This Side of Paradise

In the summer of 1919, after less than a year of courtship, Zelda Sayre broke up with the 22-year-old Fitzgerald. After a summer of heavy drinking, he returned to St. Paul, Minnesota, where his family lived, to complete the novel, hoping that if he became a successful novelist he could win Zelda back. While at Princeton (notably in University Cottage Club's library), Fitzgerald had written the unpublished novel The Romantic Egotist, and ultimately 81 pages of the typescript of this earlier work were included in This Side of Paradise.[1]

On September 4, 1919, Fitzgerald gave the manuscript to his friend Shane Leslie to deliver to Maxwell Perkins, an editor at Charles Scribner's Sons in New York. The book was nearly rejected by the editors at Scribners, but Perkins insisted, and on September 16, it officially was accepted. Fitzgerald begged for early publication—convinced that he would become a celebrity and impress Zelda—but was told that the novel would have to wait until the spring. Nevertheless, upon the acceptance of his novel for publication he went and visited Zelda, and she agreed to marry him.[2][3][4]

The book is written in three parts.

Ginevra King—whom Fitzgerald romantically pursued as a young man—inspired the character of Isabelle Borgé. King was often mentioned in the Chicago press as among the city's "four most desirable" debutantes.

Most of the characters are drawn directly from Fitzgerald's own life:[6][7]

• Amory Blaine — the protagonist of the book, is clearly based on Fitzgerald. Both are from the Midwest, attended Princeton, had a failed romance with a debutante, served in the army, then had a failed romance with a second debutante (though after the success of This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald won back Zelda). The name "Amory" is taken from one of Fitzgerald's heroes at Princeton, Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker / Hobey Baker
• Beatrice Blaine — Blaine's mother was actually based on the mother of one of Fitzgerald's friends.
• Isabelle Borgé — Amory Blaine's first love is based on the Chicago debutante Ginevra King, Fitzgerald's first love.[8][9]
• Monsignor Darcy — Blaine's spiritual mentor is based on Father Sigourney Fay, to whom Fitzgerald was close. "Fitzgerald studied at the Newman School, a Catholic Prep school in New Jersey and where he fell under the influence of Father Sigourney Fay. Father Fay introduced him to the worlds of arts and letters, and another side of Catholicism, which emphasizes the "beauty and richness of the experience [Fitzgerald] would always try to capture in his writing." Fitzgerald later wrote in a review-essay that "[Father Fay] came into my life as the most romantic figure I had ever known.""
• Rosalind Connage — Amory Blaine's second love is based on Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald's second love. However, unlike Zelda, Rosalind was from New York. Rosalind is also partially based on the character Beatrice Normandy from H.G. Wells's novel Tono-Bungay (1909).
• Cecilia Connage — Rosalind's cynical younger sister.
• Thomas Parke D'Invilliers—one of Blaine's close friends (also the fictitious author of the poem at the start of The Great Gatsby) was based on the poet John Peale Bishop, Fitzgerald's friend and classmate.
• Eleanor Savage — a girl Amory meets in Maryland. Eleanor's character serves as a "love interest, therapeutic friend, and conversational other". Highly educated and discussing poetry and philosophy, "Eleanor not only posits her desires in juxtaposition to the lingering Victorian expectations of women in her day but also serves as soothsayer to the demands which would be placed on females".[10]
• Clara Page — Amory's widowed cousin, whom he loves, but she doesn't love him.

This Side of Paradise blends different styles of writing: It is, at times, a fictional narrative, at times free verse, and at times a narrative drama, interspersed with letters and poems from Amory. In fact, the novel's blend of styles was the result of Fitzgerald's cobbling The Romantic Egotist, his earlier attempt at a novel, together with assorted short stories and poems that he had composed but never published. The occasional switch from third person to second person gives the hint that the story is semi-autobiographical.[11] The novel also contains a passage written in a stream-of-consciousness style.

