I believe this was Fitzgerald's first novel and certainly shows his potential, but not his best. I see the future of some of his flapper characters and their superficial, transitory relationships with each other, but he has not yet perfected them to the point of making them interesting. They are fairly dry and so are their relationships.

This book lacks the keen insight displayed in so many of the other novels.

Brief summary: Armory is a bored rich kid who does the usual bored rich kids things: goes to private school; goes to Princeton; gets into several ethereal relationships and eventually forms existential conclusions about the world and life.

If any of this could have been developed beyond merely introducing characters or coloring them more richly, it could have been an enjoyable read. Fortunately, I've read Fitzgerald's other novels first. I suppose one could say the character types haven't changed, but they have matured and ripened in later novels.

Unless you're a determined Fitzgerald fan, I'd give this one a skip.

Even in his first work he sure have the most beautiful language I ever encountered in literature.

This book is like a good material badly shaped. It has some really good moments and also some bad ones. I would say I liked the first 50 pages and the last 50 ones as well, but in between I struggled

Fitzgerald didn’t established his style yet in this book so it’s clear that he was trying many different ideas her which made the work lose coherence. That “play” style chapter at the beginning of the second part was very out of place in my opinion. And also trying to mention famous figures politicians and writers just to show us how well informed he was is annoying

Still the introduction to the protagonist in the start and the school + university parts were enjoyable. His interactions with Rosselda and Elenor were also good

I would recommend reading it for those who like Fitzgerald works and for the sake of his beautiful prose .

DNF 20%, despite good narration I found the protagonist really uninteresting and didn’t catch a whiff of something compelling coming down the pipe. Life is too short.

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940)

This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was published in 1920. Taking its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post–World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status seeking.

Fitzgerald's first novel, was an immediate, spectacular success and established his literary reputation. Perhaps the definitive novel of that Lost Generation, it tells the story of Amory Blaine, a handsome, wealthy Princeton student who halfheartedly involves himself in literary cults, liberal student activities, and a series of empty flirtations with young women. When he finally does fall truly in love, however, the young woman rejects him for another.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و دوم ماه نوامبر سال2011میلادی

عنوان: این سوی بهشت؛ اثر: فرانسیس اسکات فیتزجرالد؛ مترجم: سهیل سمی؛ تهران، ققنوس، سال1389، در376ص، ادبیات جهان101، رمان86، شابک9789643118976، موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

در سی سالگی، «ایمری (آموری) بلین»، با ثروتی که با مرگ دو برادر بزرگ‌ترش، به او می‌رسد، احساس می‌کند دنیا مال اوست؛ پدرش «استیفن بلین» مردی نالایق، که به اشعار «لرد بایرون»، شاعر «انگلیسی» علاقه‌ ی بسیاری داشت، تزلزل، و دودلی ویژه ای برای پسرش، به ارث گذاشت، که او را انسانی سست عنصر، با صورتیکه نصفش پشت موهای ابریشمی و عاری از حیاتش، محو شده بود، نشان می‌داد؛ «این سوی بهشت» داستان زندگی پسرکی است، که تا پیش از ده سالگی، مادرش به او آموزش‌های فراوان داد؛ او در یازده سالگی می‌توانست روان، و راحت، یا شاید با لحنی یادآور «برامس»، «موتسارت»، و «بتهوون»، حرف بزند؛ پسری که به گمان مادرش، واقعا با فرهنگ و جذاب بود، و در عین حال خیلی ظریف، با زندگی در خانه‌ ای که همیشه تشریفات ویژه ی خودش را داشت؛ ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 17/03/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 29/10/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Unlike most books I re-read decades after first reading them, this one has fallen significantly in my esteem. But, hey, Fitzgerald wrote it when he was twenty-three! I admire that very much. I certainly could not have accomplished such a book, then or now.

But the only writer to whom I feel that I can fairly compare Fitzgerald is himself, and I've only just finished re-reading two of his better novels: The Beautiful and Damned and Tender Is the Night which is my favourite of all his books. Both Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby contain passages that I find so beautiful my heart beats harder when I read them. It's palpable.

So, should I say that my judgment of this novel is fair and that Fitzgerald became a better writer as he aged? Well, one could say that age always improves us . . . but it's not true, is it? I do not assume that it's true with artists, especially, because some burn early and bright and then fade away. I will stand by my belief, though, that Fitzgerald did rather the opposite: his flame grew brighter and brighter until it was snuffed out by a sudden heart attack. We know that he and Zelda had a roller-coaster ride of a marriage that took its toll on both of them, but that also seems fated. We know, too, that his alcoholism consumed him more and more as he aged. Either in spite of or because of all that, he matured into a magnificent writer. But he was not yet that, at twenty-three.

The parts of This Side of Paradise that I liked, I liked very much, but the book's quality varies a great deal from chapter to chapter, due not so much to the writing itself (even at that tender age, Fitzgerald was talented with words) but the chosen content. At times, for whole long passages, I found Amory's blathering on about himself, "his" women, his beliefs, and his life, excruciatingly tedious. I realise that this is part of the point: It's a cliché but nevertheless true that, when we are young, many of us are quick to judge our elders as silly old fools, to tell them how they've got it all wrong, and to dream of ourselves as budding geniuses on the brink of greatness. Amory was no exception to this; in fact, he was rather the poster-child for the enormous vanity, arrogance, and folly of adolescence and early adulthood which means that, in many ways, he was a crashing bore.

Another problem, besides boredom, that I had with this book: Perhaps due to current sociopolitical attitudes that we are bombarded with daily, I found it hard to keep taking in Amory's oft-repeated and sickening attitudes towards the poor, towards "foreigners", and towards any woman who is not considered beautiful by the standards of his day. I should explain that it is a principle of mine to appreciate works of art in their own terms, in their own right, and within their own social, political, and cultural contexts, rather than judging them against our own current cultural ideals. But that doesn't mean that I never get enough of reading about characters who find foreigners "disgusting" and poor people loathsome. Seriously, I needed a break and was glad when the end came.

Also, I find the book has not aged well, unlike Fitzgerald's other works. To me, it reads as very of-the-moment, but the moment was the first two decades of the twentieth century. Amory was a trendy sort and those trends seem silly and uninteresting to us now, which is the way of all trends. Also, Amory's taste in writers, especially poets, at that time, do not reflect my own, so I found his regular tangents on poetry tiresome and dull. Swinburne is not to my liking much at all, but he was the among the best of those mentioned, besides E.A. Poe and Rupert Brookes, for both of whom I hold some affection. It is my own fault that, because of the type of reader I am, I am constitutionally incapable of skipping bits. But I can still blame Fitzgerald for making me read it!

So, that's my take on This Side of Paradise from this side of adulthood, now that I am old enough to be Amory's mother rather than his girlfriend, such as I was the first time round this particular dance floor. :)

This was going to be a two-star until today, when the last sixty or so pages took me by surprise, improving the experience somewhat. 'The Great Gatsby' is one of my favourite novels so at first I was greatly disappointed to find I wasn't enjoying this one, Fitzgerald's debut, at all, in spite of the odd snatches of beautiful writing. It felt aimless, cloggy, and I just wasn't interested in anything or anyone involved. The introduction in my copy even refers to it as a "deeply flawed apprentice work", so I was relieved to find it wasn't just me feeling confused by his early work. But the greats have got to start somewhere, and I'm glad I've read it.

I was a firm believer (based in conspiracy theories and tiktoks, so Idk what that says about me) that Fitzgerald had stolen the great gatsby from Zelda, but after reading this and its story Im no longer sure. It reads exactly like TGG and knowing that it is based on a sort of autobiography he wrote about himself in his school days and was rejected from publishing makes me question things quite a bit.
All in all I enjoyed this a lot. Reading about Amory (what I think is actually just Fitzgerald basing a character off of himself) and his narcissistic personality and his airs of grandeur was just really really funny and at time sad to me.
I didnt expect to like this this much, but Im very glad I decided at tome point to think myself an intellectual an purchase this book at the second hand book store.

