"I knew myself, but that is all!"

Mike: So I've not be abducted or oblivious to the obligations of this blog.  Rather, I decided I'd give Amory's weeks-long hangover a try.  Wow!  What a trip!  

Just kidding, I was a little busy with life: Grades, parent/teacher conferences, Thanksgiving, etc.  Anyway, that has all passed and I'm now able to respond to the last three chapters.  

Regarding "Young Irony" and Eleanor...wtf was all that?  When I read the chapter I was pretty tired and so maybe I didn't get it because I wasn't 100% with it.  I didn't like the manic behavior of Eleanor and I'm glad their romance lasted no more than a summer.  Your question to this chapter was about the potential of Amory's 'the one'.  Clearly that didn't come about.  I really think I should have re-read the chapter.  

The final two chapters were really enjoyable and I think I'm happy with the direction in which Amory seems to be heading.  The Mann Act sounded familiar when I read it and I kind of had an idea when the mention of transporting Jill was raised.  Remember back when I said the rain in NYC would indicate a different Amory?  Looking back, I think that is his turning point.  I think Amory became more and more disillusioned with the life he was living and really did begin to transform as evidenced by his sacrifice for his friend, Alec.  Jill seems like a nice enough young woman but I don't get the impression Amory has any ulterior motives with her.  I think he took the blame because he just didn't give an eff any more.  While I liked the chapter, it did seem like a randomish story (or at least circumstances) similar to the chapter before.  The events didn't necessarily flow with the rest of the story.  Except for Amory, there really hasn't been a steady stream of characters following his life.  Perhaps that is Fitzgerald's aim.  Through this lonely, superfluous, and ostentatious life, Amory is alone.

I like your summation of the final chapter.  I think the ending is vague because Amory's future decisions are still unclear.  I got the impression he was going to become a priest and I wonder if Amory's mentor, Darcy, didn't have a similar experience.  

There were multiple places in the text where I indicated favorite lines.  At the end of the book, I found this potion to be moving (and confusing since I assumed he was to become a priest):

...a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all God's dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth...

Great writing, Fitzgerald!  Beautiful.  But if this is the case, surly the road to priesthood will be a bumpy one.  Maybe that's not his road?

My favorite line of the chapter was the same that you indicated in your post:

He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and always would want -- not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensible; he remembered the sense of security he had found in Burne.

 Is this what  makes a 'personage'?  When we get here, have we reached the point in life that we are at nearly complete humanage? I know there is a part of me that wants to be admired and loved.  But the idea of being necessary is so alarming and I'm not sure I'd have been able to put my finger on that concept.  I like it a lot.  Good chapter, F. Scott!  

I agree that we should now speak on behalf of the book as a whole.  What were your thoughts overall?  Any important information we've overlooked? Maybe most importantly for your response, what's up with the title?  Where is paradise and were is Amory?  

Also, would you be interested in reading another book after this?  Let me know what you think.  

SPOILER ALERT!

JARED: I went ahead and finished the book. The fourth chapter was only about seven pages long. And the last chapter 23. So obviously don't read this if you haven't finished yet. Also, I think I'll keep this post more focused on the last two chapters themselves, rather than on the entire book. Perhaps after you finish we can write a post or two about our overall impressions of the book.

So. Atlantic City makes an appearance! Not a particularly meritorious appearance, but at least back then young people went to the city, so there's that.

I had to look up the Mann Act, even though Fitzgerald kind of explains it later in the chapter. The short fourth chapter is mostly about Amory's sacrifice, taking the fall for Alec. It's interesting how Fitzgerald frames Amory's choice as not so much being a selfless act, as being an act to solidify the end of their friendship. Which probably is something that had to happen, sad as that may be. And thereafter we see the rest of Amory's world come crashing down in quick succession, as his name is besmirched in the newspapers, he learns of Rosalind's engagement, finds out he's got no more money (unless he sells the mansion), and finds out his last parent figure is dead. Or maybe REAL PARENT?! If that's the case, I guess we'll never know.

It seems Amory's sacrifice in the hotel is in many ways one final renunciation of his former life and former priorities. On a surface level, it represents him giving up; admitting that his repuation isn't worth saving. But on a deeper level, I think it also serves as the way in which he lets go of his previous thoughts about class and the social ladder and replaces it with his newer way of thinking. That newer way of thinking, though, isn't fully formed. It's more about what he doesn't believe in than what he does believe in.

And then in the last chapter we get Amory trying socialism on for size. I found the discussion really interesting, especially the part about whether the rich, barred from getting richer, would still work hard and/or would work hard if they worked for government-owned enterprises.

It's certainly an interesting last chapter, though. Not much actually happens, it's that one conversation, a mention of the funeral, and then really just a long internal monologue as Amory thinks his life through.

Here's my question: Does Amory become a priest after all? He certainly doesn't seem to embrace religion or Catholicism in the text itself, but he does make a quite curious comment during the discussion of the funeral: 

"He found something that he wanted, had always wanted and always would want -- not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensible; he remembered the sense of security he had found in Burne."

That could mean a lot of things. Maybe it just means being a family man -- Rosalind, of course, didn't find him indispensible -- or maybe to be a key player at some future job. But it could also mean to become a priest. Indeed, perhaps this was the same realization Darcy came to himself as a youngster.

As I alluded to above, it's kind of an interesting ending in that the resolution is almost entirely internal. We don't find out which girl he ends up with, though we get some closure seeing Rosalind's engagement announcement. We don't find out where Amory will live, but instead get a laundry list of places he thinks would be good places to live. We don't find out about his job, though perhaps we get a strong hint. In short, the resolution we get is merely the first hunts at what the reborn Amory will be. He was at the top, worked to push himself higher, slipped a little and then a lot, and eventually lost just about everything. But in the end perhaps finds himself more hopeful, at least for meaningful things, than ever before.

Book 2, Chapter 3: Evil (?) Pounds Amory's Soul to Flakes

JARED: I miss evenings at Starbucks. Coffee here mostly means bakeries. The bakeries aren't open at night. You can get a coffee at a bar, of course, but it's not the same atmosphere. Here's an important question: If Amory were in Princeton today, would he be a Starbucks guy or a Small World guy? Or maybe even an Infini-T(ea) person. I'd say definitely not the latter. Maybe Small World, but probably Starbucks. Amory's a bit corporate. But probably he'd spend more time at the Tap Room.

My main thought from Amory's summer with Eleanor is that most of the girls Amory spends considerable time with seem to reflect his own personality, his own qualms, and the phase he's going through in his own life. And in this respect his time with Eleanor seems most disturbing to me.

His time with Rosalind, by contrast, seemed to me to be a period where he was still somewhat between adulthood and childhood. Their relationship had the levity of youth, even though in the end it came to a painful end. But even the painful end wasn't so much because they were growing apart, it was more that she was unable to merge her idea of adulthood with the future she saw with Amory. It was more about adulthood impinging on their lives than about their love dissipating.

His relationship with Eleanor, however, seems more disturbing to me. The imagery of the chapter - with Amory meeting her in flashes of lightning and then parting with her after she makes a bold near-suicide attempt is disturbing enough on its own. Aside from all that, though, it's as if they both see no real future from the beginning of the relationship yet they recognize that in each other and put themselves through the relationship anyway. When I say that they both see no future, I think I mean more than just no future in their relationship. I think they bonded in a way because neither can see how their lives will play out in a satisfactory sense. In Amory's case, I don't think he could begin to picture what a satisfactory ending would even look like.

It was also interesting to me how this chapter began with heavy handed foreshadowing as it pertains to Eleanor. Although, you can't really call it foreshadowing. He casts not so much a shadow over Eleanor but rather a big Sharpie X. We enter the chapter with hope, but it lasts, well... not even a sentence.

My question, however, is what Fitzgerald means in the last sentence of the first paragraph of the chapter:

"Eleanor was, say, the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes."

Does this mean the next woman Amory meets will be the one? Or maybe he goes back to a girl he's already met? Or does this mean the end of love in his life, or even the end of his life itself? I don't really think the latter, but it's quite a striking sentence. Having read the chapter, it seems strong for Fitzgerald to refer to Eleanor as "evil... under the mask of beauty"? Is he referring to her possible mental illness? I don't have an answer. Just saying. And what's the irony to which Fitzgerald refers in the chapter's title?

Tall iced coffee in a grande cup with extra ice, 3 pumps hazelnut, 2 pumps classic, an inch of non-fat milk, with a dome lid and a venti straw for Amory...to go!

MIKE: So apparently we're not starting each entry with our name...cause....

Today I stopped by Starbucks on the way home from work and decided I'd use my 'coffee name'.  Unfortunately for me, I don't really have a coffee name.  I've test driven a few (Deek, Sal, Arthur) but nothing has ever stuck.  Today I decided to order my tall blonde using the alias Amory.  I thought maybe the Batista would hesitate for a second but she didn't.  Apparently, though, Amory likes his coffee 'with room'. 

I really meant to write a post about Book 2 Chapter 2 yesterday but was too exhausted to make it happen and so you beat me to it.  I'm being to lazy to re-read your Book 2 Chapter 1 post so I'll answer all your questions in two ways.  1. Yes.  2.  Agree  I don't know if those answers apply but let's run with it.

About Chapter 2 Book 2, I honestly do agree that it's a difficult one to write about.  Amory hits bottom and begins a three-week drunken stupor.  Well done, Amory!  Well done.  As far as making predictions about Monsignor Darcy, I think we're going to find out he is actually Amory's father but this news won't come until Darcy is dead or dying.  

You're totally right about Fitzgerald's lack of quality female characters.  This is the same case for Gatsby as well.  The women simply serve as revolving door/door mats.  However, if they were in the story longer we might learn that they aren't so different than Amory and he's not exactly the own of a winning list of qualities.  Maybe it's best we don't see much of them.  Certainly, this is not a feminist text.  

