This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald - How Worlds Collide

Arguably one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century and potentially of all time, the work of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald  defined a generation.  In fact many would claim he pioneered and led the people of 1920’s “Jazz Age” America – a term he coined himself.  A time when society had “woken up to find all Gods dead, all wars thought, all faiths in man shaken.”  After the abrupt horror of WW1 people realised that life was short: reckless hedonism became society’s preoccupation with the 1920’s being America’s boom period for industry and capitalism.  Every penny was dissipated on self indulgences especially alcohol – despite prohibition laws banning its sale and consumption. 

     In his time, Fitzgerald was a popular contemporary author but his reputation dwindled towards the end of his life and he sought a comeback writing screenplay in Hollywood. The skill displayed in Fitzgerald’s writing is superlative: dialogue and description conform flawlessly creating effortless scenes that are vivid and memorable.  But today, Fitzgerald’s critical acclaim and renowned stature comes not only from the grandeur of his prose but from his documentation of an era in American history.

     This Side of Paradise was Fitzgerald’s first novel and was written with a particular aim in mind; indeed, almost with a certain desperation.  Fitzgerald wrote to his agent: “I have so many things dependent on its success – including of course a girl.”  The novel was written to win the favour of high-society belle, Zelda Sayre.  After dropping out of Princeton University, failing to see military service and struggling to have his writing published Fitzgerald was dependent on the success of his first novel to show him to be an accomplished man. 

     It was a novel two years in the making and essentially with two complete redrafts.  Initially called “The Romantic Egotist” after the vain and narcissistic central character Amory Blaine.  The book follows Amory’s life as he tries to make his way to adulthood with a sense of identity, outlook and success in both love and work.  The reader’s attitude towards Amory is often ambivalent: we find his self-absorption borders on arrogance, we distrust his idleness and become weary of his introspection; yet we do admire him at the same time.  Fitzgerald notes that even with a personality readers will find selective, Amory’s sense of identity is resolute.  Furthermore, the reader empathises with his hopes and dreams, longing for the character to find a meaningful vocation whether art, politics or religion.

     However Fitzgerald never loses sight of the bigger picture: Amory is but a contingent of a lost generation of those who want everything (money, stature, romance, vitality, purpose) for nothing.  Amory’s longing for a meaningful vocation is so he can procure everything he craves for in life especially love, success and even the answers to life’s fundamental questions. 

     Whereupon I reflect and realise that Amory could quite easily live among us today. His strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, and failures can easily resonate with people even in this day and age.  This Side of Paradise is 93 years old and what has changed since its publication in 1920?  Very little.  Of course, we have progressed technologically, but the rudimental essence of the human condition never changes.  Lost and alone; increasingly disillusioned; desperate for love, money and meaning; suffocating in our own cultures of desire for everything material, everything spiritual and everything sensual.  Perhaps a different time from the people living in Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age; but today’s “YOLO” generation have assumed the very same attributes.    

     I began reading This Side of Paradise just before I started University here at Strathclyde and I found a direct parallel between myself and the central character because at the start of the novel Amory is a Fresher at Princeton.  It was reassuring to read about Amory’s sentimental depictions of his college life and I found strange comfort in the gothic spires and throughways of the archaic institution.  Fitzgerald has given me so much truth about what it means to live in a world of restless fear and chaos, moral confusion and desperate ambition.  When he died in 1940, all of Fitzgerald’s work was out of print and he regarded himself as a failure.  As I muse over my own writing or contemplate my own life’s direction, I often wonder to myself: what would he think if he was alive today; what would he write in time not so different from his own. 

The Majestic Interruption

     The TV was rubbish that night, as it generally was every night.  But still, I was glad to be indoors. Outside, the rain fell in lashes and cut through you like a volley of arrows; the wind blew waves of surface water across the pavement turning them into rivers.  The Met Office had issued a weather warning across central London.  I was very glad to be indoors.

     I was tempted to watch a sad film.  It would go well with the bottle of wine that I’d opened.  I was just about to get up to browse my DVD collection when there was an unexpected knock at the door. 

     Who was that?  At this time, in this weather?  Really?

     I approached the door: cautiously, but more annoyed than anything else.

     Upon opening I was met with an elderly woman: left beleaguered by the weather, I couldn’t see her face for some ridiculous pink hat she wore - made worse by the long pink overcoat.  She was small and I thought facetiously that she looked like a marshmallow – a drenched marshmallow. 

   “Oh thank you dear, one is so grateful you answered at this late hour of inclement weather.”  She addressed me in a pompous, nasally voice, “well you see dear, our automobile has seemingly stalled just outside your house and I was wondering if I could perhaps utilise your telephone?”

         Before I could even say anything she turned around and, in one loud screech incongruous to her size and demeanour, yelled out: “Phil! Phil! Come on she’s letting us in.  Bloody hell, hurry up!”  She looked at me and smiled; then walked up the steps into the hall without invite.

     I raised my hand to object but before I could speak I felt something push past my legs.  I looked down and saw two small dogs had just run into my house after the woman.

   “Oh, I am terribly sorry.”  This was a new voice, a man’s, from behind coming up the path, “I couldn’t stop the little buggers.” He chuckled, obviously finding this amusing; I didn’t.

   “Yes, yes that’s right”, it was the elderly woman I could hear: on my phone in my kitchen! “Yes, Buckingham Palace please”.

      I froze.  Startled and bemused.  I went into the living room and picked up the bottle of wine: studying the contents for anything unwonted that could have brought on this hallucination.

     Giving up, I turned listlessly to the old man: “Do you take wine, Phil?” I enquired politely.
   “Oh no thank you dear, not with my bladder.”  He chuckled again.  I burst into hysterics.