Followers of this blog my remember previous ‘review’ of Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night in which I noted that it was not a book I would have appreciated prior to living abroad but while living abroad it was a positively terrifying book. This Side of Paradise is worse in that it is far too close to home. Paradise, it seems, comes at the apogee of Amory and Isabella’s relationship which coincides neatly with the apogee of Amory’s status at Princeton. While it would be hard to call Amory idealistic or naive, he has a sort of innocence for the the first half of the book, the innocence that comes with believing oneself worldly, urbane, and wise- the innocence of privilege, be it wealth, talent, or beauty, all of which Amory enjoys to a certain degree. The book, however, is written from this side of paradise, the far side: paradise lost. It is not, however, a peon to an idealized past. It is the realization that paradise only ever existed insofar as the subject is able to dwell solely on the self at the expense of all others. Amory’s affairs- as he realizes- are self-actualizing to the extreme. Rather they are self-fashioning. They are what Amory uses to define himself, an Amory he bounces off the Amory fashioned by Monsignor Darcy. While he treasures ‘the fundamental Amory,’ the hard truth gained by the book is quite simply that there is no fundamental Amory. There is only Amory the product of his experiences rather than the master- the commander- of them. Paradise is Princeton. It is the aristocratic life Amory aspires to at Princeton. The ideal of idealized life- a world fashioned by Amory for Amory. At the end, though, when ‘the egoist’ becomes ‘a personage’ it seems the primary knowledge gained by Amory, his self knowledge, is quite simply that he is not the arbiter of his own reality. This is Fitzgerald’s first- and most formally daring- novel. It darts between prose, poetry, and drama to capture a world now almost a century old. And yet it feels strikingly appropriate. And far to close to home for someone reading it on the far side of an Oxford much like Amory’s Princeton- an idea as much as an education- and who’s life, to a great extent, has charted by relationships with women. Amory’s diagnoses of others and himself- and Fitzgerald’s diagnoses of Amory and Amory’s world- ring too true for enjoyment. Amory’s ennui is unsettlingly familiar. As the Gatsby movie approaches, it may be worth dwelling on Fitzgerald, especially for young, privileged people (if you are reading this online, you are privileged, fyi). This Side of Paradise is, in fact, a deeply anti-nostalgic novel, in my opinion. It, like much of Fitzgerald’s work, is the excoriation of nostalgia, the realization that we all must have at some point that that was not paradise and to desire a return is to reject any chance of a future. The past is not castigated, it is simply the past, it is part of who Amory is, but it is not his future. His walk to Princeton is no walk to Emmaus but rather the last grasp at past more beautiful in memory than in truth.
So I finished this book last night. Maybe not the greatest novel ever, but the right book at the right time. I have hated F. Scott Fitzgerald since 10th grade. At 15 I was not ready to read The Great Gatsby. I didn’t get it and I didn’t like it. I liked Star Wars. Lord of the Rings was as high brow as I got those days. I liked to read, but I liked light-sabers and long-swords, not moody billboards. A decade later I still like light-sabers and longwords, but I am able to appreciate literature a bit more, or at least one would hope given I just finished my masters in Lit at Oxford. I borrowed Tender is the Night from my girlfriend because it checked the major box signifying a good climbing trip read: it was long. Long books are essential to survive rain delays. Well I dove in, still loathing Fitzgerald, and emerged yesterday suitably shaken. I will not spoil the story, but decadent 20-something americans living beyond their means in Europe on the edge of a collapse hits pretty close to home when one is a 25 year old American living in Oxford. The beauty and curse of Oxford is that it allows you to fake being decadent. With innumerable black-tie dinners, balls, etc., not to mention my predilection for getting ‘research’ funding the visit medieval libraries in, say Italy, one begins to think one has money. Sipping a mid 80’s Bordeaux, or say, 1950’s Port- on the college of course- in a tuxedo while lounging in a medieval garden leads to delusions of grander. As a Sub-Dean, I have seen people ‘crack’ the way Fitzgerald describes, and his evocation of an American who has enough money to peak in the door but is always waiting to see when everyone’s glass is full to offer to buy a round is haunting. Basically, I had to grow into Fitzgerald. Hemmingway is an accessible ex-pat. His terse style and rollicking narratives play up (parody?) the adventure seeking American where as one can almost read Fitzgerald’s Hemmingway-esq Tommy Baraban as the ironically Gallic foil to his own American anxiety embodied in Dick Diver. In the end Fitzgerald’s restraint makes the book. What he does not say overwhelms what he does say. Just like most of the teeny boppers in Oxford, content to stick to their alcho-pops at lurid bops, would spit out an Americano as too bitter or harsh, the teenage reader of Fitzgerald is so unprepared for his balanced cocktail of money, booze, sunshine, and regret that he or she- or me in this case- doesn’t get it at all. Even if they do, they don’t ‘dig it,’ in 90’s parlance. On the other hand, a decade later, Tender is the Night goes down like a real Old Fashioned after a long, hard, days work.