This Side of Paradise by F. S. Fitzgerald is something very different from his other works, however, it also happens to be his first published work which got a lot of negative critique. The reason why I happened to like it was because of the author's never failing language and writing style; no matter what Fitzgerald did, he never seemed to fail his audience in this matter.

As I have already mention, this is his first published novel, and the reason why it is so much different from the rest of this work is because of the story, I believe. The rumour has it that it is somewhat a biography of a young F. S. Fitzgerald, which makes the read so much more intimate, but there is also something that is just off about this book that I cannot put my finger on.

Fitzgerald is honestly one of my favourite authors, but I always find myself in need of a break whenever I finish one of his books. I think the reason for this is because his novels are quite complicated in theirs structure, even though the plot seems rather easy going: from the outside a perfect and rich family, on the inside not so much-plot that happens to be the through story in most of this books. I do think I will reread this again sometime, but it is honestly not my favourite of his work, even though I did fancy his language.

3,5.

An Apprentice Work, With Flashes Of Genius



This Side Of Paradise was Fitzgerald’s first novel, the one that made him, at age 23, a literary star, the unofficial chronicler of the flapper era. It was such a success that his ex-girlfriend, Zelda Sayre, agreed to marry him. And we know how that turned out.

Autobiographical protagonist Amory Blaine is insufferably narcissistic and egotistical. Fitzgerald was clearly aware of this, and there’s more than a bit of satire to his portrait of the vain golden boy; he titled an earlier version The Romantic Egotist. Structurally, the book is all over the place, a collection of vignettes, impressions, poems… there’s even something resembling a one-act play near the end. WWI is oddly glossed over in an interlude.

It’s a coming of age novel with an experimental feel; at one point Fitzgerald refers to Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, and you can sense its influence, especially in the second half.

The book covers Amory’s comfortable midwest childhood, his Princeton years and the restless post-war Jazz Age generation. Throughout there’s the search for all those things you rhapsodize about when you’re very young: love, beauty, spirituality, fulfillment. The narrator occasionally drones on, telling us stuff, like some pedantic teaching assistant outlining a course.

But while the book is clearly, at times painfully, an apprentice work, it shows a ton of potential; you can see why legendary editor Maxwell Perkins agreed to publish it, despite the protests of his less enthusiastic colleagues at Scribner’s.

The book has an undeniable vitality, a spark of originality and the occasional flash of genius. You feel that Fitzgerald is attempting to capture his generation, one unshackling itself from pre-war mores. What it needs is a Nick Carraway figure, an outsider among the privileged to comment on the action. Amory is living in the eye of his own dramatic hurricane, and it’s hard to get a balanced point of view.

What’s eerie, though, is how many prescient passages there are. Like this one:

n  “Amory, you’re young. I’m young. People excuse us now for our poses and vanities, for treating people like Sancho and yet getting away with it. They excuse us now. But you’ve got a lot of knocks coming to you.”n

Indeed he does.

Also included is one post-breakup bender that foreshadows the author’s later alcoholism. An elegiac feeling suffuses the book, especially near the end. When Amory revisits Princeton after the war, full of early disillusion, Fitzgerald gives us this stunning passage.

n  Long after midnight the towers and spires of Princeton were visible, with here and there a late-burning light – and suddenly out of the clear darkness the sound of bells. As an endless dream it went on; the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation, the chosen youth from the muddled, unchastened world, still fed romantically on the mistakes and half-forgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets. Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a reverie of long days and nights, destined finally to go out into the dirty grey turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all God’s dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken…n

Fitzgerald's obvious lyrical gift is on display, but there’s also a knowledge of the currents and rhythms of life that, even at so young an age, he intuitively grasped.

In short: there’s real artistry.

