact he really likes to communicate with other people, to get new friends and find out something new.

Actually there is a simple and clear explanation for all the drawbacks of Amory's character and that is his upbringing. What would you expect from a child who has hardly seen his father once a ear and whose mother was busy either with herself or with her parties and the only way in which she educated her son was telling him some worldly gossips and fulfilling all his whims.

It is logical to presuppose that being "an egoist" Amory is no able to love, but that is not so. He can love although his feelings are in most cases not deep, but very strong, often desperate, he falls in love easily and also easily falls out of it. Amory takes love for granted - you should make the most of it once you have fallen in love and simply forget it hen it ends.

n  "For this is wisdom — to love and live,
To take what fate or the gods may give,
To ask no question, to make no prayer,
To kiss the lips and caress the hair,
Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow,
To have and to hold, and, in time — let go"n

As you can see this character is very complex but what is great about him is that anybody can see himself in him if he looks closer.

n  What is Amory's calling in life?n That is his major problem. During the novel the protagonist changes plenty of hobbies and fascinations trying to find the best one. Amory is eager to become famous, no matter in which way, and he is trying to achieve his goal. He doesn't find it in the end, but he finds something much more valuable - himself. the whole novel is a long way of the main character to the understanding of himself and his own life. There is a great quote about it in the novel:

n  "Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on — I've seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides 'the next thing.' Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he's done. He's a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them".n

Amory is a personality from the very beginning, there is no denying of it. But he has a long way to go and in the end of this way, as the title of he last chapter suggests "The Egotist Becomes a Personage". And here finding his calling for Amory becomes just a matter of time.

Now this was a story of Amory Blaine, but the book is not just about Amory, it is about the whole generation of young people, n  the Jazz Age generationn, whose lives are endless line of parties, love affairs, cocktails, gossips about each other and other kind of fun. the key word for this generation is "easiness". Whatever happens to Amory and his friends their life remains easy and they easily forget the events that can bring bitterness into their lives. Sometimes it seems that they live some imaginary lives of their own, where nothing bad can happen, where there is always just fun and laughter, they live in their dreams and fantasies about the real life but not in this life itself. They see what they want to see and deny the rest. What do they live for? Neither of them knows, and neither wants to.

But you can't run away from the real life forever and Amory is the first to feel it. It takes many sad events to make Amory realize that n  there is no escape from reality and one time or another the moment will come when you have to answer the questions "Who I am?" and "What is my aim in life?" and the sooner you find the answer, the better for you.n

I strongly disliked this book and I'm saying no more lest it turn into a rant.

Edit: Okay, some friends have requested the rant, so here goes. I never connected with the main character. The only time we really get insight into what he's thinking is when he's thinking about how much better he is than everybody else. (gag) We follow his romantic adventures as he falls in love repeatedly and we have no idea how he really feels or why he's doing this. The motivations of all of the characters make no sense to me. They're all paper dolls, doing weird things with no understandable motivations. "Oh, I killed my horse! Sometimes I just go mad and do things like that!" (context makes this make a tiny bit more sense)

And oh, the poetry! It's like Fitzgerald being a pretentious ass and trying to get lame (to me) poetry into a book way too many times. One or two would be fine, but I seriously wanted to close my eyes and bang my head against a wall every time it cropped up. However, that would have given me a hell of a headache because there was a lot of it.

Oh, yes, how could I possibly forget the political ranting in favor of socialism? It went on and on and on and on...

The interesting thing is how extreme my reaction was. Last year I read The Beautiful and Damned for a classics challenge, and not only did I give it some five star love, it was also one of my favorite books last year. A favorite of both the challenge and a 2015 top 10. So I was understandably extremely excited about this book. His first published book, and a book that took the world by storm. A book that was so popular that he makes a comment in The Beautiful and Damned about how all of society is talking about it and it's a must read for them. Arrogant and self-centered but it made me really want to read this. And then I do and I hate it as much as I loved the other. I've also read The Great Gatsby and had a sane, normal 3.5 star reaction to it. So why do these two books provoke such a powerful reaction?

It's not bad, but Amory is very self-centered and I would not want to be friends with him. I did not get very interested in the poetry; it just suddenly shows up sometimes throughout the book. The poems were too long. Princeton is very strict. All of Amory's friends talk about things like literature and politics. Amory wants to find out who he is. He falls in and out of love. Fitzgerald's writing is elegant and charming.

7/10

Contains Spoilers

Fitzgerald's first novel catapulted him, almost immediately, into the realm of Great American Writers with its theme of lost innocence and disillusionment after World War I. The story is told in a frantic, disjointed style, sometimes mimicking the frenetic flappers of the jazz age: those who tried to stamp out, on the dance floor, all the malaise of their generation. Paradoxically, it is also a languid tale of a dispirited dilettante who finds himself without much purpose in his life.

It's a curious novel in which all the major moments and crises of the protagonist's life are shrugged off in a desultory fashion, almost as if they were incidentals, and not as the prime movers in his life. His father dies, his mother dies, his closest family friend and mentor dies, he loses his inheritance, his "one true love" throws him over in favour of a financially secure future -- but they are treated as a series of little nothings, to be brushed off. Reflective of the age, perhaps, where youth and spirits and hope and joy had all been trampled, the novel vomits forth a series of disappointments and misfortunes, leading the reader into blind alley after blind alley of impotent despondency.

As quickly as Amory Blaine falls into another disappointment, he pulls himself out in a melancholic stupor, and carries on. Not enough spirit to even be an iconoclast, Amory Blaine's existence conjures up only one word, repeatedly: dilettante. Dilettante. Sleepy-headed dilettante, for all that Fitzgerald tries to convince us otherwise.

The Jazz Age was hungry for this sort of literature it seems, for the first printing of this novel sold out almost immediately (3,000 copies sold in 3 days) , and went on for 11 more printings in the next 2 years alone. Misery loves company, I suppose, -- but then, it was a youthful novel, by a young man who "had seen it all". Indicative of its age again, the jaded of the jazz age were hungry for their lives to be seen -- and no doubt felt that Fitzgerald saw them.

Overall, I found it rather bland and annoying. I read this hot on the heels of The Sun Also Rises and in comparison, this one is a real clunker.

While the themes are virtually identical, Hemingway's novel soars with spirit and soulfulness, and disturbs and moves the reader with its gravitas. This side of paradise, on the other hand, is rather a humdrum destination. I'd rather be on the other side.