I liked a few things about this chapter.  First, I enjoyed the repeated call for different writing and novels that mean something.  Essentially, this idea is what leads the expatriates into the modernist movement.  Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Pound, Stein...these are the names that rose up from this dissatisfaction in American literature.  TSoP would have been written before the modernist were really in full swing and I liked reading the chapter as if it hadn't begun yet...does that make sense?  I think it's cool that this is an early text of what was to come.

Second, I loved this line:  "Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it."  I think that's beautiful.  Actually, that's the note I wrote in the margin (sorry librarians) when I read it.  I like the urgency and necessity of writers treating their craft with respect.  While I'm no longer a book snob, I do find I roll my eyes at author's such as Patterson, Evanovich, Grafton, et al.  Would Grafton really be happy to know her last novel was called W is for Wasted?  I think not.  

I don't have much else to say about this chapter.  I'm intreged about Eleanor. With only sixty pages left, how many more women can Fitzgerald run through?

Onward and upward!

Amory Face (Un)Sobering Reality

Hmmm. Book II, Chapter 2 seems a hard one to write about. A slump into alcoholism, halted only by the onset of Prohibition. A few frustrating consultations with his friends, and then an interesting, if late, letter from Monsignor Darcy.

In a way it feels like another moment in Amory's life where he's faced with a decision. In this case, the decision of whetehr and how to go on with life without Rosalind. However, Amory really doesn't decide anything in this chapter. About the only decisions he makes are the decisions not to go home with the drunk girl in the bar and the decision at the end to visit Darcy in Maryland.

I found Darcy's letter the most interesting part of the chapter. First, I'm glad he's still alive. Second, it's interesting to get his take on Amory's relationship with Rosalind. Obviously, Amory and Rosalind's runaway-train relationship was getting a bit frantic near the end, and perhaps that's why Darcy was able to pick up that there was something potentially destructive going on. But I think it might go beyond that. Although I don't think I've experienced it personally, the idea that outsiders can see problems with a relationship even when the two inside the relationship think the union is a once in a lifetime love affair sounds very familiar. It rings true to me.

That said, there have seemed to be hints that Rosalind really is the love of Amory's life -- that perhaps he'll never find another love like that. If that's the case, I wouldn't have expected Fitzgerald to include a letter from Amory's mentor warning him about Rosalind. So I guess what I'm saying is it will be interesting to see what happens with this new Eleanor in the next chapter.

The fact that there is an Eleanor in the next chapter (which I haven't read yet) makes me a bit dissatisfied with Fitzgerald's treatment of female characters in this book. I mentioned something about this in my last post - that the women seem to be there only to facilitate Amory's character development. But I feel like it's perhaps getting to be a bit much. Going back to Amory's childhood, I can count nearly a half dozen women who have floated in and out of Amory's life, whom he pretended to care about or actually cared about, but who have faded in his mind and seem to carry no lasting significance. I'm just saying this book isn't very feminist.

Do you think we'll see Rosalind again in this book? And what about Darcy. I still have an ominous feeling about him. Yes, both he and Amory survived the war, but I'm wondering if something bad is going to happen to Darcy. But it's just a feeling. Might not be anything to it.

I Love You But I'll Ruin Your Life

To answer your last question, I'm not sure where I see Amory headed. Like you, I like Rosalind, even though I don't think I'd like her at all if I knew her in real life (sound familiar?). But one of the things I like about her is the cold realism that caused her to dump Amory and marry Dawson. I kind of hate it, but I can see the case she's making -- that she knows her own vanity and spoiled-ness and imagines she would ruin his life. As a reader, it's kind of interesting to see Fitzgerald accept this kind of rationale knowing that he experienced something like it in real life, and then married the same girl later on (assuming your Zelda/Rosalind comparison is right).

That said, I definitely think I know where Rosalind is headed. I imagine she'll go exactly where she said she will go. She'll marry Dawson, enjoy a life of having people do her hair for her, and maybe eventually learn to love Dawson, too. And she'll pack away the Amory experience because it's romantic to long for things that ended while they were still (seemingly) perfect.

I really liked the script format of most of this chapter. To me, it gave the chapter a lighter, faster tone, even though it's about a gut-wrenching romance. And I liked the imagery of people coming in and out of the room, kind of the way Rosalind generally treats men.

I also had the thought of whether Amory might go after Cecelia, and I'd like it if he did. I don't think Fitzgerald totally closed the door on it. It seems like Cecelia's talk with her brother midway through the the chapter left a window open.

I can't say I've had the same experience of you in terms of my enthusiasm waning. I guess it's slowed down, but perhaps my generally more favorable (or charitable, perhaps) view of Amory has kept me more interested. That said, perhaps because I'm a romantic I really did enjoy this chapter in a way I haven't since perhaps the first chapter of the book. And I feel like this was good for Amory in a way, although I'm not sure why.