(audiobook)
This was such a quintessential Fitzgerald novel, and in that respect I loved it! I felt very unsympathetic towards the main protagonist Amory Blaine, which I think is the point. He is very vain and immersed in a world full or greed and status. I loved the references to different literary/art idols like Tolstoy and Charles Dana Gibson. Was this the best novel I've ever read, unfortunately no. Did I enjoy it, absolutely!!

Quando si deve creare una nuova categoria per classificare un libro, significa che si è di fronte a una di queste tre situazioni:
situazione A: il libro affronta un tema sconosciuto o nuovo, mai letto da altre parti;
situazione B: il libro è talmente bello che va classificato a parte;
situazione C: il libro è talmente brutto che va classificato a parte.
Dato che la nuova categoria si chiama "abbandonato", si può intuire in quale situazione mi sia trovato stavolta.
Tuttavia non è il libro che importa. Non stavolta.

Di questo libro ho un ricordo ben preciso: lo comprai nel 2009, all'edicola che c'era (o forse c'è ancora) dentro la stazione di Bologna, prima della scalinata che portava al corridoio sotterraneo per l'accesso ai vari binari.
Non avevano ancora rivisto tutto in funzione dell'AV, l'avvenieristica stazione attuale (che ho solo intravisto recentemente dai finestrini di un treno, di passaggio) era forse nemmeno un progetto.
Insomma, sceso dal regionale da Trento e in attesa di prendere l'Intercity (sì, c'era ancora il caro vecchio economico Intercity) per Roma Termini, mi fermai all'edicola e, insieme al giornale, comprai anche questo libro ingiallito, lì da chissà quanto. Costava pochi soldi, e gli studenti universitari erano anche allora decisamente squattrinati. Ricordo che provai a leggerlo e che lo misi quasi immediatamente da parte, preferendogli addirittura il giornale.
Avevo 24 anni, ero innamorato, presi il treno per Roma e le vicissitudini di questo libro, da allora, si persero di scaffale in scaffale, di mensola in mensola. Polvere su polvere su polvere.

Giorni fa me lo rivedo per l'ennesima volta fra i libri non letti (ho una mensola apposita) e mi chiedo se non sarebbe l'ora di leggerlo, e di promuoverlo nella libreria autocostruita (più che egregiamente) da me medesimo in versione falegname, fra i libri letti. Nel bene o nel male.

Rivedo quella costa verde brillante, e la copertina di un giallo da giallo della Christie, con il ritratto di un giovane baldanzoso e che con baldanza guarda in avanti, verso il futuro. Non penso a me a 24 anni, tutt'altro. L'oggetto libro non mi comunica niente in questo senso. La memoria non rimanda a me.

Ho una pessima memoria, in generale. Più che pessima sui fatti del quotidiano: per tenere a mente le cose devo scrivere tutto in maniera quasi maniacale, dettagliando ogni cosa e ogni passaggio su carta, su post-it, su agenda o su qualunque supporto idoneo. Per il lavoro che faccio un mezzo disastro.
Sopperisco a questi difetti con l'organizzazione e con una capacità logistica notevole.
Quindi non ricordo mai dove ho comprato un libro, a meno che non lo scriva da qualche parte subito, o non conservi lo scontrino.
A meno che dietro non ci sia una ragazza. Ecco, in quel caso ricordo tutto perfettamente. La mente elabora persino l'anno, il luogo dell'acquisto, tutto si lega e si tiene all'interno di un ricordo generale su un amore. Finito. E un libro, per quanto insignificante, ha un peso specifico persino superiore a libri che posso aver adorato, e persino a libri che ho adorato e che sono legati al ricordo di quella stessa persona (penso al Maestro e Margherita, che ho comprato insieme a lei, e che pure non mi riporta col pensiero a lei - la grandiosità del libro è riuscita a sopprimere persino un ricordo di tale potenza, il che per come è strutturata la mia mente è un risultato sorprendente).

