Talk:This Side of Paradise

Page move

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request:

This Side Of Paradise → This Side of Paradise

Decap the 'of' to eliminate a redir. TSoP originally was a Star Trek episode; as most people are probably looking for the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel rather than the TV show, I moved TSoP to TSoP (Star Trek episode); unfortunately, the redir left behind prevented me from moving TSoP (novel) to TSoP -- if an admin would be kind enough to delete the redir and rename the page, that would fix it. jdb ❋ 07:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• As one of my favourite novels, I was disappointed upon seeing such a pathetic stub. I totally support. —ExplorerCDT 16:17, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Jonathunder 18:17, 2005 Feb 20 (UTC)
• Support. Jordi·✆ 12:22, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support. —Lowellian (talk) 09:30, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Support Countmippipopolous 05:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Can someone confirm the per-copy price? Was it $ 175. or merely $ 1.75 per copy? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.9.56.203 (talk) 15:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I came here to ask the same question - $175 does not seem to match the figures given for the income from the book, aside from seeming highly unrealistic. TwoMightyGods^Persuasion_Necessity 17:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh geez, what a stupid typo on my part. $1.75 of course. Damn that's embarrassing! --JayHenry (talk) 01:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Sources

This article relies almost entirely on one source. Can we get some more sources here? Thomas1617 (talk) 04:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Amory Blaine

Under This Side of Paradise#Characters the article states:

Amory Blaine—the protagonist of the book, is clearly based on Fitzgerald. ... This character is based on Hobey Baker, who went to Princeton, and whose middle name is Amory.

So, which is it? The Google Books reference cited states that Fitzgerald identified "Allenby, the football captain" with Blaine in his personal copy of the book. It therefore appears to be the former, and I will update the article accordingly. (The <ref> was "Francis Scott Fitzgerald, This side of paradise, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p .316.") HairyWombat 20:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Who writes this stuff? Ed Wood?

"The book's critical success was driven in part by the enthusiasm of reviewers." Well... Duh...

Is there some meaningful difference between "critics" and "reviewers" I'm missing? WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 19:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Shane Leslie

On September 4, 1919, Fitzgerald gave the manuscript to his friend Shane Leslie to deliver to Maxwell Perkins...

‘Shane Leslie’ links-thru to Sir John Randolph Leslie, 3rd Baronet. Are you sure this is the same person? There is no mention of Fitzgerald or Perkins on his page. Valetude (talk) 12:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Have removed this dubious link. In any case, we can't see why he would have needed someone to deliver the manuscript. Valetude (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The Romantic Egotist or Egoist?

What is the correct spelling? This article keeps it consistent, but outside of Wikipedia I see Egoist more often. What is going on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HelpMeChoose55 (talk • contribs) 17:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@HelpMeChoose55: According to Tate (1998), Bruccoli (2002) and other biographies, it is "The Romantic Egotist." — Flask (talk) 06:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Lost Generation and theme of the novel

I disagree with the paragraph, "With his debut novel, Fitzgerald became the first writer to turn the national spotlight upon the so-called Jazz Age generation. In contrast to the older Lost Generation to which Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway belonged, the Jazz Age generation were those younger Americans who had been adolescents during World War I and were largely untouched by the conflict's psychological and material horrors. Fitzgerald's novel riveted the nation's attention upon the leisure activities of their sons and daughters and sparked a societal debate over the younger generation's perceived immorality." The main character, Amory was in the war and saw action, so clearly he is part of the Lost Generation. Given that fact but that the author did not even touch on the "conflict's psychological and material horrors" is the main glaring flaw in the novel in my opinion. I can understand it given FSF was not shipped overseas, and didn't see combat.

Furthermore, the Wikipedia article on The Jazz Age states, "The term jazz age was in popular usage prior to 1920. In 1922, American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald further popularized the term with the publication of his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age." This novel was published in 1920.

I also disagree with assertions in the opening paragraph, "The book examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. ... The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status seeking," The novel is about Amory Blaine trying to find himself which is an appropriate theme for the Lost Generation. Family, fame, fortune, religion and love have all failed him. He has only himself left. He decides he wants to be needed if not loved. PerryTrenton (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi @PerryTrenton: I have Covid at the moment, so forgive me if my response is less than cogent. Although Amory Blaine is a World War I veteran and arguably a member of the Lost Generation (a term coined by Gertrude Stein to refer to those persons directly affected by the war), the majority of the novel's supporting characters, especially the women whose romances with the protagonist propel the plot, belong to a younger cohort than Amory. Accordingly, critics focused on these younger characters such as the flapper Rosalind who is based on Zelda Fitzgerald born in 1900 and nearly half-a-decade younger than her husband. (Ernest Hemingway highlighted this same gap between himself—a Lost Generation writer—and the young flappers in his hometown—the Jazz Age generation—in his story "Soldier's Return" collected in In Our Time.)

Hence, when reviewing This Side of Paradise, contemporary critics were less interested in Amory's personal quest to find meaning in life and instead they obsessed over these younger women characters who were drinking, smoking, and presumably having sex. Despite the fact that the original manuscript was largely written both before World War I ended and before the Jazz Age had technically begun, societal reactionaries nonetheless seized upon the novel as evidence of "post-war" moral decay among this younger cohort—the Jazz Age generation—whose members were actually younger than Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and other members of the Lost Generation. Simply put, critics transposed the youth culture of 1916-1918 which Fitzgerald chronicles in this novel onto the post-war youth culture of 1920-1922. Does that make sense?

To address the highlighted sentences, the statement that Fitzgerald became "the first writer to turn the national spotlight upon the so-called Jazz Age generation" is derived nearly verbatim from contemporary literary reviews. Fanny Butcher wrote in her Chicago Tribune column that Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise made him "the first person to turn the spotlight on the flapper in the backseat on a lonely road" (April 18, 1925, p. 11). More pertinently, Ralph Coghlan wrote in St. Louis Post-Dispatch that "This Side of Paradise focused the thought of the whole nation on the problems of 'flappers and parlor snakes' which it had known before simply as its daughters and sons. Some of the old-lady magazines are still debating these problems with tiresome gravity" (April 25, 1925, p. 11). Again, critics as late as 1925 viewed This Side of Paradise as depicting the insouciant hedonism of 1920-1925 Jazz Age generation—ironically, a younger cohort than the Lost Generation directly affected by the war.

Now, the second sentence "in contrast to the older Lost Generation to which Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway belonged, the Jazz Age generation were those younger Americans who had been adolescents during World War I and were largely untouched by the conflict's psychological and material horrors" is derived from Fitzgerald's essay, "Echoes of the Jazz Age", and his newspaper interviews collected in Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald, 2004. Fitzgerald was keen to highlight that the flappers of the Jazz Age generation—and remember, he hailed Zelda born in 1900 as "the first flapper"—were a different cohort than his Lost Generation. Note how, in "Echoes of the Jazz Age", Fitzgerald highlights the difference between "my contemporaries" (i.e. the Lost Generation) and this younger cohort (i.e. the Jazz Age generation):

"Scarcely had the staider citizens of the republic caught their breaths when the wildest of all generations, the generation which been adolescent during the confusion of the War, brusquely shouldered my contemporaries out of the way and danced into the limelight. This was the generation whose girls dramatized themselves as flappers, the generation that corrupted its elders and eventually overreached itself less through lack of morals than through lack of taste.... That was the peak of the younger generation, for though the Jazz Age continued, it became less and less an affair of youth."

Finally, if one wishes to make a 'Lost Generation' argument that World War I either influenced the disillusioned outlook of the novel's protagonist or spawned the Jazz Age, bear in mind that Fitzgerald himself rejected such interpretations in press interviews. He not only rejected the claim that "the world war broke down the moral barriers of the younger generation", he believed that "except for leaving its touch of destruction here and there, I do not think the war left any real lasting effect." (See Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald, 2004, p. 7.) The assertion that World War I spawned the Jazz Age originated as political talking point expounded by American social conservatives, notably the isolationist "irreconcilables" led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. They opposed Woodrow Wilson's entry into World War I and, after the war ended, they blamed the so-called "moral decay" of young people having sex in automobiles on Wilson's foreign war. It is amusing that this political talking point from the 1920s is now repeated as fact in many high school classrooms when assaying the Jazz Age or Fitzgerald's novels. — Flask (talk) 02:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

@Flask:, I hope you are recovering from your illness. Thanks for the response.

I am now convinced by your argument that contemporaries regarded some of the characters around the main character (Amory) as typifying the Jazz Age. But I don't think modern readers (being accustomed to much more profound social change) are likely to be likewise distracted nor should they be. And not that many of the other characters seem to be in that younger generation. Perhaps Isabelle and Eleanor, (can't remember Rosalind's age) but all his college chums were in his generation, and they figure prominently in the novel. And if we define the Jazz Age youth by drinking, smoking and sex does that mean we have to argue Amory's generation weren't doing those things? Must we have such a hard demarcation?

