This Side of Paradise

February 27, 1995
Fitzgerald's first novel, about a coterie of Princeton socialites, appears in a 75th anniversary edition.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's first big hit appealed to the hedonistic youth of The Jazz Age, its immaturity aiding its popularity. Sorely dated, it nonetheless contains vigorous writing and strong characterization. It's a romantic self-portrait of a time in which the hero enters Princeton as a spoiled brat and, after several love affairs, instructive friendships and intellectual awakenings, matures, if that's the right word, into a penniless and sadder but wiser copywriter. Energetic Dick Hill has a good time with this formless novel. In so doing, he chews up a lot of scenery, but the grandiloquent author would probably approve. Indeed, he manages to take the edge off of the "romantic egoists" who so charmed one generation while seeming obnoxious to the current one. Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine