A review by colourquotingbookworm
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.0
... And with his debut novel, Fitzgerald's words and prose become as immortal as the authors he quotes.
Faint winds, and a song fading and leaves falling,
Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter...
And the rain and over the fields a voice calling...
I am largely an Amory Blaine sympathizer, as I believe most members of my young generation will be. The teenage years are a precious time where the whole world is ahead of you. Ambition and its natural complement - egotism - is perfectly described within Fitzgerald's Bildungsroman. It portrays the passion, the innocence (with the loss of), and the restraints of being a youth. Fitzgerald succinctly describes what it is to be a young adult with large dreams, not just within his own era, but of any era. What I was particularly fond of was that this idea also transcends to the main female characters in Amory's life: Rosalind and Eleanor. These are wildly intelligent women with rebellious streaks, whose dreams reach far more than marriage to a rich man - yet they still feel trapped by that ideal. However, once you let go of all these ideals and lifestyles that other people preach for you, you begin to realize what your own ones are. That, in the end, is what Amory comes to.
Amory's coming of age story lacks proper cohesion to a real plot, but in reality does anybody's life conform to a pre-ordained storyline? I've come to think of this novel as a compilation of thoughts and perspectives, simultaneously affecting and affected by the protagonist's life events. Additionally, as a young adult, we haven't experienced much. Thusly, in order to write, we wax poetic about our ordinary surroundings and persons to find beauty within them. This is what being a romantic is all about - and what Fitzgerald has exemplified with Amory.
All in all, This Side of Paradise accurately represents the shaping of Fitzgerald's generation of youth. I would recommend it to any young adult to highlight the things that really define you. Such as with Amory, we feel as if our romantic relationships take centre stage in our lives, but in retrospect, they become fleeting memories of laughter and rain. This comes in contrast with bigger factors like the war and religion, which we sometimes feel detached from (if we are privileged enough) - yet the consequences they bring come back to haunt us in ways we never thought they would.
Faint winds, and a song fading and leaves falling,
Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter...
And the rain and over the fields a voice calling...
I am largely an Amory Blaine sympathizer, as I believe most members of my young generation will be. The teenage years are a precious time where the whole world is ahead of you. Ambition and its natural complement - egotism - is perfectly described within Fitzgerald's Bildungsroman. It portrays the passion, the innocence (with the loss of), and the restraints of being a youth. Fitzgerald succinctly describes what it is to be a young adult with large dreams, not just within his own era, but of any era. What I was particularly fond of was that this idea also transcends to the main female characters in Amory's life: Rosalind and Eleanor. These are wildly intelligent women with rebellious streaks, whose dreams reach far more than marriage to a rich man - yet they still feel trapped by that ideal. However, once you let go of all these ideals and lifestyles that other people preach for you, you begin to realize what your own ones are. That, in the end, is what Amory comes to.
Amory's coming of age story lacks proper cohesion to a real plot, but in reality does anybody's life conform to a pre-ordained storyline? I've come to think of this novel as a compilation of thoughts and perspectives, simultaneously affecting and affected by the protagonist's life events. Additionally, as a young adult, we haven't experienced much. Thusly, in order to write, we wax poetic about our ordinary surroundings and persons to find beauty within them. This is what being a romantic is all about - and what Fitzgerald has exemplified with Amory.
All in all, This Side of Paradise accurately represents the shaping of Fitzgerald's generation of youth. I would recommend it to any young adult to highlight the things that really define you. Such as with Amory, we feel as if our romantic relationships take centre stage in our lives, but in retrospect, they become fleeting memories of laughter and rain. This comes in contrast with bigger factors like the war and religion, which we sometimes feel detached from (if we are privileged enough) - yet the consequences they bring come back to haunt us in ways we never thought they would.