I certainly cannot argue that The Great War influenced the disillusioned outlook of the novel's protagonist because the war is a great incongruous void in Amory's life. In fact in one passage he compares his war experience to a football game, "two pictures together with somewhat the same primitive exaltation—two games he had played." The war was not a game to Frederick Manning or Erich Maria Remarque or Cecil Lewis or even Hemingway because they saw combat action. FSF never saw action. That is why he (stupidly in my opinion) says, "except for leaving its touch of destruction here and there, I do not think the war left any real lasting effect." I would say post-war economic expansion led to the exuberance of the Jazz Age, but that is another argument, economic, social, etc. for another day.

Anyway, I respect your opinions, and I am glad we can have an intelligent conversation here and get away from politics. I don't want to argue. Get well and take care!PerryTrenton (talk) 00:46, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Did Amory Graduate or Drop Out?

After a recent reading of the novel, I made a small change (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=This_Side_of_Paradise&oldid=1256822998), stating that Amory dropped out of Princeton to fight in the war rather than graduating. @Flask: reverted this edit (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=This_Side_of_Paradise&oldid=1256842874), providing a solid source (Mary Jo Tate’s “F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z : The Essential Reference to His Life and Work”), which states “Amory and his friends graduate from Princeton and join the armed services.” All good so far.

However, despite that source, the book itself does not appear to confirm this statement. I have read and re-read this section of the source text, particularly “The End of Many Things”, and I think it is at best ambiguous whether Amory graduates or not. As far as I can find, there is no confirmation. In addition to re-reading, a search for words like “degree”, “diploma”, “graduate”, and more (“mortarboard”, “ceremony”, and so on) led to nothing.

If someone knows of text that confirms Amory’s graduation, I would be delighted to be pointed to it! Though I read a physical copy, the Gutenberg edition makes it easy to search: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/805/pg805-images.html.

If not, however, perhaps it would make sense to simply remove the certainty from the summary. Rather than “After graduating from his alma mater, he enlists in the United States Army” something like “Amory leaves Princeton for the United States Army” would make no definitive statement either way.

@Pbones: Thank you for your message. I'm glad to read your thoughts as editing this article for months is rather lonely, and I prefer collaborating with other Wikipedia editors like yourself who enjoy reading Fitzgerald's works. To ensure editorial consensus, I have altered the sentence to read: "After four years at Princeton". However, the novel's text does indicate Amory stays until spring graduation.

Unlike Fitzgerald, who was forced to repeat his junior year at Princeton and dropped out before he became a senior, his character Amory advances to become a senior (p. 132) and his final day at Princeton occurs in "The End of Many Things" (pp. 166–168 in this 1921 edition, available here).

In the passages on pp. 166–168, Fitzgerald writes that early April of their final year has now passed, "this was the last spring" at Princeton—their "senior spring"—and they have "raked the universe over the coals for four years" (p. 166). Soon after, on "the night... that was to be the last" as Princeton seniors, they roam their beloved campus one last time, hear singing under the Blair Arch—"broken voices for some long parting"—and then "for an instant the voices of freshman year surged around them and then they looked at each other with faint tears in their eyes. 'Damn!' 'Damn!'"

Given that the text on pp. 166–168 states that Amory stays four years all the way to the final spring term and there is no hint whatsoever in the text that he leaves Princeton early, there is considerable agreement by scholars and readers that Amory stays until graduation. Scholar Sy Kahn writes in "This Side of Paradise: The Pageantry of Disillusion" (1966), first published in The Midwest Quarterly and collected in Kenneth Eble's F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Criticism (1973), p. 40:

After Amory graduates he goes to France to fight...

Scholar Mary Jo Tate's writes in F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (1998), p. 253:

Amory and his friends graduate from Princeton.

Writer Shawn Miller writes in The Weekly Standard (1997):

It is difficult to imagine many graduating seniors exclaiming, as an F. Scott Fitzgerald character once did, 'God! Haven't we raked the universe over the coals for four years?'

Given these citations and the passages themselves, it would be safe to say Amory stays until graduation. Nevertheless, I have altered the plot summary to leave his graduation as ambiguous. Having worked on The Great Gatsby article where a debate hinges on whether Daisy deliberately or accidentally ran over Myrtle, I have learned to favor ambiguity if other editors view the point to be important. If you feel the new phrasing is unsatisfactory, we can revise it further. — Flask⚗️^(talk) 23:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)