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This Side of Paradise Hardcover – January 1, 1948

by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Author)

196 customer reviews

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Product Details

Hardcover: 255 pages
Publisher: C. Scribner's Sons (1948)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1121015832
ISBN-13: 978-1121015838
ASIN: B0006CWBW2
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (196 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,200,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fitzgerald's first novel, reprinted in the handsome Everyman's Library series of literary classic, uses numerous formal experiments to tell the story of Amory Blaine, as he grows up during the crazy years following the First World War. It also contains a new introduction by Craig Raine that describes critical and popular reception of the book when it came out in 1920. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Fitzgerald's first novel, about a coterie of Princeton socialites, appears in a 75th anniversary edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

(196)

4.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		91
4 star		49
3 star		27
2 star		14
1 star		15

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I have to say that I found this book to be quite boring.

Love shopping Amazon

I love Fitzgerald most for his way with words, and the use of both poetry and script along with prose truly showcase his brilliance.

A Social Scientist

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the best books I've read, period.

tribe1@erols.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

139 of 144 people found the following review helpful

The more things change...

By David A. Bede on October 15, 2002

Format: Paperback

After 80 years, what can be said about Fitzgerald's first novel that hasn't already been said? The first thing that struck me on reading this was the timelessness of its subject matter, no matter how dated the setting is. The Ivy League of Fitzgerald's indifferent hero, Amory Blaine, is a thing of the past, with only the faintest reminders of its aura of American royalty remaining today. Reading about Amory's days at Princeton is a bit like looking at the ancient photographs of 19th century football teams that every university seems to have on display in some corner of the campus, with the added twist that most of those long-ago jocks were presumably the sons of bankers and senators. And yet, Fitzgerald's depiction of a whirlwind of exhilaration, alienation, eagerness for the future and a sense that it should all be more meaningful is still all too recognizable to those of us who are just a few years out of college. So like all the best fiction, the story works both on a historical and a contemporary level.
Amory isn't the most sympathetic of protagonists. Coming from a non-aristocratic but quite cushy background, he's all you would expect from a Fitzgerald hero: full of himself, indifferent to the less fortunate, somewhat lazy, and at once condescending to and inept with women. But this is a story of young adulthood in the last gasps of the pre-World War I upper-crust, and Amory is the perfect vehicle for illustrating the youth of that time and place. Although the relative lack of details provided about Amory's experience in the war is odd, it adds to his Everyman quality for the generations since his, all of which have had their own reasons for a bleak outlook at some point even if few could match the sheer trauma of 1917-18.Read more ›

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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful

The first display of Fitzgerald's talent

By John Martin on March 10, 2008

Format: Paperback

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels are a one trick pony in the sense that he writes about the same time period (the 1920's), the same kind of people (rich or successful Americans) and protagonists who suffer the same fate (men whose ultimate failures are the result of their own shortcomings and the influence of women). His works are also highly autobiographical. Thus to read Fitzgerald with understanding one should start at the beginning (This Side of Paradise), move to the full bloom of his talent (The Great Gatsby) and culminate at the end (Tender is the Night). It would help to read a good biography along the way. The other option is to just read Gatsby which is one of the finest American novels ever written.

This Side of Paradise is his first novel and here we see both the promise of the character, Amory Blaine, and the author. On the very first page of the novel Fitzgerald displays his talent for words in his description of Amory's mother: "All in all Beatrice O'Hara absorbed the sort of education that will be quite impossible ever again; a tutelage measured by the number of things and people one could be contemptuous of and charming about; a culture rich in all the arts and traditions barren of all ideas in the last of those days when the great gardener clipped the inferior roses to produce one perfect bud." This lengthy sentence, despite its seeming awkwardness, tells us all we need to know about Beatrice and suggests that the son will share the same qualities. Other examples of Fitzgerald's facility with words follow. On page 45 he describes Isabelle thusly: "She paused at the top of the staircase. The sensations attributed to divers on springboards, leading ladies on opening nights, and lumpy, husky young men on the day of the Big Game, crowded through her.Read more ›

