fiction, read 2009 ( )

the last fifty or so pages saved the book and made me happy I didn't stop reading it, as I seriously considered because parts of this are like a shitty romance novel. A lot of pretty worthless stuff but also a variety of forms (poems, a play section, a Q&A session, philosophy) make it good. Like "A Portrait of the Artist" except written by Joyce's retarded brother. ( )

Ahhhh Mr. Fitzgerald. How you woo me with your lyrical prose and bore me with your philosophical shpeel.

There were times during This Side of Paradise where I was overcome by what I was reading because it was just that amazing. And then there were times where I glazed over the philosophy with dry eyes and an annoying buzz in my ears. But looking beyond those parts, I have to acknowledge Paradise as Fitz’s first novel, and therefore the good parts were made that much better since he had nothing Gatsby-like to live up to. The bits of genius were effortless and beautiful because they were the first of their kind, pure and innocent. Paradise seems like it was easy for Fitz. Fun. I feel like I can tell this is his first novel because it wouldn’t be until later that the pressure of being a “good writer” would hit him. For that reason, I enjoyed this novel tremendously.

This Side of Paradise revolves around Amory Blaine. There are many words to describe Amory: self-involved, self-indulgent, self-conscious. Overly dramatic, lost, found, curious, lonely, broken, bruised. Affected. Amory is a character. He’s full of life but completely lost. He’s a dreamer and an idealist and a realist all at the same time; he is one big hypocritical oxymoron, and he’s completely overwhelmingly tragic.

We begin Amory’s life from whence all his issues started: Beatrice. Beatrice is dear old mother with her delicacy and indulgences, and her personality makes Amory into the person he is because of her eccentricities and failures. We follow Amory through school and his younger years (where he’s disliked by his classmates because they don’t get him), through his college years (where he’s liked by classmates because they don’t get him), vaguely through World War I, and always through his women, until we meet Rosalind – the beginning, end, and in-between of everything Amory wanted and could never have.

Amory is always looking for himself, and never finding the person he wants. He loses himself in whatever he likes at the time, whether it be school, an idea, a place, or a person. He’s never happy and never content for long. He wants to be remembered, but never sticks to anything long enough to be cause for remembrance. He’s lost, and I feel sad for him. He never quite finds what he’s looking for.

The best description of Amory can be found on the twelfth page of the book:

“It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.” ( )

I read this expecting at least a glimpse of the genius from The Great Gatsby, but I was sorely disappointed. The book follows a self involved, spoiled boy who is honestly a chore to read about because his character progresses so little throughout the book. The first half of the novel is nothing but tedious and as soon as Amory begins to become a slightly interesting character, the story ends. It really wasn't worth the time it took to muddle through. ( )

Fitzgerald written about a young man named Amory. Amory comes from some old money, goes to Princeton, fights in the war, and along the way, has several intense love relationships. It's a story about self-discovery and love where Amory famously ends the novel by saying, "I know myself, but that is all--." ( )

I am a big fan of The Great Gatsby, so I thought I would pick up this novel, Fitzgerald's first. Unfortunately, it was no where near as good. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

Summary: This Side of Paradise is the story of Amory Blaine, an egotistical young man who lives in the elite upper class world of 1910s and 1920s America. The reader watches as Amory attends a private prep school, goes to Princeton, fights in WWI, and then drifts along as one of the "lost generation." He loves, he loses, and he believes himself to have grown from a "personality" into a "personage." I, however, am still not sure of the destinction between the two, nor do I believe that Amory changes all that much.

Amory's voice reminded me a little of Holden in The Catcher in the Rye, a book that I do not really enjoy. Both boys are lazy, sarcastic, self-important characters who complain a lot but do nothing. The up side of This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald's prose, which is lovely, and the setting of the 1920s, a time period that I find infinitely interesting. Sprinkled throughout the book is Amory's poetry, which I guess shows his growth as an artist and a person, but I found it distracting. While this book doesn't live up to The Great Gatsby, it is interesting to see how Fitzgerald grew as an author, and since This Side of Paradise is semi-autobiographical, the reader gains a lot of insight into Fitzgerald's life. All-in-all, I am glad I read it, but this was definitely not one of my favourite reads for the year. Recommended for Classics-lovers or Fitzgerald aficiandos, but that's about it. ( )

With this first novel, 23-year old Fitzgerald was catapulted into fame as the offspring of the Jazz Age, and with no surprise. This novel, which covers the life of Amory Blaine, a wandering Princeton egoist who is bored and disillusioned with the world around him, is reminiscent not only of the lost generation after World War I, but of the great coming-of-age novels of our time, most notably Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.It was Fitzgerald himself who said that he was merely "a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation-—with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals." The appeal of this book is hence universal and completely timeless, and just like Holden Caufield, many will take on this character and his hedonism as their own, recognizing his faults and weaknesses and learning, probably before he does, from his mistakes. Based partly on Fitzgerald's own burgeoning academic life, the author claims to capture "a new generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." Probably the most experimental of all of Fitzgerald's books, filled not only with the actual story text, but also with acridly humorous lists, melodramatic poems, and even a section written like a play, all coming together seamlessly to show how Blaine learns from his friendships, affairs, and intellectual and spiritual lessons and mishaps how to become a more mature (though not necessarily a better and happier) person.Though not all will be drawn to this self-absorbed character, many still will find a thread of themselves in this man. As Fitzgerald's first novel, this is probably his most unadulterated and honest, and hence is of great value to all Fitzgerald followers. Those who have read other Fitzgerald books may not find this to be like the others. It lacks the flapper-filled floating atmosphere of The Great Gatsby, which is certainly his greatest novel. It lacks the sweet and insipid romance of such novels as my personal favorite, Tender is the Night. Still, there is a pervading sense of instability in Amory that seems extant in many of Fitzgerald's heroes and heroines, a certain off-center quality that keeps them down to earth at the same time it makes them other-worldly. Amory carries this quality like a sword and shield, and, more than any one of Fitzgerald's characters, looks at the world around him with the illusion that he is far above it because of his idiosyncrasies. ( )

This is only my second foray into the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had read "The Great Gadsby" years ago, as part of a college reading assigment. I also had seen the movie starring Robert Redford.

So, over the past few weeks I approached this other great Fitzgerald work with a sense of anticipation, and maybe a little hesitation. Gadbsy had left me flat and drained. I expected Paradise to do the same.

Yet, in the life meanderings of protagonist Amory Blaine, I found not a pointless pursuit of nothing much, ending in quiet tragedy. Rather, there is a sense of ultimate success on the part of Blaine, as the narrative closes. Here is a person that seemed to have no real purpose in life, other than a continuation of the first two shallow fraternity years in an Ivy League college.

But Amory is no typical Ivy-Leaguer. His wealth comes from some nouveau riche earnings of his late father's smart investments. Tragedy seems to loom on every page, as his inheritance dries up and he is left with nothing. He has not even a healthy ambition to drive him.

As a romancer, he can seduce, but never truly win, the most beautiful women crossing his path. They all approach their liaisons with him, fully aware that it is going nowhere. He is a rake without pretense.

Blaine's frustrations with the ladies are part of his character development, in his sysiphusian forward-and-back-again career path to nowhere. But in this there is nothing really unique about the character. There is not a man alive, who wouldn't love to have the same romantic experiences as Amory. Eventually the smart ones realize that the best women are the nice ones. The most alluring ones are the ones along the edge of society, not the ones that place themselves front and center, as Amory's love interests always manage to do.

So the story ends, somewhere around the year 1930, with Amory at around thirty years of age.

In the final chapters, Fitzgerald wraps it up with some prescient social commentary, which seem even to point to reforms in our society that may yet be a hallmark of the Obama era. Fitzgerald pleads - why does our society not more highly value those with creative gifts? Why do we stress a liberal education, and then cast to the gutter those that excel in the liberal arts?

Fitzgerald says, no wonder socialism has such an allure to the intelligentsia! If the business and monied classes cared more about letters, music, and the arts, then there would be a place for those so gifted! Yet any advanced civilization needs to celebrate those gifts! Fitzgerald has written this book as a commentary on America's need to put its money where its mouth is. If you can write and create - then it is in society's best interest to take good care of you. The failure to do so may be an overturning of our free market system (one needs only to look at people like Bill Ayers to see how it all may come topsy turvy, even in our generation).

But, one wonders about Mr. Blaine at the age of fifty and beyond. I can easily envision him as a respected adademic, with a wife that is also a professor. In his late middle years he has one or two young children, that bring him great joy. He has served on several local boards by this time.

And, at long last, he is happy. ( )

I bought this when it was republished in the wake of the film of THE GREAT GATSBY. I remember not taking to it as well as some of the other of his novels which were also republished at the time - I suspect it might be time to re-read it.

A decent novel. You can see the effort to become the great novelist he would become, but it seems experimental and forced at times. Additionally, Fitzgerald's worldview at twenty-three seemed to be lacking in maturity, but it is not a bad coming of age story. I would liken it to Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Maugham's Of Human Bondage except that they were better written than This Side of Paradise. Still, I am glad I read it, and I will remember it. ( )

This, Fitzgerald's first book written at the tender age of 23, while in my opinion clearly his worst, hints at the enormous talent underlying some of his later masterpieces. This Side of Paradise is self-consciously autobiographical and has an unfortunate tendency towards pretentiousness and self-absorption. The narrative is also less mature than his later works, and tends to wander. Nonetheless, it is worth a read for glimpses of the incomparable Fitzgerald style. ( )

An earlier book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and not really one of his more successful. Amory Blaine is an only child of a fairly wealthy family, handsome, intelligent, but spoiled and self-absorbed, although he eventually learns how to best take advantage of his good qualities to win admirers. His mother sends him to Princeton to matriculate, but most of his attention seems to be on college society and hijinks, although he does develop a not entirely feigned interest in literature and poetry. After college he goes to fight in WWI, and this is hardly touched upon at all, although it does seem to have had a somewhat maturing influence on him. There are affairs with young beauties, one or two of which end badly and scar him emotionally. When his dead parents' estate annuities dry up, he seems content to be a wastrel, and toward the end of the book seems to be developing an unforeshadowed interest in socialism. And that's about it. There are moments of interest and intrigue here and there, as when he truly falls in love, or makes an unexpected sacrifice for a friend. But mostly this is a slightly dreary book about a young spoiled lad of wealth who fails to take any advantage of his personal gifts and family position, and whom I doubt that I would have any liking or sympathy for in real life. ( )

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.ht...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott... ( )

This begins slowly. You really have to work to get through the first half, but once you get through that it really pays off. There are many brilliant moments in this book. ( )

Way better than I thought Fitzgerald would be, not having read him in high school. All you people having quarter-life crisis should take a look at this one.