Alright, now moving backwards, here's my psychoanalysis of Darcy: Assuming Darcy was, as he says, a lot like Amory as a youngster, I think Amory perhaps helps Darcy tie up his own life. Darcy sometimes wonders what might have been had he not become a priest. In Amory, he sees a window into his past, both the good and the bad. But he also sees a line between his past as represented by Amory, and his present. And so perhaps in a weird way spending time with Amory affirms his own life by showing him in real-time the arc his life has taken. 

As I re-read this before hitting "publish," I'm thinking back a bit to Amory's other great love of the book thus far: Isabelle. It's easy for me to look back at her and think of that relationship as just youthful and somewhat childish. But I also found myself wondering if they would come back together when they were both more mature.

After this chapter, I'm wondering the same thing about Rosalind. 

I don't really think either reunion will happen, do you? The story is so much about one person, and about that person's growth, that I image both of these girls, and maybe any others that pop up won't be much more than guideposts that shape who Amory becomes. But what say you?

A New Amory?

MIKE: I've just finished reading the next chapters (Interlude and The Debutante) and here I sit, reflecting while I type.  For previous responses I've waited at least a few hours to write because I need time to process and reflect.  Not the case today.  At least, not what you're going to get.

The past few chapters have kind of thrown me.  I was all on board with TSoP after chapter one but my interest began to wane with each additionally chapter, mostly because I've not necessarily found Amory worth the time.  Then I read today's chapter and I'm back on board.  I begin with my reactions to the very brief Interlude.  The text is predominantly a letter from Monsignor Darcy.  His writing seems so tender and heartfelt that I found myself wanting to learn more about his story.  One of my favorite lines is when he writes, "I've discovered suddenly that I'm an old man."  So I'm only thirty-three but there are times when I've had a similar revelation.  The reality isn't so much that I'm old but rather, I'm older than my rash and careless days as a teen and twenties.  I look back at some of my past held attitudes and temperaments and I question how I could ever have acted in such ways.  What further blows my my mind is that in ten to fifteen years I'll look at my thirties and again have the same realization.  

I write all this to say that maybe I've been too harsh on Amory.  Monsignor Darcy writes, "curiously alike we are...curiously unlike".  I wonder in what ways Darcy finds commonality with Amory and if Darcy sees in Amory what I don't; someone developing into a worthwhile personage.  Amory does appear to be growing into his skin in a more favorable way.  Perhaps this is because he's without the fortune he once had or because he's seen the realities of war.  In his letter to Tom, Amory writes, "...the war instead of making me orthodox, which is the correct reaction, has made me a passionate agnostic."  Ain't that the truth. 

Book Two: The Education of a Personage is an aptly titled second half to our story.  After Princeton, Amory finally begins his education.  I think this is the same for a lot of college students who see the world through clearer lenses after they graduate and walk in a world that is more real than what they've previously known.  Amory is now officially not rich and he's got to establish himself alongside the 99%.  Fitzgerald begins this section of the book as a theatrical script.  If nothing else, TSoP is experiment in medium.  

We meet a few new characters in Rosalind, Cecelia, and Alec.  I don't remember Alec in the first half of the book, do you?  I think Rosalind is Fitzgerald's Zelda.  I also think the second half of this book must be written after the rejection of the Egotist from major publishers.  Fitzgerald pursued and was engaged to Zelda before being rejected for lack of social standing just before publishing this novel.  And like Amory in this chapter, Fitzgerald works in advertising before finding success in his writing career.  I think it will be interesting now to see how the rest of the book plays out as autobiography.  In real life, Zelda-The-Gold-Digger marries Fitzgerald after he successfully publishes TSoP.

Despite her superficial lifestyle, I have a favorable opinion of Rosalind.  Is that strange?  Why should I like her?  However, I did hope Amory would pursue Cecelia instead.  Maybe he still will?  Probably not, but one can hope.  I thought Rosalind's speech to Cecelia about how life is difficult for such a beautiful person was humorous:

...you don't know what a trial it is to be--like me.  I've got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me.  If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre, the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening.  If I drop my voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on the phone every day for a week.

Poor girl.

What did you think?  How did you view the new Amory?  Where do you see him headed? 

Keepin' It In The Family

MIKE:  Here is a fun fact I just learned as I begin to teach The Great Gatsby.  At the beginning of Gatsby there is an excerpt from a poem by the poet, Thomas Parke D'Invilliers.  Recognize the name?  I didn't either until I saw something online mentioning the reference.  Thomas Parke D'Invilliers is TSoP's Tom.  His full name is only used twice in TSoP when the characters first meet at the diner/restaurant in chapter two.   I guess this is also a pen-name Fitzgerald sometimes used himself.   So there you go. 

Chapter four threw me for a loop.  It wasn't at all what I expected.  I was surprised to see so much Burne included.  I think it's interesting that you said Burne is perhaps the ghost of Dick.  I hadn't made that connection but I think you could be on to something and maybe Fitzgerald meant that as well.  When Burne is earlier introduced he is described as thus: 

"Burne, fair haired, silent, and intent, appeared in the house only as a busy apparition  gliding in quietly at night and off again in the early morning to get up his work in the library..."

 Isn't that a strange description in light of your comment?  Ten points for Gryffindor! I really like Burne and I'm kind of on board with bucking the Princeton system.  He comes to the conclusion that I thought Amory was going to reach.  I was sure Amory would write off society but that doesn't seem the case.  Burne appears to be more interested in learning than advancing up the social ladder.  But maybe that's what Amory needs.  I don't know that he's a free or independent thinker.  Or rather, maybe he's just afraid to take a leap into the great unknown.  

What does Amory long for?  Great question.  Ultimately, we're watching the development of a deeply flawed character.  Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge the man.  But what is Amory after?  Does he really love his cousin Clara?  At times it does feel like he might.  He says, "I think that if I lost faith in you I'd lose faith in God."  That's pretty intense.  It actually sounds a little too polished.  And five other dudes (duds?) have said that to her as well.  Amory then begins to ask Clara, "...if I come back in two years in a position to marry you--".  Using my third-grade mental math, I figure we've got one more year until we reach the 'three years after the ghost' stuff and one more year until he might come back to pursue Clara.  Surely that indicates some major change is on the horizon.  

I'm not really sure what to make of this chapter as as whole.  A bunch of stuff happens but it doesn't seem like it all matters to Amory.  I find the title of the chapter, "Narcissus off Duty" to be interesting.  I guess this is an brief pause?  Will we see a self-actualized Amory?  He's off to war so that's got to wake a person up.  He'll be an officer, though.  I don't know if he'll really be in the trench warfare we learned in high school.  

Interlude is only a few pages and is largely a letter.  I'm going to read it and the chapter The Debutante together.  I hope that's okay.  

Chapter 4: Cousin Clara cuts to the chase

JARED: Alright. First off, nothing about the ghost in this chapter. I guess the three years isn't up yet. Although in a way, maybe Dick's ghost is all over this chapter, in the form of the conscious-driven Burne.

So here in Chapter Four we see Amory respect but not quite get Burne's anachronistic quest for truth, fall in love with his incisive damsel who doesn't seem to be in distress third cousin, and prepare to go off to war.

As I read, what I thought about was this question: What does Amory want? What does he long for? And despite his not-so-ingratiating character, my working hypothesis is this: He wants to succeed, but he's only capable of being driven to succed if he believes that his idea of success is true. And I think what's happened to him along the way is that he's begun to doubt his previous notions of what success truly is.

When he was younger, it was all about social conquest. He neglects his studies because he's beginning to achieve the thingns he thought marked true success and finds them to be vapid. But then, of course, he's left afloat. That's why he's so enamored of people who have goals backed by some sort of moral compass, such as Burne and the war or cousin Clara and her kids.

As Clara psycho-analyzes Amory: "This has nothing to do with will-power... you lack judgment -- the judgment to decide at once when you know your imagination will play you false, given half a chance."

In your last post you noted how the character seems to be Fitzgerald, and yet the author seems to be going out of his way to make his protagonist un-likeable. But perhaps Amory is unlikeable simply because the book itself is the latest chapter in Fitzgerald's internal questioning. Maybe he's even bitter about the choices he made following what he thought to be meaningful fulfillment, and he has failed to find them, and thus he's a bit angry in the book.

Both Amory and presumably Fitzgerald had no problem mustering willpower when they needed it. To someone born into their shoes, a certain amount of willpower is all it takes to reach society's level of success. But judgment, wisdom, is tougher to attain.

Ah, Look At All The Lonely People (Chapter 3)

MIKE: You're alive!  I was beginning to worry about you after not hearing from you for a few days.  I thought you had, perhaps, been abducted.  And then BAM!  Two blog posts.  Inspirational to say the least.

You asked two questions.  

1. What does it mean that Amory "never succeeded in giving (the experience) an appropriate value?"
2. What does it mean that it haunts him for three years afterward? What happens in that three years?

I provide two answers.

1. I don't know.  Not a clue.
2. I think the haunting is foreshadow of what is to come.  I think we're given a preview of subsequent chapters.  

A few thoughts.  First about chapter two.  I find it interesting that you still find Amory tolerable.  I know it isn't necessary to like a character but it sure is helpful to find some commonality between myself and the 2D personality.  Yes, Amory has his 'eyes-wide-open approach' but he's not just a passive voice in these stories.  He IS the story and his carelessness makes it difficult for me to appreciate him.  Fitzgerald's purpose?  Maybe he's coming to terms with the shallowness of his life and perhaps that's the real point of the strange ending of chapter three.  But he's still reckless.  In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway says,

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...

Just before Amory "scribbled his honor pledge on the cover," Fitzgerald writes, "Most of them were so stupid or careless that they wouldn't admit when they didn't understand, and Amory was of the latter."  Amory and Gatsby and Tom and Daisy and everyone in that social class in the 1920s was careless.  I don't think Fitzgerald wants us to like them.  And I think this raises a fascinating concept.  The Great Gatsby and to a larger degree, TSoP, are both semi-autobiographical.  Fitzgerald IS Amory.  How can he want us to detest him so badly?  I feel like most authors hide behind their characters and make the characters likable so as to affirm the insecurities of the author.  This isn't the case with Fitzgerald.  He is the careless class and he writes about how destructive they are and yet he continues to live that life for the next twenty years.  I don't get it.  

