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A review by benjiox
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4.0
'I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.'
3.5*, rounded up because, well, Fitzgerald's always a riot.
I guess I was kind of disappointed with this, but only because The Great Gatsby is an all-time favourite which I could - and do - re-read on a regular basis and find more brilliance within. This didn't quite move me as much; I feel like Fitzgerald honed his craft like an elite sniper and peaked in a special way with Gatsby and company, but he was still testing the waters with This Side of Paradise.
It was good, don't get me wrong, but I was spoiled by his later genius, and as a result couldn't help but compare. As ever, his whip-smart dialogue and wit was on display, and the first half of the book raced along, but it drifted away when one Amory Blaine left his childhood behind. H. L. Mencken said it best in The Smart Set, a literary magazine from the 1920s: '... his hero begins to elude him. What, after such a youth, is to be done with the fellow?'
I love Fitzgerald, the old sport, and probably always will, but increasingly I feel like I won't find anything as good as his Gatsby exploits. Which is okay. I didn't expect I would. Still, one can hope... and I do have one of his novels left in the pipeline: The Beautiful and the Damned. Whatever the judgement may be, I look forward to that.
3.5*, rounded up because, well, Fitzgerald's always a riot.
I guess I was kind of disappointed with this, but only because The Great Gatsby is an all-time favourite which I could - and do - re-read on a regular basis and find more brilliance within. This didn't quite move me as much; I feel like Fitzgerald honed his craft like an elite sniper and peaked in a special way with Gatsby and company, but he was still testing the waters with This Side of Paradise.
It was good, don't get me wrong, but I was spoiled by his later genius, and as a result couldn't help but compare. As ever, his whip-smart dialogue and wit was on display, and the first half of the book raced along, but it drifted away when one Amory Blaine left his childhood behind. H. L. Mencken said it best in The Smart Set, a literary magazine from the 1920s: '... his hero begins to elude him. What, after such a youth, is to be done with the fellow?'
I love Fitzgerald, the old sport, and probably always will, but increasingly I feel like I won't find anything as good as his Gatsby exploits. Which is okay. I didn't expect I would. Still, one can hope... and I do have one of his novels left in the pipeline: The Beautiful and the Damned. Whatever the judgement may be, I look forward to that.