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This Side of Paradise (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Editor, Introduction) "Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while..." (more)
Key Phrases: senior council, New York, Amory Blaine, Monsignor Darcy (more...)

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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 the Hardcover edition.

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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Product Details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics (March 1, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140189769
ISBN-13: 978-0140189766
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (104 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,277,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!

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First Sentence:
Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
senior council

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Amory Blaine, Monsignor Darcy, Lake Geneva, Burne Holiday, Scott Fitzgerald, Dawson Ryder, Froggy Parker, Fred Sloane, Thornton Hancock, Alec Connage, Catholic Church, Dick Humbird, Fifth Avenue, Ha-Ha Hortense, Rupert Brooke, Score Fitzgerald, Atlantic City, Bernard Shaw, Kerry Holiday, Long Island, Minnehaha Club, Triangle Club, Jesse Ferrenby, Nassau Street

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 51 books:

This Side Of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald on 7 pages
Arabian Nights by Heather Graham on page 32
Great Gatsby, the (Modern Classics) (Spanish Edition) by Francis Scott Fitzgerald in Front Matter
The Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald in Front Matter
Beautiful and Damned, The by F., Scott Fitzgerald in Front Matter

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100 books cite this book:

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby by Nicolas Tredell on 12 pages
All The Sad Young Men (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald) (v. 5) by F. Scott Fitzgerald on 9 pages
Death of a Princeton President (Princeton Murders) by Ann Waldron on 8 pages
Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston on 5 pages
Alfred Kazin's America: Critical and Personal Writings by Alfred Kazin on 5 pages

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F. Scott Fitzgerald by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Customer Reviews

104 Reviews

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4.1 out of 5 stars (104 customer reviews)

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64 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The more things change..., October 15, 2002

By	David A. Bede (Singapore) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: This Side Of Paradise (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. The one real flaw in the story is an inconsistent, and often unconvincing, quality when it comes to how and why Amory falls for the several women he endures romantic misadventures with. For all the heartbreak he endures, the reader is often left wondering where his attraction stemmed from in the first place - an odd shortcoming considering how good Fitzgerald was at illustrating that issue in later works. But the romantic episodes that do work are vivid enough to forgive the weaker ones. Also, as usual, Fitzgerald's narrative style is somewhat purple; but he's so good at it that it usually doesn't strike the reader as a problem.

Bleak as it may be, this is a great book for anyone who has survived young adulthood and remembers it honestly. Just try not to laugh or cringe next time somebody wants to talk about "the good old days."

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31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book for the young, or young at heart, June 5, 2004

By	Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Side of Paradise (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) (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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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unperfected Prose... A Perfect Story, June 29, 1999

By	"mi22" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Side Of Paradise (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

4.0 out of 5 stars The Lyrical But Flawed First Roar From A Major Talent
Published in 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel was wildly controversial, critically lauded, and an instant bestseller. Read more

Published 4 days ago by Gary F. Taylor

4.0 out of 5 stars A quality first novel.
This Side of Paradise is Fitzgerald's first novel and compared to most first novels, it is one of high quality. Read more

Published 11 days ago by woodrow locksley

4.0 out of 5 stars Effortless for Fitzgerald
Ahhhh Mr. Fitzgerald. How you woo me with your lyrical prose and bore me with your philosophical shpeel. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Alayne

4.0 out of 5 stars Lesser known but still a classic
I always like to do a little research on books I read as well as their authors, particularly the classics. The first thing I discovered was that F. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Top Dragon

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, but Beware the Narcissism
When F. Scott Fitzgerald left Princeton and joined the military, his belief that he would die at war led him to begin writing the autobiographical "This Side of Paradise. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Lindsay Johnson

4.0 out of 5 stars This Side of Paradise is a remarkable first novel which was a comet of fame in the literary skies for Fitzgerald
Mention the roaring twenties in literature and one name comes to mind!
F. Scott Fitzgerald the Midwest Roman Catholic middle class lad who went to Princeton; served in the... Read more

Published 9 months ago by C. M Mills

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes the American Dream is not Enough
This is a complex coming of age tale about a young man that doesn't really come of age. The young protagonist, Amory Blaine, struggles to find and accept the real person he is as... Read more

Published 9 months ago by J. Plummer

4.0 out of 5 stars Not One of His Best, but Good for Younger Readers
Man, I remember reading this when I was still a recalcitrant highschool student dreaming of the day when I would hit the road like Jack Kerouac, find some aspiring model to... Read more

Published 12 months ago by RIZZOB

3.0 out of 5 stars The book is a little boring, but has some great writing.
This story is about Amory Blaine, a young man whose story we follow from his early childhood of great privilege through his college graduation to see him develop a great... Read more

Published 14 months ago by Peter Shermeta

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, serious, and triumphant first novel
Fitzgerald's brilliant, serious, and triumphant first novel can be summarized as follows: Bittersweet experience transmutes Amory Blaine's youthful enthusiasm for wealth and... Read more

Published 19 months ago by William N. Coan

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