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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
I could see from the very beginning that this was going to be an alternative Fitzgerald novel. It's Fitzgerald's debut and I think I've read somewhere that it should be somewhat autobiographical. My expectations were high, and I was very disappointed.
We follow Amory Blaine from childhood until he's in his 20s: his life at prep school and at Princeton. The childhood descriptions were very amusing and I thought "I'm gonna like this". But it was just too much. Amory was so annoying and once he started all his philosophical ramblings I became bored with him.
I liked the part with Rosalind, I thought she was a very interesting character - and I loved how that first chapter with her is written in dramatic dialogue form like a play! I'm not sure what it means, but I welcomed the change, and it allowed me to think for myself and imagine what was going on in the characters' minds rather than being told - and we were told a lot throughout the novel! But back to Rosalind: At the risk of sounding like your old teacher, could she be an early study of Daisy? (The Great Gatsby). They're both self-centred, selfish and spoiled, they both choose money and status over love and they both have flower names. I wish the book had been about her and not Amory.
Because, although there were parts in the book that were interesting, entertaining and well-written and felt like a 4-star read, most of the book was just so boring that I thought it would never end. And it was only because of Fitzgerald's name that I finished it.
We follow Amory Blaine from childhood until he's in his 20s: his life at prep school and at Princeton. The childhood descriptions were very amusing and I thought "I'm gonna like this". But it was just too much. Amory was so annoying and once he started all his philosophical ramblings I became bored with him.
I liked the part with Rosalind, I thought she was a very interesting character - and I loved how that first chapter with her is written in dramatic dialogue form like a play! I'm not sure what it means, but I welcomed the change, and it allowed me to think for myself and imagine what was going on in the characters' minds rather than being told - and we were told a lot throughout the novel! But back to Rosalind: At the risk of sounding like your old teacher, could she be an early study of Daisy? (The Great Gatsby). They're both self-centred, selfish and spoiled, they both choose money and status over love and they both have flower names. I wish the book had been about her and not Amory.
Because, although there were parts in the book that were interesting, entertaining and well-written and felt like a 4-star read, most of the book was just so boring that I thought it would never end. And it was only because of Fitzgerald's name that I finished it.
This is more like a 3.5 but only the end redeemed it to a 4 for me. It is nearly confusing to think that this was so much more popular than The Great Gatsby, until one realizes how closely it was published to the end of WW1. If nothing else, Fitzgerald was extremely prescient about the cultural zeitgeist. Points removed for the original own worst enemy, the cold fish protagonist, Amory Blaine (you beautiful asshole)
I didn't like this book nearly as much as I thought I would. I struggled to finish it even though I liked Amory and his adventures for the most part.
This book took place during an interesting time period and follows the protagonist, Amory Blaine, during the beginning of the 20th century. We get to see Amory mature into a young adult and his motivation to move into the upper escutcheons of Eastern USA society. He goes to great schools, participates in the First World War, and has many different romantic relationships. This is Fitzgerald's first novel, and I had a lot of high hopes for this, but I got a bit bored for such a short book. I appreciated the conversation around wealth and social climbing, but I did not love Amory as a main character and I felt like his story was a bit flat. I would love to chat with anyone who really enjoyed this one though!
There are only a few reasons that I did not give this yawn of a book a single star:
- I am a sucker for intertextual books, and for this reason I really enjoyed the second part of this novel, wherein Fitzgerald weaves together the format of a play, his signature poetic prose, and original poems, textually composed by the characters in his book.
- Parts of this novel glittered with Fitzgerald’s singular brilliance. In places, again in the second half of the novel, it moves with the same energy that Fitzgerald perfected in The Great Gatsby; his lush prose, laden with the promise and energy of the Roaring Twenties, was almost enough to make trucking through the rest of this dowdy work worth it.
- Although absolutely, brutally ignored and mistreated, each of Amory’s fleeting love interests sparkles right off the page. They’re clearly based in fairly straightforward archetypes – manic pixie dream girl, self-centered heiress – and yet they are without a doubt the most compelling characters in the work.
That is all the praise I can muster. I understand this is Fitzgerald’s debut novel, but it falls completely, utterly flat compared to the thematic richness of Gatsby. Amory is the most dreadful, unbearable protagonist, simultaneously boring and heinous, and absolutely nothing of interest happens in the first 100 pages of the novel. Hell, not much of interest happens in any of the 220 pages of the complete novel.
There are some classics which are classics for a reason, which ring with truth and excitement and beauty even decades later. The Great Gatsby is one.
This Side of Paradise is not.
I actually didn't finish this and I feel I need to say why. I managed to get half way through this book and realized I had no motivation to finish. Yes the writing is for some reason a little heavy to read, and yet strangely I couldn't put it down once I had it in hand. But for the first time in a long time I had no motivation to pick up the book I was reading, despite enjoying it. I think it's just the character and plot, however charming and witty, that just fell flat in the interest department. So I never finished, don't feel the need to, and thus I won't rate it with any stars.
I started reading this then transitioned to audiobook, because it was hard to get through, and I knew I wouldn’t finish otherwise. This would probably be a two star book, but I had to give it a little bit of extra credit because of Fitzgerald’s beautiful writing. Plus the fact that it contains one of my favorite lines of all time: “Why don’t you tell me if the girl had been worth having, she’d have waited for you? No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody.” That line was really the driving force behind me wanting to read this book, and the soft spot I have for it coupled with some other beautiful passages, was the saving grace of this book. No matter how beautiful the writing is, you need some kind of plot, a likeable character, or character growth (ideally at least two of those) for me to really enjoy a book. This book, unfortunately, had none of those things. I do look forward to reading more of Fitzgerald’s books, as I love his writing and I remember liking Gatsby when I read it in high school. Hopefully I will be able to chalk the disappointment of this one up to it being his first novel.
Pretty funny at the start, slow-paced in the middle, but the ending is PROFOUND. what a WEIRD and dramatically CHANGED protagonist??
I've only ever read the Great Gatsby in school so I wanted to start with his first book and move forward. Amory Blaine is such an obnoxious character. As the most autobiographical of his works, it made me like F. Scott a little less, but the mix of different writing styles was cool. I could easily see this adapted and updated into a Judd Apatow netflix original series. It's a short read so that's good. Hoping Tender is the Night is better.