Status Updates From This Side of Paradise

Men used to go to war

An entire eon passes, here. Amory goes off to war; he falls in love with his friend Alec’s sister, Rosalind, and gets a day job; she is expected to marry for money, which he doesn’t have, and the two have a heart-rending breakup; and he begins an epic, alcoholic bender. It being based on Fitzgerald’s own life experiences—with Rosalind as Zelda—makes the whole thing kind of wild.

Up until The Devil this book had been a sort of feeling like Amory marinating in the satisfaction of his ego like a warm jelly, not necessarily malicious but entirely self-interested. When he starts to regret its passing, the astounding hollowness of being clever and cynical and all that is revealed to him, linking back to the dead Dick Humbird, who had been his ideal.

This is a frightfully funny examination of a young man growing up prior to WWI and into the roaring twenties. I love the anecdotal episodes and Fitzgerald is such a fun writer. I can’t help but contrast his concept of Amory’s college years against Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman, though. Amory expects and is poised to inherit the world where Natalie is barely keeping it together.