this side of paradise. f. scott fitzgerald (3)

i read "the great gatsby" and thought it was not all that great.  it should have been called "the good gatsby" or maybe "the decent gatsby", but great seemed like a misnomer.  but people love their f. scott fitzgerald, so i decided to pick up another of his books to see what he was all about.  i decided to start with his first work "this side of paradise".

and i have to say "the great gatsby" did not do fitzgerald justice.  "this side of paradise" was filled with so many great lines, but then again i think i'm made of the same cloth as f. scott and zelda fitzgerald.  people made of that cloth simply want a life of leisure, constantly in the pursuit of not only happiness but entertainment as well, even if it beyond their means.  

fitzgerald stringed these pearls of wisdom throughout his book.  the thoughts and opinions of his two character amory blaine and rosalind:

i'm a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires”- armory


"i'm as restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic." -amory
(this is seriously my biggest fear in life)

"her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez faire for others."
(i try to seize the day (though not the responsible day), but am pretty lack when it comes to other people's lives, do what you want.)



i like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-- i dread responsibility."-rosalind 
(i swear his words not mine.)



i googled f. scott to find out more about his life because i admired his words of wisdom.  and i now get all the fuss over the fitzgeralds.  who doesn't want to party all night and lead glamorous lives.  i also learned a little something about "the lost generation" and just like i thought i was a beat before i feel more aligned with this generation. (coincidentally, there are many similarities between the two. both were disillusioned by the world wars and had looser and less conservative values/morals than prior to the war.) 

as i was reading i couldn't help but think history does repeat itself.  armory said of himself, "i'm a cynical idealist", and i think this is an adequate description of my generation.  i remember reading an article once about how my generation, the millennials, are extremely skeptical about the government.  we don't trust the government especially when it comes to war.  however, even though we are cynical about how our country is ran, we are extremely hopefully.  i mean that obey giant obama hope poster worked on us like no other (i own a shirt).  we are also extremely optimistic about what the future holds for us.  so i guess that would make us cynical idealists?

the major similarity between us, the lost generations and the beats was that a war left us all disillusioned.   though we didn't have a great war, i think that 9/11 and the war against terrorism has effected my generation the same way that world war I effected the lost generation.  for millennials, we were "lost" or confused because the enemy we were fighting wasn't necessarily the country that attacked us.  furthermore, we wanted to be patriotic but couldn't support a war that in our eyes wasn't justified.  fitzgerald's generation was lost because they fought a world war and came back to lives in turmoil.  in addition to this, what the lost generations and my generation also share is a period of economic turmoil; the great depression and our current recession.  as resulted both could be considered "lost." this loss of faith for fitzgerald's described as:

"we want to believe. young students try to believe in older authors, constituents try to believe in their congressmen, countries try to believe in their statesmen, but they can't. too many voices, too much scattered, illogical ill-considered criticism.”

this description is also relevant today. we want to have faith (our hope) but know it is impossible.  as i read i armory's viewpoints on politics and the economy i couldn't help but draw parallels to the way the world is today.

but not everything stays static.   i was surprised by the whole hotel checking in incident.  its crazy to imagine a time when the only man and woman pair that could stay at a hotel room was husband and wife!  not that i'm a floozy but its difficult to imagine having to show paperwork to prove you can stay in a hotel room with a woman!

in addition to this words of wisdom on life and politics, fitzgerald impressed me with his clever descriptions and writing style.  he opened book two with a clever description of a mess in a girl's room.  he wrote:

"great disorder consisting of the following items (1):  seven or eight empty cardboard boxes, with tissue-paper tongues hanging panting from their mouths; (2) an assortment of street dresses mingled with their sisters of the evening, all upon the table, all evidently new; (3) a roll of tulle, which has lost its dignity and wound itself tortuously around everything in sight . . . "

i bolded my favorite line.  it was almost like a poem in the middle of the novel.  an ode to a messy room.  i also enjoyed book two because fitzgerald switched styles and wrote it like a play, which i found interesting because everything that surrounded rosalind was melodramatic.

i thoroughly enjoyed "this side of paradise".  i found him clever, wise and delightful.  and i am glad i gave him another go versus just keeping "the great gatsby" as the only book of his that i read.