This Side Of Paradise Mp3
Sandeep Albritton
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.[1]
Within months of its publication, This Side of Paradise became a sensation in the United States, and reviewers hailed the work as an outstanding debut novel.[2] The book went through twelve printings and sold 49,075 copies.[3] It became popular among college students, and the national press depicted its 23-year-old author as the standard-bearer for "youth in revolt".[4] Overnight, F. Scott Fitzgerald became a household name.[5] His newfound fame enabled him to earn higher rates for his short stories,[6] and his improved financial prospects persuaded his fiance Zelda Sayre to marry him one month later.[7]
With his debut novel, Fitzgerald became the first writer to turn the national spotlight upon the so-called Jazz Age generation.[8][9][10] In contrast to the older Lost Generation to which Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway belonged,[11] the Jazz Age generation were those younger Americans who had been adolescents during World War I, and were largely untouched by the conflict's psychological and material effects.[12][13] Fitzgerald's novel riveted the nation's attention upon the leisure activities of this hedonistic younger generation and sparked a societal debate over their perceived immorality.[10][14]
Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. He attends a posh college-preparatory school and later Princeton University. He grows estranged from his eccentric mother Beatrice and becomes the protg of Monsignor Thayer Darcy, a Catholic priest. During his sophomore year at Princeton, he returns to Minneapolis over Christmas break and encounters Isabelle Borg, a wealthy, young debutante whom he first met as a boy. They embark upon a romantic relationship.
While at Princeton, he deluges Isabelle with letters and poems, but she becomes disenchanted with him due to his incessant criticism. After his prom, they break up on Long Island. Following their separation, Amory graduates from his alma mater and enlists in the United States Army amid World War I.[a] He is shipped overseas to serve in the trenches of the Western front.[b] While overseas, he learns his mother Beatrice has died and most of his family's wealth has been lost due to a series of failed investments.
After the armistice with Imperial Germany, Amory settles in New York City as it undergoes the birth pangs of the Jazz Age.[c] He becomes infatuated with a cruel and narcissistic flapper named Rosalind Connage. Desperate for a job, Amory is hired by an advertising agency, but he detests the work.[d] Due to his poverty, his relationship with Rosalind deteriorates as she prefers a rival suitor, Dawson Ryder, a man of wealth and status. A distraught Amory quits his job and goes on an alcoholic bender for three weeks until the start of prohibition in the United States.
When Amory travels to visit an uncle in Maryland, he meets Eleanor Savage, an 18-year-old atheist. Eleanor chafes under the religious conformity and gender limitations imposed on her by contemporary society in Wilsonian America. Amory and Eleanor spend a lazy summer conversing about their love. On their final night together before Amory must return to New York City, Eleanor attempts suicide in order to prove her disbelief in any deity, and Amory realizes that he does not love her.
Concluding his long argument about their time's political and societal problems, Amory emphasizes his disillusionment with the current era. He announces his hope to stand alongside those who would bring forth fundamental changes to the age. The men in the car denounce his views, but upon learning that one of them was the father to one of his old friends at Princeton and that the son had died in World War I, Amory and the man reconcile, acknowledging mutual respect. It dawns on Amory that his time as a young promising Princetonian man has all been but a wasted dream, and he parts ways with his travel mates amicably.
Continuing his lonesome walk towards Princeton, Amory gradually forsakes the final obsessions about times and people that once constituted fundamental ideologies of his old self. Standing alone and musing at the sight of Princeton's gothic towers, Amory ecstatically yet somberly concludes: "I know myself . . . but that is all."[24]
Since childhood, F. Scott Fitzgerald aspired to be a famous novelist.[44] "Three months before I was born," he later wrote, "my mother lost her other two children...I think I started then to be a writer."[44] While attending Princeton University, his passion for writing literature began to solidify into a career choice, and he often wrote fiction as an undergraduate.[45]
During his sophomore year at Princeton, Fitzgerald returned home to Saint Paul, Minnesota during Christmas break where the 18-year-old aspiring writer met and fell in love with 16-year-old Chicago debutante Ginevra King.[46][47] They began a romantic relationship spanning several years.[48] Although Ginevra loved him,[49] her upper-class family belittled Scott's courtship because of his lower-class status compared to her other wealthy suitors.[50] Rejected by Ginevra as a suitable match, a heartbroken Fitzgerald enlisted in the United States Army amid World War I.[51][52]
Hoping to have a novel published before his deployment to Europe and his anticipated death in the trenches of World War I,[52] Fitzgerald hastily wrote a 120,000-word manuscript entitled The Romantic Egotist.[53] After obtaining a brief leave from the army in February 1918, Fitzgerald continued work on his unpublished manuscript at Princeton's University Cottage Club's library.[54] Ultimately, eighty-one pages of this revised manuscript would later appear in the final version of This Side of Paradise.[55]
In May 1918, Fitzgerald gave the revised manuscript to his friend Shane Leslie to deliver to Max Perkins, an editor at Charles Scribner's Sons in New York City.[56] Leslie asked the publishing company to retain the manuscript no matter what they thought of it.[57] Although Scribner's rejected the manuscript, the impressed reviewer Max Perkins praised Fitzgerald's efforts and encouraged him to resubmit the manuscript after revisions.[58]
In June 1918, Fitzgerald was garrisoned with the 45th and 67th Infantry Regiments at Camp Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama.[59] Attempting to rebound from his rejection by Ginevra, a lonely Fitzgerald began dating Zelda Sayre, a 17-year-old Southern belle and the affluent granddaughter of a Confederate senator whose extended family owned the White House of the Confederacy.[f][63] A romance soon blossomed,[64] although Fitzgerald continued writing to Ginevra, asking in vain if there was any chance of resuming their former relationship.[65] Three days after Ginevra married a wealthy Chicago polo player, a lonely Fitzgerald professed his affection for Zelda in September 1918.[66]
Upon his army discharge in February 1919, he moved to New York City.[20] He then turned to writing advertising copy to sustain himself while seeking a breakthrough as an author of fiction.[67] Fitzgerald wrote to Zelda frequently, and by March 1920, he had sent Zelda his mother's ring, and the two became officially engaged.[68] However, as he was living in poverty in New York City, Fitzgerald could not convince Zelda that he would be able to support her, and she broke off the engagement in June 1919.[69]
In the wake of Fitzgerald's rejection by Ginevra two years prior, his subsequent rejection by Zelda further dispirited him.[70] Unable to earn a successful living, Fitzgerald publicly threatened to jump to his death from a window ledge of the Yale Club,[g][72] and he carried a revolver daily while contemplating suicide.[71]
Fitzgerald sent the revised manuscript to Scribner's on September 4, 1919.[77] Although the manuscript again impressed editor Max Perkins who wished to publish the novel immediately, senior executives at the publishing house overruled Perkins and rejected the novel on the grounds of indecency.[78] An undeterred Perkins threatened to resign from the company unless the work was published.[78] On September 16, Scribner's accepted the novel for publication.[77]
This Side of Paradise was published on March 26, 1920, with a first printing of 3,000 copies.[79] The initial printing sold out in three days. Within months of its publication, the 23-year-old author's debut novel became a cultural sensation in the United States, and F. Scott Fitzgerald became a household name.[5] The book went through twelve printings in 1920 and 1921 for a total of 49,075 copies.[3] Initially, the novel did not provide a large income for Fitzgerald.[80][81] 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 (equivalent to $94,298 in 2023) from the book.[3]
According to Fitzgerald's friend Burton Rascoe, Fitzgerald complained that "the book didn't make me as rich as I thought it would".[80] Nevertheless, Fitzgerald's new fame due to This Side of Paradise enabled him to earn much higher rates for his short stories,[6] and the author could now convince Zelda Sayre to marry him.[7] Zelda resumed her engagement to Fitzgerald on the explicit condition that he could now pay for her privileged lifestyle.[e] However, by the time of their wedding in April 1920, Fitzgerald claimed neither he nor Zelda still loved each other,[85][86] and the early years of their marriage in New York City proved to be tumultuous and a disappointment.[87][88][89]
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