This Side of ParadisePublished in 1920, and taking its title from a line of the Rupert Brooke poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking. |
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Common terms and phrases
afraid Alec Amory Blaine Amory considered Amory looked Amory's Arthur Mizener asked Beatrice beautiful began Burne CECELIA Clara club color CONNAGE course cried crowd D'Invilliers damn dance dark dear boy decided door dream dress Eleanor eyes face feel feet felt Ferrenby freshman Froggy ghost GILLESPIE girl gray hair half hands head heard hour Humbird idea imagination Isabelle Kerry kiss knew Lake Geneva laughed Lawrenceville light marry mind Minneapolis Monsignor Darcy moon mother Myra never night Oscar Wilde paused play Princeton Princetonian Ramilly Regis romantic ROSALIND Rupert Brooke Ryder Sally SCOTT FITZGERALD seemed Side of Paradise sigh slicker Sloane smile sort street suddenly talk taxicab tell there's things thought Tiger Inn tonight took turned voice walked watched week whispered wondered wonderful girl write young youth
Popular passages
Page 74 - For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Page 94 - Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy.
Page 277 - My whole generation is restless. I'm sick of a system where the richest man gets the most beautiful girl if he wants her, where the artist without an income has to sell his talents to a button manufacturer.
Page 25 - I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes." Monsignor chuckled. "I'm one, you know." "Oh, you're different — I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic — you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors " "And Yale is November, crisp and energetic,
Page 256 - ... it was an atmosphere wherein birth and marriage and death were loathsome, secret things. He remembered one day in the subway when a delivery boy had brought in a great funeral wreath of fresh flowers, how the smell of it had suddenly cleared the air and given every one in the car a momentary glow. 'I detest poor people,
Page 77 - Amory usually liked men individually, yet feared them in crowds unless the crowd was around him. He wondered how much each one contributed to the party, for there was somewhat of a spiritual tax levied. Alec and Kerry were the life of it, but not quite the centre. Somehow the quiet Humbird, and Sloane, with his impatient superciliousness, were the centre. Dick Humbird had, ever since freshman year, seemed to Amory a perfect type of aristocrat.
Page 247 - Amory realized that there were other things in the room besides people . . . over and around the figure crouched on the bed there hung an aura, gossamer as a moonbeam, tainted as stale, weak wine, yet a horror, diffusively brooding already over the three of them . . . and over by the window among the stirring curtains stood something else, featureless and indistinguishable, yet strangely familiar.
Page 282 - Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.
Page 278 - I've thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn'ta seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game." For a minute neither spoke and then the big man asked: "What was your university?" "Princeton." The big man became suddenly interested; the expression of his goggles altered slightly. "I sent my son to Princeton.
Page 232 - Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn...