This Side of Paradise
I chose This Side of
Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald for my first quarter independent reading book.
I initially chose this novel because after reading The Great Gatsby my junior
year I made it my goal to read more F. Scott Fitzgerald novels. After reading
this novel I am glad that I made that decision. I am aware that This Side of
Paradise is Fitzgerald’s first novel, which I believe can account for the
similarities between the main character and Fitzgerald. The character has much
in common with the author himself, rendering the book heavily autobiographical.
This Side of Paradise, published in 1920, originally to be titled 'The Romantic
Egotist' and later 'The Education of a Personage', follows the exploits of Princeton
university student Amory Blaine. The story traces the early life of Amory
Blaine from the end of prep school through Princeton University to the start of
an uncertain career in New York. It was composed from various scraps of writing
amassed during Fitzgerald's years at university and later during his time
served in the war.
Amory, the protagonist
whose development the novel chronicles. Amory grows up with his sophisticated
mother, Beatrice, until he leaves for boarding school. He then attends Princeton
University and falls in love with several women. Amory is extraordinarily
handsome and somewhat egocentric. He enjoys spending time with his friends, has
literary ambitions, and ultimately achieves some portion of self-knowledge,
though at the cost of losing his money and his dearest friends. Amory’s mother,
Beatrice, loves her son both as a friend and a mother. She, along with home
tutors, passes on to him much of the elegance of her education as they travel
through the country together, enjoying high society. After Beatrice suffers a
nervous breakdown, Amory spends two years with an aunt and uncle in
Minneapolis.
“Amory Blaine inherited
from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worthwhile.“
At this point in the novel I can feel Amory’s desperate attempt to be his own person. From a young age his mother’s personality has been drilled into young Amory. Though he does not know it at this part of the novel, Amory is desperately trying to flee the shadow that his mother has put him in. Amory has lived under the shadow of his mother for his whole life. His mother, though more or less acts more as a friend, has taught her son everything she knows and has created a “mini me” within Amory. This has left Amory with a bit of an identity crisis leaving him with no known sense of his “true self." The novel started off very slowly at first but I am hoping that as I continue to read it picks up.
At this point in the novel I can feel Amory’s desperate attempt to be his own person. From a young age his mother’s personality has been drilled into young Amory. Though he does not know it at this part of the novel, Amory is desperately trying to flee the shadow that his mother has put him in. Amory has lived under the shadow of his mother for his whole life. His mother, though more or less acts more as a friend, has taught her son everything she knows and has created a “mini me” within Amory. This has left Amory with a bit of an identity crisis leaving him with no known sense of his “true self." The novel started off very slowly at first but I am hoping that as I continue to read it picks up.
I am impressed with your goal of reading more Fitzgerald. I also love how your book pertains to us as high school seniors, trying to be individualistic and look upon a new future. This idea of traits and “mini-me” also pertain to my book, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, in the sense that the boys have been hammered the customs and morals of a British society during WWII. Also, the self awareness of Amory’s attitude show what the characters in my book lacked. While Amory is aware of his behaviors and changed attitude Jack, a character in my book, is unaware of his changes in behavior until it is too late and the damage has been done, and humanity stripped.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder why your second and third posts’ first paragraph is the same as your first post. This could be a typo but if its intentional, thats a very neat way of starting a new blog post with the same overview of the text. I would recommend more analysis as opposed to a lot of summary, don’t worry though, I tend to do this a lot myself.