TheAwakeningofaRomanticEgotistThisSideofParadise

1、Awakening of a Romantic Egotist: This Side of P aradise Ternence Liu from College of Foreig n Lan guages and Cultures Sichua n Uni versity Because of its rather app eali ng n ame to me, I had origi nally planned to p eruse F. Scott Fitzgerald fourth novel Tender is the Night. Yet its artistic litera

2、ry Ianguage that depicts the minute p sychological cha nges of the heroine Rosemarys grow ing love towards Dick Diver, and the comp licated personal relati ons with all those Mr. This or That, or Mrs. This or That in the no vel that made me totally con fused, fin ally discouragedme from continuing t

3、o read it. As a result, I thought it n ecessary toread his very first work, n amely This Side of P aradise, to see how he becamea famous, skillful writer from a n obody at the very begi nning, and it just worked. It took me nearly two weeks to finish reading the book. Although this book is writte n

4、in on ly three p arts, it is eno ugh to cover all the major eve nts that took p lace in the twenty or more years of the protagonist Amory Blaine, thanks to Fitzgerald orig inal and p eculiar skills and tale nt in devel oping and ble nding all those seem in gly un related eve nts or in cide nts toget

5、her: Book One: The Romantic Egotist” tells of Amory Blaine growth and educatio n from whe n he was a baby from a won derful middle-class family, whe n he was educatedand well received in St.Regis, to the years when he was in Princeton University with an exceptionally promising future ahead. During a

6、ll those years, Amory did exp erie nee love affairs and make some frie nds, esp ecially Mon sig nor Darcy, his later men tor and the closest one he ever met after en teri ng Prin cet on. Interlude is about Amory being shipped overseas and serving in the army as a second lieutenant in the 171st Infan

7、try in World War I, which is of little importanee actually. While Book Two: The Educati on of a Person age prese nts a dishearte ned and devastatedAmory becausehe lost his new and true lover Rosalind, who was a sister of his Prin cet on frie nd Alec and decided to marry a wealthy man rather tha n th

8、e poor Amory. Yet it also p rese nts a new awake ning soul that had see n and exp erie need eno ugh about roma nee, status-seek ing, self-doubt and egotism. ersonally, the whole book of This Side of Paradise appears to be a mere recordi ng or biogra phic n arrati on of Amorys pu rsuit of roma nee an

9、d all those failures of his love affairs. Amory had bee n born in to a wealthy middle-class family, and throughout his adolesce nee or eve nhis later years, he had tried to sta nd out and win the hearts of others, esp ecially they oung girls. He was clever and han dsome in deed, but he would always

10、come to no thi ng. It is quite in terest ing, however, to find that in all his love affairs kiss pl ays a great part that leads to his failures of love affairs. It was at the age of thirteen or so that Amory fist tasted the flavor of kiss in a p arty where he kissed a young girl Myra yet refused to

11、kiss her aga in whe n she asked. He found it so terrible to kiss a girl that he fled and thus his relationship with Myra broke n up. Amory true love bega n with Isabelle, and they had enjo yed stayi ng together and talking, yet again the kiss ruined their relationship when Amory shirt stud hurt Isab

12、elle n eck. With the break ing up with Isabelle, the low-s pirited Amory somehow went to visit his cous in Clara, who was a widow with her own childre n. Stay ing together with her not long though, Amory fell in love with her because of the dece nt way she dealt with others and how she lived her own

13、 life. Amory had prop osed to her, and I would rather believe that he had planned to kiss her before she refused by say ing that she had decided to stay sin gle with her own childre n. The sec ond woma n Amory had thought about marrying was Rosali nd, who had previously played with many men and was

14、still admired by many when she met Amory. Their relati onship bega n with kiss dramatically in Rosali nddress ing room simply because of the unexp ected in trusi on of Amory into it. Their short yet flirtatious conversations like Rosalind, I really want to kiss you” So do I ” just explains everyth i

15、n g. I am sure they kissed a lot later, yet Rosali nd had decidedthat she would not marry Amory eve n though she did love him, becausehe was not earning eno ugh money and she could not imagine being a wife of his who sacrificed all the comforts the good society had give n to her. he fourth and last

16、woma n Amory had met and loved right the n was Elea nor. They shared their love for literature and they fell for each other duri ng the summer. But their love did not last long as Amory meant not to stay and his offence to touch her on horse one ni ght n early made Elea nor dead. They relati onship

17、colla psed just with a kiss Good Night. Gen erally sp eak ing, Amory losses of Isabelle and Rosali nd had made him fall into des pair and self-doubt easily. He drow ned himself with alcohol, lost direct ion with all those aimless wanderings, and he even thought of suicide, which is a true p ortrait

18、of the young America n men in the 1920s. But I also see, from his inten ti onal self-sacrifice to help save his friend Alec who was deliberately accused of the violation of Mann Act, that Amory was growing mature, that he had come to grasp the essenceof life, and see through the illusion of romanee,

19、 wealth, and most imp orta ntly, egotism about which Amory had cen tered on most of his time. Apart from exp erie ncing Amory failures and doubts and struggles and all those argume ntsabout life and about literature with his frie nds, I see the shadow of Fitzgerald himself with every movement of Amo

20、ry . Like Amory, Fitzgerald had born into a mid-western middle-class family, got well-educated and studied in Prin cet on, once en rolled into army in the first World War, worked in an advertis ing company, fell into excessive drinking, and fell in love with some one crazily . No doubt at all that T

21、his Side of Paradise was a great successin presenting pi ctures of the America n adolesce nceand young man hood. Yet harsh critics would also point that This Side of P aradise is not cohere nt at all i n content and p atter n, and that the stories lack logic con siste ncy and the no vel ble nds diff

22、ere nt styles of writi ng: at times a fictional narrative, at times free verse, sometimes narrative drama, interspersed with letters and poems from Amory. Yes, it is true that This Side of Paradise is one odd blend of styles, but I believe that is what makes it special and appealing. It is quite int

23、eresting when we find that This Side of Paradise was the product of his previous and unpublished novel The Romantic Egotist, which Fitzgerald fini shed early before he en rolled in the army he was afraid that hewould po ssibly die in the war and thus his tale nt in writi ng would not be known to the

24、 world! More in terest ing to us and more imp orta nt to Fitzgerald, however, was that with the eno ugh money on hand and won the heart of his future wife! I once tried to read Amory stories while liste ning to some soft, sort of lazy or idle or luxurious music usually played in those high-class cafes, and I thought I gras ped some esse nee of the world Amory lived or Fitzgerald lived. For Amory or for Fitzgerald, their youth had gone, their seek ing for wome n or satisfy ing their desire had failed, and their dream of being man of p o