This side of paradise

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F. Scott Fitzgerald, photograph by Carl van Vechten , 1937

This Side of Paradise ( Engl. This Side of Paradise ) is the first novel by the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald published. It was published by Scribner’s on March 26, 1920. Fitzgerald was 23 years old at the time, the success of the novel made him famous in a short time.

The title of the novel comes from the poem Tiare Tahiti by the Englishman Rupert Brooke , which is mentioned several times in the book. Using the example of Princeton student Amory Blaine, the book describes the life and morals of the mid-twenties around the First World War.

History of origin

Fitzgerald came from a relatively wealthy family. However, the father had to give up his factory first, then worked as a wholesaler at Procter & Gamble and lost this position in 1908 at the age of 55. From then on the family lived on the income generated by the mother's fortune. This income was sufficient to enable them to enjoy the comfortable lifestyles of the upper middle class. They lived in St. Paul , Minnesota, in a neighborhood that was mostly inhabited by very wealthy families. Fitzgerald was therefore familiar with both the lifestyle of these people and the situation of being unable to participate in their comfortable life.

Fitzgerald studied at Princeton, but was there, as before in his school career, not academically successful. As during his school years, he wrote short stories, plays, skits and poems. Before graduating or even failing his studies, he enlisted in the military in May 1917 - shortly after the United States entered the First World War - and was accepted as a second lieutenant. His military career meant that he was never sent to the theaters of war in Europe. He served in various military locations in the United States. During his stationing in Montgomery , Alabama , he met Zelda Sayre , born in 1900, in July 1918 . Fitzgerald was immediately in love with Zelda Sayre, it is a matter of dispute among Fitzgerald's biographers whether Zelda Sayre had similar intense feelings for her future husband from the start. He wanted to marry Zelda as early as November 1918. However, since it was doubtful at the time whether Fitzgerald would be able to earn enough money to lead a decent life, Zelda Sayre initially refused to marry him. Fitzgerald then began working for the New York advertising agency Barron Collier, writing short stories, scripts, skits, and poems in the evenings that he hoped would earn him credit and money when sold. He only succeeded in placing the short story Babes in the Wood on The Smart Set magazine for a fee of USD 30 . On the other hand, he had hung up 122 rejecting letters like a frieze in his room. In June 1919 Zelda Sayre ended the engagement to Fitzgerald, in July he left his position at Barron Collier and returned to St. Paul to revise a draft novel in his parents' house, on which he had been working since 1917. This draft novel was called The Romantic Egotist .

Maxwell Perkins, the editor who oversaw Fitzgerald at Scribners Publishing

The publishing house Scribner's had interest in Fitzgerald's early novel manuscript The Romantic egotist testified and denied but both the first draft in August 1918, the revised version in October 1918th The third version, whose title Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise ( This Side of Paradise changed), was established in September in 1919 by editor Maxwell Perkins ultimately accepted for Scribner's.

The need to convince Zelda Sayre of his literary skills had forced Fitzgerald to work very hastily on the novel. The unconventional mix of different literary genres that characterize the novel came about almost by accident:

“Somehow he was determined to bring together in this manuscript all of his good work - and also some of the less good ones - that he had available from his apprenticeship years. He therefore sewed and spliced ​​together unrestrainedly. The poems that recur in the novel were almost all from his years at Princeton, and the dialogue-like sections of a play came from a draft of a play that was lying around on his desk. Some sections began life as short stories and have now been recycled as novel chapters or sub-chapters. "

Fitzgerald's strategy worked. He had begun visiting Zelda Sayre again since Scribner's acceptance of the novel. They became engaged again in January 1920, and in April 1920, just a week after the publication of This Side in Paradise , Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald were married in New York City.

publication

This Side of Paradise was published on March 26, 1920. The first edition was 3000 copies and was sold out within three days. This side of paradise has been discussed very well by literary critics. My, How that boy can write! (translated: My God, how can the boy write! ) wrote one of the critics. Fitzgerald's biographer Scott Donaldson describes the sales success as remarkable by any measure. In contrast to this, James LW West describes the number of 48,000 copies ultimately sold as not extremely high for this time. He thinks the number is only remarkable for a first novel. The portrait of the young generation after the end of the First World War and in particular the flappers and their emancipated way of life made the 23-year-old Fitzgerald famous overnight.

action

  • Book One : The Romantic Egoist - Amory Blaine, a young man from the Midwest, believes he has an exceptionally happy future. He comes from a well-to-do family and can expect one day to have the Blaines' wealth. He attended boarding school and later Princeton University. His father has died, his mother Beatrice is eccentric. While returning to Minneapolis, he meets Isabelle Borgé again, a young woman he has known since childhood, and has a fleeting relationship with her. However, within a few days he is disaffected with her and returns to Princeton. After breaking up with her, he was sent to Europe as a soldier.
  • Book Two: The Formation of Character - After the war, Amory Blaine returns to the United States and falls in love with a New York debutante. However, Blaine is now impoverished. His mother poorly managed the family fortune and bequeathed half of the fortune to the Catholic Church. As Amory Blaine's financial prospects diminish, so does he lose his youthful illusions. Rosalind Connage, the New York debutante he fell in love with, decides to marry a wealthy man instead. His mentor and friend, Monsignor Darcy, also dies. In the final episode of the novel, it's only himself that he can build on.

characters

Zelda Sayre in 1919, Fitzgerald's wife, was a role model for Rosalind Connage.

Like all of Fitzgerald's novels, his first work also has many parallels to his life.

