This Side of Paradise

Critical Reception

This Side of Paradise was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel. It was published in April of 1920. The novel was signified a generation of “new youths”. Many people regarded it as the beginning of the Lost Generation. Fitzgerald used many different styles in the writing of this novel, parts were fiction, others poetry, and drama. The novel told the story of Amory Blaine, a “new youth”, whom Fitzgerald followed from prep school to Princeton, to war, and to New York. During the novel, Amory encounters many women that were flappers and many other experiences that make this novel unique. Fitzgerald called this novel, “a story about flappers for philosophers”.

After its publication, This Side of Paradise was greeted with a hail of criticism, both good and bad. Harry Hansen of Chicago Daily News said, “And once in a while it comes – the book that moves you to enthusiasm…He has taken a slice of American life, part of the piecrust. Only a man on the inside could have done it.” Burton Rascoe of Chicago Daily Tribune said, “It is sincere, it is honest, it is intelligent, it is handled in an individual manner, it bears the impress, it seem to me, of genius.” Many of the critics heralded Fitzgerald’s writing and ideas in This Side of Paradise. They felt that the writing was very “individual”. Harry E. Dounce of The Sun and New York Herald wrote, “It is the first self-conscious and self critical offering of the exceptionally “brilliant” contingent among the American youth whom 1917 overtook in college.” Critics were refreshed to find such a new form of style in American fiction. John Black of Brooklyn Daily Eagle wrote, “The book possesses not one of the qualities that the literary critic is wont to enjoy – it offers him an alluring array of new ones.” As with any work, there are negative comments.

San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise has a very troublesome sort of power, uneven and shaky, like a child pulling out the stops of a great pipe organ.” Many of the negative comments about This Side of Paradise revolved around the fact that Fitzgerald was only twenty-three when the novel was published. Heywood Broun of the New York Tribune wrote, “We think he will go no great distance until he has grown much simpler in expression…we cannot but feel that we are not yet grown out of the self-conscious stage which makes writing nothing more than a stunt.” Others felt that Amory was not a very interesting character. The Providence Journal wrote, “The essential lack is in Amory’s personality; he bores us in the book just as he would have bored us in the flesh.” Even though these critics found This Side of Paradise a complete failure, many of the critics were greatly moved by the fresh new style of Fitzgerald. Mary S. Hogg, whose criticism was found in one of Fitzgerald’s scrapbooks, foreshadows the future and sums up the groundbreaking first novel. She wrote, “Mr. Fitzgerald is a young man of ability. There is no reason to believe that with a few more years of experience he will not contribute to American literature something of far greater value…”

Good Reviews: 17

Negative Reviews: 6

Mixed Reviews: 6

Justin R. Greene