As for the bizarre ghost sighting.  It seems like a mental break down (he's delicate, after all) but it might be a mental reorganization instead.  However, Fitzgerald writes, "...it never occurred to him that he was delirious or drunk.  He had a sense of reality such as material things could never give him."  This comes just a few pages after Monsignor Darcy writes that Amory should beware of classifying people and so far, that's all he's done.  I think he's fed-up with going through the motions of what seems meaningless.  I find it interesting that the ghost looks like Dick Humbird, another careless person who winds up dead.  Maybe Amory realizing his mortality?  

I think we can almost be guaranteed a different Amory in the future.  In literature, whenever a character is rained on or falls into a pool of water or is sprayed with a hose...whenever a character gets wet, the author is signifying baptism.  As Amory leaves his New York and steps into a taxi Fitzgerald writes the most uninspiring and simple sentence of the book, "It was raining torrents."    I don't think there is any way he leaves this four-word-simple-sentence as a standalone when he could easily have weaved the rain into another sentence.  I think Amory is changed when he arrives in Princeton.  I guess we'll find out in chapter four, right?

Chapter 3: The Deconstruction of Amory Blaine

JARED: So. That was bizarre. I'm largely writing this now so I can see what you thought about Chapter 3. Or, put another way: So I can see if you understood what just happened better than I did.

The end of the last chapter clearly suggested that things were going to take a turn, but it seems Amory's fortunes have turned in at least four different ways: His relationship with Isabelle has seemingly soured (at least for now); he's no longer quite so rich; his status at Princeton is plummeting, and lastly... um... he's losing his mind?

I'm really not sure what to think about the last several pages of the novel. I was reading it rather quickly, eager to get to the point where it all makes sense, but I don't think I ever found it.

Aside from all that, it seems like a bit of a roller-coaster for Amory's character. The opening bit with Isabelle made him perhaps harder to like than ever. For instance, like the part about how he wanted to kiss her, but only because then he could leave her the next morning and feel good about himself.

"On the contrary, if he didn't kiss her, it would worry him... It would interfere vaguely with his idea of himself as a conqueror. It wasn't dignified to come off second best, pleading, with a doughty warrior like Isabelle."

Then we get to his failure at his test at Princeton. By the way, I loved the line about him yawning, "scribbling the honor pledge on the cover"of his test, and leaving. Not that I'm against writing an honor pledge on every test. Just that it's so Princeton.

Anyway, the whole part with Monsignor Darcy gave me some home that a more contemplative Amory would emerge, one with better priorities and a better sense of how he ought to make a life for himself. And perhaps that will re-emerge later in the book. But for now, what to make of the strange man (apparition?)

Maybe I missed something important, but it seems our friend Amory was having himself a bit of a psychotic break. A symbolic break, but also a real one, right?

It's really interesting, though, that Fitzgerald introduces the episode thusly:

"Amory's envy and admiration of this step (Holiday's departure for the Lafayette Esquadrille) was drowned in an experience of his own to which he never succeeded in giving an appropriate value, but which, nevertheless, haunted him for three years afterward."

Which prompts two questions in my mind. First, what does it mean that Amory "never succeeded in giving (the experience) an appropriate value?" Does that mean he never fully understands it? Does that mean it never recurs?

And what does it mean that it haunts him for three years afterward? What happens in that three years?

Alright. I'm curious to hear your brilliant take on all this. Hit me.

Chapter 2: Pride and Artifice

JARED: So I got a bit sidetracked and am just now getting to writing about Chapter 2. It seems an important chapter in terms of Amory's character development and the introduction of Isabelle, but also because, as you point out, the end of the chapter unmistakably portends bad things to come, or at least that things won't be the same hereafter. That he's reached "the crest of his young egotism." I really like that line.

So first off - place. Yes, the fact that I know Princeton affects my reading of it, very much so. I find myself a bit jealous of your ability to go visit the actual places in the book (or the places where the fictional places would be). But even being far away, when he talks about the Nassau Club, I can picture it. When he talked about the shore, that in particular resonated with me for some reason. And when he talked about the movie theater in Chapter 1, I thought of the Garden Theater, even though I sort of doubt it was around (at least in its present form) at that time.

I don't think I agree with your statement that you like Amory less as the chapter goes on. It's not that the chapter gives me things to like about him. It's just that his eyes-wide-open approach to the class system causes me to give him credit, even if I don't share his values. I think he's right about Tom when he says that Tom will never again be able to disconnect himself from the class system he's experienced at Princeton. I wish that weren't true, but I think there are plenty of people like Tom who enter places like Princeton with a fairly benign, class-blind disposition, but who leave it acculturated to a certain lifestyle, to having a certain place in society. And so no matter how much they may feel for the poor later in life they still cannot fathom having to actually exist in that social strata.

To me, Amory is refreshing in at least one major sense. Whenever I talk to a political professional, I long to hear the person admit that what they're doing is just silly politics. That as a real person they know their political machinations are largely artifice. When I talk to a business person, I long to hear them admit that while they are driven to succeed they also see the limitations of monetary wealth and business "success." Amory, though he's unable to extricate himself from the social ladder (and indeed embraces it), at least is able to see on some level the frivoloty of it all. That's what I appreciate about him, even though I wouldn't say it makes him a great guy.

It didn't occur to me to look up the definition of petting, but I will say that I found his description of the courting experience of the "Popular Daughters" and their suitors quite interesting. Isabelle's treatment of her admirers - the fact that most of it was a game to her and far more boys thought they'd caught her fancy than actually had - seemed to me to be a fitting un-masking of youthful courtship. Like when Isabelle resolved "that she would, if necessary force herself to like him (Amory) -- that she owed it to Sally.

As with the class system in general, I thought Fitzgerald did a nice job of exposing the sillyness of it all.

It's interesting how Amory sees right through social constructs - like the Princeton caste system and the courtship protocol - and yet he finds himself deeply longing for the apparent goals of those systems, even though he realizes they're meaningless. He wants to be atop the Princeton social system, even though he has a clear-eyed approach to the fact that everyone there - except maybe Dick - is a poser. He finds himself pining for Isabelle even though his conquest of her was largely a game. It's paradoxical, but also true to life, I suspect.

Although you've probably already read on, so you know all the secrets. Thanks for the photos, by the way.

Chapter 2: Spires and Gargoyles

MIKE: This post comes just a day after my previous post because I've finished reading chapter two and want to read chapter three.  To be honest, I read the first three pages of chapter three and started thinking about elements of it that I'd want to comment on and then I realized all my ideas are running together and that I really need to post my reactions to chapter two.  So here I sit, fifteen minutes removed from hipsters, a double-Joe-to-go and the white noise of Small World Coffee to the nearest computer I could find at Princeton Public Library. 

Chapter 2 begins in typical Fitzgerald-speak.  

At first, Amory noticed only the wealth of sunshine creeping across the long, green swards, dancing on the leaded windowpanes, and swimming around the tops of spires and towers and battlemented walls.  Gradually he realized that he was really walking up University Place, self-conscious about his suitcase, developing a new tendency to glare straight ahead when he passed anyone.

 Yep.  He's in Princeton alright.  Until we had our first child, I'm not sure anyone in Princeton ever made eye contact with us.  It seems Amory caught on quickly to life here.  It's been over 90 years since he wrote TSoP and yet Princeton seems to be little changed.  

Anywho.

I was really intrigued by Amory's first place of residence and so I took a little field trip.  It seems there isn't (and never has been) a 12 University Place. There is a 10 and and 11 but no 12.  You know the spot, though.  It's right on the corner of University and Nassau.  I took a couple of pictures from the street:

 Where 12 University Place SHOULD be.

  One of the spires?  I think this is Memorial...it's the big tower on the corner.

Knowing Princeton has made reading this book a different experience, to say the least.  He also makes reference to Lawrenceville Road and the Lawrenceville Prep School and a lot of other familiar locations.  It makes me wonder if my images of the story are influenced by the close proximity.  Does it affect your reading?

I think we're now reading a story of an almost joyless and discontented Amory in his first years at Princeton. He has this unyielding urgency "to be one of the gods of the class".  Despite liking Amory as a character, I can't identify with him at all with the exception of location.  So why do I like the guy?  As it turns out, I like him less as the chapter continues.  

"Oh, it isn't that I mind the glittering caste system," admitted Amory.  "I like having a bunch of hot cats on top, but gosh, Kerry, I've got to be one of them."

"But jut now, Amory, you're only a sweaty bourgeois."

Amory lay for a moment without speaking.  "I won't be-long," he said finally. "But I hate to get anywhere by working for it."

When Amory and his friends go to the shore in a car that is not theirs, they eat and restaurants and only pay a tiny portion of their bill. They find a homely girl on the boardwalk and use her as amusement.  They collect money from strangers for French War Orphans and then use it for themselves.  These are not good people.

Amory hopes the War will be "long and bloody".  He is so far removed from the rest of the world.  Does the title, TSoP, indicate his missing humanity?  Where is Fitzgerald's Paradise?  Is it the 1% or the 99%? When Tom tells Amory he wants to leave Princeton Amory replies:

"You can't, Tom...wherever you go now you'll always unconsciously apply these standards of 'having it' or 'lacking it.' For better or worse we've stamped you; you're a Princeton type!"

 I almost feel as if I'm watching these strange creatures from a one way mirror.  Who are these young men I can't stop watching?  I also wonder if my voyeurism indicates a desire to join them.  If I came from money, would I be any different?  I mean, I am a fat-cat teacher. But still. 

Did you notice how even more appropriate our blog title is?  The Princeton boys drop the word 'phony' half a dozen times.  I hope my school librarian appreciates the writing in her book.  I underlined each use of our title.  Because, you know?