Ho riaperto questo libro, dunque, e ci ho ritrovato dentro un cartoncino rosso, che segnava il punto dove ero arrivato all'epoca della prima lettura. Poche pagine, forse dieci. Il cartoncino rosso, un banalissimo ritaglio rettangolare 6x4 di un A4 colore rosso grammatura 200, portava su un lato una specie di smile stilizzato, una cosa rotonda con due occhi e la lingua di fuori. Tratto a matita. Riconosco il suo segno. Suo di lei.
Sono anni che non la vedo, mi manca ma la consapevolezza che fra di noi, oltre a 600 chilometri in linea d'aria, ci sono due vite che hanno preso direzioni divergenti e oramai lontanissime e irrimediabilmente estranee mi rende tangibile in maniera amara come immensa possa divenire la distanza dalla persona a cui, per interi anni, sei stato più vicino rispetto a chiunque altro. Quasi una cosa unica.
La crepa sul pavimento, il fosso lungo la provinciale che diventano una valle.
Alla fine l'amore è una eccezione, la vicinanza emotiva e affettiva una vacanza della natura. L'errore (gli errori) che fanno andare avanti il mondo, tuttavia. Letteralmente.

A essere onesto, con me stesso prima che con gli altri, devo però sottolineare che la mia memoria non è solo e semplicemente scarsa. Lo è sulle questioni del quotidiano, sicuramente.
Tuttavia possiedo una memoria didascalica eccezionale. Ricordo date e fatti - per lo più storici - come probabilmente pochi altri. E non lo dico per vantarmi: l'età e gli ostacoli della vita mi hanno insegnato a essere umile e seccamente pragmatico. Al liceo, alle interrogazioni di storia in cui i miei compagni erano dal poco al per nulla preparati, venivo mandato in avanscoperta durante la prima giornata di interrogazioni per debordare in interminabili esondazioni storiche che avevano come scopo strategico quello di far passare indenne agli altri le due ore successive. Io mi divertivo, il prof anche, i miei compagni la sfangavano e tutti erano contenti, alla fine.

Poi non ho seguito le mie inclinazioni e il mio talento, all'università ho fatto tutt'altro, la storia è rimasta un hobby e alla fine è andata bene, benissimo così. Ho imparato molto di più, ho sviluppato le mie predisposizioni all'ordine e all'organizzazione, ho appreso una immensità di nozioni altrimenti irraggiungibili, ho un lavoro a cui chiunque ambirebbe e a cui non sarei mai potuto arrivare senza quel percorso.
In tutto questo lei non c'è stata, probabilmente sta meglio dov'è ora rispetto a dove sarebbe stata con me. Forse è più felice, glielo auguro: la superbia di credermi migliore e più adatto a lei fra tutti gli altri, quelli che erano venuti prima e quelli che sono venuti dopo, costruisce vette di certezze apparantemente infrangibili, in realtà pezzi di ghiaccio che si sciolgono al primo sole. So che non è così. So che non è così, ma mi manca. Forse è lei - lei come donna e come persona - a mancarmi. O forse è solo il ricordo, che come sempre si cristallizza sulle cose belle dimenticando selettivamente quelle brutte, o meno belle. O forse sono quegli anni, vissuti in equilibrismo fra dovere e sentimenti, o la Città. Comunque mi piacerebbe rivederla. Chissà come sarebbe. Commovente, forse. O forse secco, triste e impersonale come una fucilata. Chissà chissà chissà.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmXz8...

Ah sì, il libro. E' orrendo. Oserei dire orripilante. Orrenda la traduzione. Talmente insignificante la trama (una serie di episodi sulla vita di un ragazzetto viziato, egotico, supponente e drammaticamente insopportabile) da non riuscire a coinvolgere nemmeno il più masochista fra i lettori. Inutilmente barocca e iperbolica la scrittura: pagine su pagine di inezie, facezie, stupidaggini; nulla, ma proprio nulla di importante. L'ho abbandonato verso pag. 40 senza nessun rimpianto. Se il celebratissimo grande Gatsby è su questi livelli siamo messi molto male. Anzi, malissimo.