F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920; this edition 1998 by Scribner)
No meaning of life to be found here
This book is about a ridiculouos philosophy–the evolution of the protagonist from ‘egotist’ to ‘personage’.
Amory Blaine inherited every valuable trait he has from his mother, Beatrice, who abandons him in Minneapolis. He is the sort of upper-class poser who considers it fashionable to be late and mysterious to speak in a fake British accent. He spends two years at boarding school, then (of course) Princeton.
Social activities get in the way of studies, and he writes long letters to Isabelle Borgé. Then one of their set, Dick Humbert, is killed in a drink fueled car crash. Amory realizes he has no real feeling for Isabelle, and his father dies ‘inconspicuously’. He learns from Monsignor Darcy the concept of ‘personage’, ‘a person who is never thought of apart from what he has done’.
He falls in love with a young widow named Clara; he fills his exam papers with poems. With Europe’s war taking its toll from American universities, Amory serves two years.
Beatrice dies, having left the bulk of her fortune to the church. Amory works in advertising and meets the equally vain Rosalind. But she won’t marry someone on $35 a week. He turns to highballs before being interrupted by Prohibition.
Then, a magnificent girl, Eleanor. For one glorious summer, before it all fades, she holds a mirror to his own intellectual vanity. In his search for a meaning of life that features himself at its centre he even begins to entertain socialism. Yet even that didn’t win me over.
The writing is so erudite and clever that it annoyed me.
Usually, I skip over the poetry bits in novels, but don’t skip over these.
Those who have survived a boarding school/Ivy League education with a smidgen of self-esteem remaining will identify. Others will wonder – what’s the big deal? I loved the Great Gatsby, famous for portraying the sort of people Amory and his personages will grow up to be.
Susie Helme 
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