It is also in the chapter that we meet Isabelle, the 16 year old girl who is allowed to go to parties with college boys and to homecoming on the other side of the country.  That seems like good parenting to me.  Oh, and how scandalous were those petting parties?   I had to look up what 'petting' meant in the early 1900s.  Apparently it's just kissing and hugging.  I thought we were encroaching on first and perhaps second base.  Nope. 

The chapter ends on a semi-sad note.  For the second time in chapter, Fitzgerald says Amory "realized that he was enjoying life as he would probably never enjoy it again".  This is it.  This is his peak.  At twenty years old he's as happy as he'll ever be.  And he seems to know it.  Where did funny thirteen-year-old Amory go?  What are we in for next?
 

MIKE:  So I feel like I have a lot to say regarding chapter 1 of This Side of Paradise (henceforth known as TSoP).  <After writing this entry, I now realize I didn't have that much to say after all.  Hump.>

First, I totally agree with you on the appreciation of Fitzgerald's use of humor.  While reading, I almost feel as if Fitzgerald is telling me this sly little story with a wink-wink at his one-liners.  Amory is a complex character who reminds me greatly of either the children from The Royal Tenenbaums or maybe even Stewie.  I had to remind myself that Amory was thirteen when he had his tiny fling with Myra.  His dialogue is hilarious considering his age.
                
                 "Myra," he said, lowering his voice and choosing his words carefully, "I beg a   
                   thousand pardons.  Can you ever forgive me?"
and
                  "I been smoking too much.  I've got t'bacca heart."

Fitzgerald actually wrote this book just after flunking out of Princeton and just before being shipped off to Europe to fight in WWI.  His original book draft was call The Romantic Egotist but it was rejected by publishers.  

This leads me to my second point.  You said you liked Amory but didn't think you'd like him in real life.  I'm completely on board with that.  You also wrote that you feel sorry for him.   Again, I completely agree.  But I don't feel sorry for him until he heads to St. Regis.  It is at this point that the chapter seems to shift in tone.  And I wonder if the earlier (humorous) parts were written at a different time (pre WWI?) than the second half of the chapter.  Amory, who makes me chuckle repeatedly, loses his humorous edge.  Fitzgerald rewrote The Romantic Egotist when he was twenty-two or twenty-three and after he faced the rejected of his love, Zelda, because he was too poor.  At twenty-three he published TSoP to huge applause. I'm eager to see which Amory we'll get in subsequent chapters.  My money is somber Amory.

Speaking of subsequent chapters, I think I'm going to break our reading schedule and finish the book this week (who really goes to the NJ teacher conference anyway?).  If you're ahead in your reading, we could post earlier.  No pressure.

I don't think I have much else to say about chapter one.  So far so good.  Chapter two is fiftyish pages so we might have more to say about that. 

Also, it sounded like you thought you missed the humor in The Great Gatsby when you read it in high school.  I'm here to tell you that you certainly didn't miss the humor because it's not really there.  But it is still my all time favorite novel. 

Finally, do you realize that we are probably the only blogging book group featuring TSoP?  I'm not going to factcheck that because it's more fun to believe what I want to believe. 

Finally again, I'm reading my high school library's copy of TSoP and I'm writing in the margins.  I wonder if/when they'll notice and if this makes me a terrible person.  I don't think this copy has been checked out for a while.  

#iliketosmelloldbooks 
#thatdoesntnecessarilymakemecreepy

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise," Chapter 1

JARED: Clearly the first chapter of This Side of Paradise is appropriately titled, because it's all about "Amory, Son of Beatrice." Or how being the son of Beatrice makes Amory Amory.

I really enjoyed this chapter. The only Fitzgerald book I've read is Gatsby, and I read that back in high school. I suspect that I missed 90 percent of the humor back then. Now that I'm 30 and reading my second Fitzgerald book, I think the missed-humor part is down to perhaps 15 percent, and that only because I'm not smart enough.

Halfway through the chapter I remembered that my e-reader lets me highlight sections. A few favorite lines:

"The invitation to Miss Myra St. Claire's bobbing party spent the morning in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical affair with a dusty piece of peanut brittle..."

And, describing Beatrice's driving:

"She looked left and right, she slipped cautiously into a speed of two miles an hour, beseeching Amory to act as sentinel; and at one busy crossing she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward like a traffic policeman. Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver."

Awesome. So I've found the book to be very funny thus far, and the characters entertaining. The main thought I've had since reading it yesterday is how likeability factors into my interpretation of the book. I find Amory a likeable character, even though I'm all but certain I wouldn't like him if I met him in real life. In fact, as a reader I sort of feel sorry for him. Do you?

And it's clear this is a critique of the frivolities of the rich, at least in part, right?

I find humor in his description of Princeton as the country club of the Ivy Leagues. I think he's doing a nice job of capturing the world of people who go to elite boarding schools only to serve as their footstool to Ivy League Schools, and how not going to an Ivy League school doesn't seem to enter into anyone's mind.

What say you?