  • Amory Blaine - Fitzgerald describes himself in the most important character in the novel. Like Fitzgerald, the protagonist comes from the Midwest and attends Princeton University. Fitzgerald was also familiar with the failure of relationships due to differences in wealth. Beginning in December 1914, Fitzgerald began a relationship with Ginevra King, a young, wealthy woman from St. Paul's upper class. The relationship ended in January 1917. For Fitzgerald, that end was also evidence of his intuitive feeling that there were social and financial barriers that prevented poor boys from marrying rich girls.
  • Beatrice Blaine - Armory Blaine's mother has features of a friend's mother. She is eccentric and wastes the family fortune.
  • Isabelle Borgé - Amory Blaine's first love is based on Ginevra King, with whom Fitzgerald was dating from December 1914 to January 1917.
  • Monsignor Darcy - Blaine's mentor and friend is based on the Catholic clergyman Cyril Sigourney Webster Fay. Fitzgerald had it sent to the prestigious Catholic boarding school Newman School in Hackensack , New Jersey while he was interant . He found little social connection at this school, but made friends with this clergyman.
  • Rosalind Connage - Amory's Blaine's second love has features of both Zelda Sayre and Beatrice Normandy in HG Wells ' novel Tono-Bungay .
  • Cecilia Connage - Rosalind's cynical sister
  • Thomas Parke D'Invilliers - He is one of Blaine's closest friends. D'Invilliers appears in Fitzgerald's third novel The Great Gatsby as the (fictional) author of the poem with which the novel begins. D'Invilliers is based on Fitzgerald's friend and college colleague John Peale Bishop .

Style and themes

The unconventional use of diverse literary genres that was the result of Fitzgerald's hasty revision of his novel manuscript has received both praise and criticism from critics. James LW West also points out that as a result of the specific genesis of this novel, the quality of the writing style varies greatly. Sometimes it is eloquent, then again in the tone of a confession, sometimes refined and then half-baked again, sometimes of captivating beauty and then again disappointingly flat. At the same time, This Side of Paradise is full of panache and energy that is lacking in Fitzgerald's more carefully written novel The Beautiful and Damned . Fitzgerald's first work also already shows all of the characters found in his other works, and at the same time poses the moral questions that also dominate his other work.

One of the themes of the novel is the question of the meaning of life. This theme is repeated in Fitzgerald's later works. Fitzgerald understood that there was a sense of expectation in American culture that distracted a person from their true calling and forced them to seek social status and money instead. His characters are therefore exposed to a dilemma: what is the value of having a position in society?

Intertextual references

During his visit to Maryland, Amory Blaine becomes a habit of reciting Edgar Allan Poe's poem Ulalume as he walks through the countryside . He meets Eleanor Savage, whose name alludes to Poe's story Eleonora . During a thunderstorm, Eleanor offers him a new recitation of the poem to play the role of psyche from this ballad Poes. The common interest in literature binds the two together and leads to a love affair during this summer.

expenditure

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald: This side of paradise . Alma Classics, Richmond 2012, ISBN 978-1-84749-222-7 (EA New York 1920).
    • English audio book: This side of paradise . Brillance Audio, Grand Haven 1006, ISBN 1-4223-1088-4 (8 CDs, read by Dick Hill)
    • German: This side of paradise . Diogenes, Zurich 2006, ISBN 978-3-257-06517-6 .
    • German audio book: This side of paradise . Diogenes, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-257-80350-1 (7 CDs, read by Burghart Klaußner)

literature

  • Harald Bloom (Ed.): F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . New York 2006, ISBN 0-7910-8580-5 .
  • Matthew J. Bruccoli (Ed.): F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" . Gale, Detroit 2000, ISBN 0-7876-3128-0 .
  • Ruth Prigozy (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-62474-6 .
  • Nicolas Tredell: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . Continuum International Publishing Group, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-8264-9011-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tredell: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby , p. 2.
  2. ↑ Bloom; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . 2006, p. 10.
  3. ↑ a b Tredell: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . P. 4.
  4. ↑ Prigozy: The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. XVIII
  5. ↑ James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (ed.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 48 and p. 49
  6. ↑ James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (ed.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 49 The original quote is: He was determined somehow to incorporate into the manuscript all of the good writing, and some of the less good, that he had on hand from his apprentice years. He therefore stitched and spliced ​​with abandon. The poems that pop up from time to time, for example, were nearly all left over from his undergraduate years at Princeton, and the sections in drama dialogue were taken from a play typescript that was sitting on his desk. Other sequences began life as short stories, then were thriftily recycle the novel chapters or subchapters.
  7. ↑ Bloom; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . 2006, p. 11
  8. ↑ a b James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (ed.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 49.
  9. ^ Scott Donaldson: Fitzgerald's nonfiction in Pregozy (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 165. The original quote is: By any standard , the sales of This Side of Paradise was remarkable.
  10. ^ Scott Donaldson: Fitzgerald's nonfiction in Pregozy (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 165.
  11. ↑ a b Tredell: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . P. 3.
  12. ↑ James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (ed.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 48 and p. 49. The original quote is: The writing itself is by turns glib and confessional, sophisticated and callow, arrestingly beautiful and disappointingly flat.
  13. ↑ James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (ed.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 48.
  14. ↑ James LW West: The Question of Vocation in This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned in Prigozy (eds.): The Cambridge Compagnion to F. Scott Fitzgerald . 2002, p. 50.
  15. ↑ See Two verse masterworks: The Raven and Ulalume . On: docstoc.com . Retrieved May 15, 2014.