F. Scott Fitzgerald circa 1920 when This Side of Paradise was published.

This Side of Paradise was published on March 26, 1920, with a first printing of 3,000 copies. The initial printing sold out in three days. On March 30, four days after publication and one day after selling out the first printing, Fitzgerald wired Zelda to come to New York and get married that weekend. Barely a week after publication, Zelda and Scott married in New York on April 3, 1920.[12]

The book went through 12 printings in 1920 and 1921 for a total of 49,075 copies.[13] The novel did not provide a huge income for Fitzgerald. Copies sold for $1.75, for which he earned 10% on the first 5,000 copies and 15% beyond that. In total, in 1920 he earned $6,200 ($82,095.27 in 2015 dollars) from the book. His new fame enabled him to earn much higher rates for his short stories.

Many reviewers were enthusiastic. Burton Rascoe of the Chicago Tribune wrote "it bears the impress, it seems to me, of genius. It is the only adequate study that we have had of the contemporary American in adolescence and young manhood."[14] H.L. Mencken wrote This Side of Paradise was the "best American novel that I have seen of late."[15]

One reader who was not entirely pleased, however, was John Grier Hibben, the president of Princeton University: "I cannot bear to think that our young men are merely living four years in a country club and spending their lives wholly in a spirit of calculation and snobbishness".[16]

The book has been the subject of diverse studies in research studying Fitzgerald's career[16] as well as essays looking at development of narcissism[17] and feminism[10] in literature.

Saori Tanaka's essay on narcissism argues that "Amory comes to know himself through Beatrice and his four lovers, which are like five sheets of glass. They are his reflectors (...) reflecting his narcissism and the inner side.[17] The first three women in the book allow Amory to dream in a narcissistic way:

• Beatrice. She is the basis of both his nervousness and romanticism. He is attracted to her exquisite delicacy despite "no illusions about her" and has a sense of superiority.
• Isabelle. A beautiful girl in Minneapolis is a replica of his perfect self. Amory identifies himself with her because she is his twin in "good looks and an excitable temperament".
• Clara. She is ideal, clean, brilliant and casts light upon him as her name suggests. Her holiness and goodness will save him from his fear of temptation and evil.

The last two women he meets, after participating in the war and losing his financial foundation "make him not dream but awake in postwar act II":

• Rosalind. Seemingly reminiscent of actress-like Isabelle, she sells her love to satisfy her narcissism infinitely. She kills not herself but his love (...) when she rejects "his lips against her wet cheek". She makes Amory lose "the illusion of eternal youth"
• Eleanor. The last woman who leaves Amory the pain of knowing himself. She is the sole muse who projects his precise image. Eleanor echoes Amory's "black old inside self" and exposes his soul.

Tanaka states that: "With Beatrice and Isabelle, Amory activates the grandiose self, with Clara and Rosalind, he restricts narcissism, and with Eleanor, he gains a realistic conception of the self."[17]

In the television series 30 Rock, the character Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin) says that he was awarded the "Amory Blaine Handsomeness Scholarship" by Princeton University.

The 24th episode of the first season of Star Trek is called "This Side of Paradise" as well. Both were inspired by Rupert Brooke's poem "Tiare Tahiti".

The book is read by Charlie, the main character, in Stephen Chbosky's novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower.[18]

Alternative band Glass Animals subtly referenced the novel on their 2016 album How to Be a Human Being, with a track titled "The Other Side Of Paradise." The lyrics detail a one-sided, chaotic relationship.

The central plot of John Grisham's Camino Island centers around F. Scott Fitzgerald's manuscripts, including This Side of Paradise, which, in the novel, were stolen from the Firestone Library at Princeton University.

In "The Tale of the Bookish Babysitter" (Season 3 Episode 6 of the series "Are You Afraid of the Dark" ), an excerpt from "This Side of Paradise" is briefly visible. Near the end of the episode, one of the characters grabs a book from the storytellers hands and reads a paragraph aloud. The paragraph being read is not present in Fitzgerald's work. However, the surrounding text is from "This Side of Paradise" and was likely used as filler for the shot.

• Bruccoli, Matthew Joseph (2002), Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd rev. ed.), Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 978-1-57003-455-8
• Prigozy, Ruth (ed.) (2002), The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-62447-3CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)

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