"This Side of Paradise" is beautiful, ugly, brave, cowardly, immaculate, flawed. It's
paradise lost and paradise regained and paradise in purgatory. It's everything life and man
should or shouldn't be, all at once. I can perfectly understand why someone wouldn't like
this novel, wouldn't understand, wouldn't appreciate. But I also understand that if all the
world were Amory-ish or Amory-leaning, Amory-sympathetic, Amory-lovers, or even
Amory-haters - somehow the world would just collapse and be ruined. And I think this is
also a bit of what Fitzgerald was trying to impart, so it is as it should be."(Bartleby,
quotes) F. Scott Fitzgerald lived a life he believed to be a failure. "The obituaries were
condescending, and he seemed destined for literary obscurity."(S.C.edu ) Despite his
grandeur and title as "symbol of the Jazz age", he felt his life was a wasted one, spent too
long hunting for the real meanings of life and the truth of the American Dream.
A study of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Gordon Bryant. P...
The grave of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzger...
A photograph of Zelda Fitzgerald published in Metr...Fitzgerald was born in St. Louis, Minnesota to Catholic parents Edward and
Mollie Fitzgerald. His father had a strong tie to the Old South, and his mother was an Irish
immigrant. Fitzgerald, raised by these two parents of extremely different backgrounds,
was sent to Catholic boarding schools at an early age. His father worked as a furniture
retailer and failed in that endeavor. There is little mention of his father, while it is a
commonly known fact that Fitzgerald was raised on his mother's inheritance, therefore his
mother's money. This Side of Paradise is widely accepted as an autobiographical novel
about Fitzgerald's life "The novel contains a number of autobiographical elements and
made an enormous impact on the later life of its author--who may never have written
anything else if not for its success."(Encarta) In the novel as in real life the...