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This Side of Paradise
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I'm a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation."
This sums up the transient and often unfocused mosaic of poems, letters, anecdotes, short stories and one-act plays that is This Side of Paradise. There is nothing of value in the meandering ramblings of Fitzgerald by conventional literary standards. It's often thought of as a deeply flawed piece due to its varying inconsistencies. But I find this to be the novel's greatest success. It won't hook you with plot or protagonists or with any other customary feature of literature. It's compelling in its movement of thought, often changing and contradictory.
Fitzgerald makes the reader abundantly clear of the boundless reaches of his mind and education, often with shameless narcissism. It also becomes clear that Amory Blaine is not solely the voice of Fitzgerald but the voice of the Lost Generation who, in spite of moneyed privilege, understood its limitations and "in spite of going to college, managed to pick up a good education." They felt the shifting of times but found themselves trapped by the accepted traditions of present society. They had the minds of philosophers and the carelessness of children. They were consumingly obsessed with the relationship of past and future. Much of this was to their detriment as a generation but greatly profitable to the progress of time.
I can't give this book 5 stars because, despite the brilliance, it is rather hard to follow or absorb in anything but short bursts. If you read more than 25 pages at a time you can't fully understand the attitude, concept or feeling that Fitzgerald was trying to express. It's a read/reflect sort of experience if you want to interpret the novel properly. But a great deal of the time I had just wanted to read.
This sums up the transient and often unfocused mosaic of poems, letters, anecdotes, short stories and one-act plays that is This Side of Paradise. There is nothing of value in the meandering ramblings of Fitzgerald by conventional literary standards. It's often thought of as a deeply flawed piece due to its varying inconsistencies. But I find this to be the novel's greatest success. It won't hook you with plot or protagonists or with any other customary feature of literature. It's compelling in its movement of thought, often changing and contradictory.
Fitzgerald makes the reader abundantly clear of the boundless reaches of his mind and education, often with shameless narcissism. It also becomes clear that Amory Blaine is not solely the voice of Fitzgerald but the voice of the Lost Generation who, in spite of moneyed privilege, understood its limitations and "in spite of going to college, managed to pick up a good education." They felt the shifting of times but found themselves trapped by the accepted traditions of present society. They had the minds of philosophers and the carelessness of children. They were consumingly obsessed with the relationship of past and future. Much of this was to their detriment as a generation but greatly profitable to the progress of time.
I can't give this book 5 stars because, despite the brilliance, it is rather hard to follow or absorb in anything but short bursts. If you read more than 25 pages at a time you can't fully understand the attitude, concept or feeling that Fitzgerald was trying to express. It's a read/reflect sort of experience if you want to interpret the novel properly. But a great deal of the time I had just wanted to read.