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Title: This Side of Paradise by Susan Orlean, F. Scott Fitzgerald ISBN: 0-375-75886-0 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 13 November, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.07 (72 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A flawed first book of the master of American Prose
Comment: If you can only read one F. Scott Fiztgerald book, read The Great Gatsby. If you can only read two, read Tender is the Night as well. But if you are interested to view the development of Fitzgerald's prose and themes, read his first opus, This Side of Paradise. The book chronicals the rather indifferent life of Armory Blaine, a wealthy young man who drifts from boarding school, to Princeton, to World War I, to adult life characterized by emptiness and uncertainty. Thousands of young flappers embraced the novel, and through it Fiztgerald became the spokesman for the "lost generation."
The prose is occasionally brilliant, but the novel rambles and frequently becomes as lost as the generation it depicts. This is somewhat a novel about nothing, and the shallowness and listlessness of Armory becomes annoying and rather pathetic. The book is hard to finish, and is ultimately unsatisfying. For Fitzgerald buffs This Side of Paradise completes the rather limited Fitzgerald cannon, but the only people who are likely to truly enjoy this book are first year Princeton students with nothing better to do than compare themselves to the young Armory Blaine.
Rating: 5
Summary: Love, Adoration, and Whatnot
Comment: I have to say, I found this to be by far the best book of Fitzgerald's. Not only was it entertaining, but by turns I was repulsed, horrified, overjoyed, and attracted to the main character. I find that he is very much like a 17 or 18 year old male, heading to college. The descriptions of Princeton are apt, and vivid. I think it would make great reading for a high school English class-- not only is it better than Catcher in the Rye, it is also far more appropriate to their age than Gatsby.
Rating: 1
Summary: Great Writer-Terrible Book
Comment: Fitzgerald is obviously one of America's greatest modern writers-his prose style and use of language is amazing and The Great Gatsby is a classic that everyone should own and re-read on a regular basis. Yet this book, his first, has one of the most obnoxious, least-likeable protagonists in American literature- Amory Blaine. Blaine is arrogant, self-centered, self-important, and a pompous windbag; yet not in an interesting way such as Holden Caufield. Also, Fitzgerald's description of the idealism of Ivy League life and society is so corny and hokey that it is difficult to read at times.
Of course, the book has its merits for the fact that it is the first novel of a great novelist and it contains the seeds of the literary style that he polished with later works. You can still find insights and character descriptions that lesser authors could only hope to create.
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Title: TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald ISBN: 068480154X Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 01 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED by F. Scott Fitzgerald ISBN: 0684801558 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 04 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matthew J. Bruccoli ISBN: 0684801523 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: LOVE OF THE LAST TYCOON by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matthew J. Bruccoli, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli ISBN: 0020199856 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 14 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway ISBN: 0684800713 Publisher: Scribner Book Company Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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