This Side of Paradise Response

Brian Ingebretsen

3/2/14

ENGL 1A

This Side of Paradise Response

The novel I chose to respond to is one that I have not even finished yet but is so good that it deserves some recognition: the novel being This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel tells the story of Amory Blaine who grew up under the care of servants, prosperity, and culture but is moved into the real world when the mother develops a sickness. Culture shock hits Amory so fast that he has little time to adjust, leaving him as a spoiled, mannered, and confident in a suburb in Minnesota. It is a story of growing up and readjusting to successfully thrive in society, it tells us of the good and the bad of growing up groomed and also the good and the bad of growing up in a normal suburb. Amory attends college and has an elated confidence so grand that he will do whatever he wants and assume the results will be triumphant. In a way this novel connects with everyone who is going to college for the first time, going to high school for the first time, etc. We all receive these new rules on how to act in public, on how to behave and how to be successful but we really lose out on actually being himself just as Amory has lost himself to his changing personality. Amory deals with love and loss, social awkwardness and social reverence, feelings we all encounter and are too naïve on how to act or live by them. What I love about this book so far is that it is so romantically written that you cannot look away; by romantic I mean that Fitzgerald uses descriptions and emotion to turn a love scene into a majestic happiness that the reader develops, this includes me. There was a scene in the novel that I can read over and over again because it is so beautiful that I cannot help but look back, it is the scene where you look up from the book with a big smile on your face and just relish in nature and the world. This feeling is why I picked the topic for my research paper, not because it was a fancy period of writing and art but because there was so much emotion and heart put into it that you cannot help but develop a feeling of elation once you finish with the writing or art piece. I read these novels to emphasize my love for the world and all that it has to offer, they help me love and relish nature in all of its glory, physical and emotional nature. Physical nature, being the outdoors and foliage that blankets the landscape but the nature that really affects me and my life is emotional nature. Emotional nature includes the natural emotions you express when you are in love, saddened, fearful, or just plain happy and each of these have an infinite grip on your life. These Romantic novels emphasize these natural emotions which leaves a lasting impact on you and how you see the world and all of its people. The novel will make you happy to love someone because of its beautiful descriptions and will make you happy that there are people in this world that can make you happy. You will side with Amory, you will hate Amory and you will love Amory just because of how Fitzgerald writes him, being a young adult before the flapper era was something to behold as told by Amory, you will want to live there yourself because of all the imagery that is put in place to stir up emotion. I, without-a-doubt, recommend this novel to the highest level because it displays beautiful imagery, wondrous emotion, and majestic description which, if done right, creates a masterpiece of coming of age fiction. Though I have not finished the novel, I can still promise that it is all good from start to finish with a brilliant author at the helm. He understands emotion and nature and in this day of age, where technology rules with an iron fist, it’s never a bad idea to lift your head above the clouds and love life.