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65 of 72 people found the following review helpful

Beautiful book for the young, or young at heart

By Candace Scott on June 5, 2004

Format: Hardcover

This was one of my favorite books when I was 15 years old. I read it several times and carried it with me around the dreary halls of the oppresive, boring land called High School. Even as a kid I sensed Fitzgerald's amazing writing gift: his effortless way of painting a visual picture in the mind of the reader. He was always extremely funny, off-beat and his charactizations are usually on the mark. Though Amory Blaine's psyche wanders a trifle after the first hundred pages, it's impossible not to gravitate towards him, the things he says and the stunts he pulls.
After 25 years I picked up the book again recently. Dusting off my old copy, I re-read the pages that had so captivated me as a teenager. Time dulls many things and people change. But I still love the book and think it's a brilliant first novel. Though it's sappy in spots and it definitely lags at the end, Fitzgerald still had a beautiful ability to harness the emotions of the reader into a world now vanished. It's not his most complete or mature work by a wide margin, but it matters not. This is still a great book, especially for young people or those still a kid at heart.

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38 of 44 people found the following review helpful

Unperfected Prose... A Perfect Story

By "mi22" on June 29, 1999

Format: Paperback

Reading some of these reviews has proven to be depressing - in the sense that everyone is focusing on the youthful 'flaws' of this novel. Perhaps it is not comparable in brilliance to Gatsby - but kids-Fitzgerald was a rarest of species-he was a literary genius and Gatsby was his masterpiece! 'This Side'...may have been his first attempt out but never the less a marvelous portrait of being young in the 20th Century. It's shameful that people constantly compare this story to Gatsby, his Sistine Chapel of novels. No, this is simply a terrific story - and it truly is. Amory Blaine is an exceedinlgy likeable protagonist(something all the 'young hip'writers of today seem to forget to have), his images are portraits and his prose are just beginning to blossom. Indeed, this a youthfully 'flawed' novel by a young genius - which still equals an excellent work of fiction. - Oh, and if one reads this book and does not like Amory Blaine, that someone either forgot what it was to be young - or simply doesn't want to be reminded. Ciao.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

I never saw the illustrations -- they were not in the book itself and...

No real development of character or follow-through on situations. I think it may be a little old-fashioned compared to books now a days. Read more

Published 10 days ago by Jone Augustin

Certainly not of The Great Gatsby quality

Certainly not of The Great Gatsby quality. Difficult read, hard to follow at times. I did finish reading it just for my own satisfaction.

Published 1 month ago by Joan C. Teglas

Five Stars

Great

Published 1 month ago by Jane M Judd

Five Stars

Nice book

Published 1 month ago by NayNay

Disappointed. Guess he hadn't gotten into Zelda's journals or ...

It was his first and jumped around and he wrote part of it as one would a play. Disappointed. Guess he hadn't gotten into Zelda's journals or diaries. Meow.

Published 2 months ago by MaryAnn Dodd

I expected some wear and tear as this was being ...

I expected some wear and tear as this was being sold as a used item, but this book is so mangled and bent that I may need to flat iron it before it can be opened properly to read.

Published 2 months ago by PAflyer

Pinnacle of a Protagonist

Two things about 'This Side of Paradise' will leave a lifelong impression on me. I've only just finished the novel, but I already know that its marks will remain embedded in me... Read more

Published 2 months ago by N. Trandahl

Three Stars

I should have stopped with Gatsby.

Published 2 months ago by William Snyder

Five Stars

Published 2 months ago by melissa nutter

... has read this book one knows that it's a great read. The material...

To anyone that has read this book one knows that it's a great read. The material of the book is good, I mean it's paperback. If one is looking for a good simple read this is it!

Published 3 months ago by edgar mendoza