This Side Of Paradise

Book Description

4 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Non è difficile capire come questo libro abbia "fatto il botto" quando uscì, anche se oggi appare un po' datato e non certo di scorrevole lettura. Perché è il ritratto di una generazione "nuovissima", quella che vide probabilmente la trasformazione più incredibile e repentina del mondo così come lo ... (continue)

  Non è difficile capire come questo libro abbia "fatto il botto" quando uscì, anche se oggi appare un po' datato e non certo di scorrevole lettura. Perché è il ritratto di una generazione "nuovissima", quella che vide probabilmente la trasformazione più incredibile e repentina del mondo così come lo si conosceva. In pochi decenni, automobili, aerei, cinema, mode rivoluzionarono drasticamente lo stile di vita, soprattutto dei giovani e soprattutto delle giovani donne. I genitori di questi ragazzi appartenevano ancora all'età vittoriana, ma loro erano catapultati nel futuro. E si riconobbero istantaneamente in Amory Blaine, tanto da farne subito ("overnight", dicono gli americani) un successo pazzesco.
  Certo, i brani che hanno al centro Princeton e il suo mondo, un mondo che a noi risulta fortemente estraneo e che fatichiamo a capire, possono essere spesso faticosi e in certi punti quasi incomprensibili, ma oltre al valore documentario ci restano comunque molte pagine indimenticabili e il senso della gioventù "come dovrebbe essere": piena di ideali, di paure e di ansie, di aneliti all'infinito e insieme di un profondo egoismo ed egotismo.
  Superato, ma sempre un grande Fitzgerald.

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  Lucy van Pelt said on Feb 5, 2012 | 1 feedback

• 

  "Good-morning, Fool...
  Three times a week
  You hold us helpless while you speak,
  Teasing our thirsty souls with the
  Sleek 'yeas' of your philosophy...
  Well, here we are, your hundred sheep,
  Tune up, play on, pour forth ... we sleep...
  You are a student, so they say;
  You hamm ... (continue)

  "Good-morning, Fool...
  Three times a week
  You hold us helpless while you speak,
  Teasing our thirsty souls with the
  Sleek 'yeas' of your philosophy...
  Well, here we are, your hundred sheep,
  Tune up, play on, pour forth ... we sleep...
  You are a student, so they say;
  You hammered out the other day
  A syllabus, from what we know
  Of some forgotten folio;
  You'd sniffled through an era's must,
  Filling your nostrils up with dust,
  And then, arising from your knees,
  Published, in one gigantic sneeze...
  But here's a neighbor on my right,
  An Eager Ass, considered bright;
  Asker of questions.... How he'll stand,
  With earnest air and fidgy hand,
  After this hour, telling you
  He sat all night and burrowed through
  Your book.... Oh, you'll be coy and he
  Will simulate precosity,
  And pedants both, you'll smile and smirk,
  And leer, and hasten back to work....

  'Twas this day week, sir, you returned
  A theme of mine, from which I learned
  (Through various comment on the side
  Which you had scrawled) that I defied
  The highest rules of criticism
  For cheap and careless witticism....
  'Are you quite sure that this could be?'
  And
  'Shaw is no authority!'
  But Eager Ass, with what he's sent,
  Plays havoc with your best per cent.

  Still—still I meet you here and there...
  When Shakespeare's played you hold a chair,
  And some defunct, moth-eaten star
  Enchants the mental prig you are...
  A radical comes down and shocks
  The atheistic orthodox?—
  You're representing Common Sense,
  Mouth open, in the audience.
  And, sometimes, even chapel lures
  That conscious tolerance of yours,
  That broad and beaming view of truth
  (Including Kant and General Booth...)
  And so from shock to shock you live,
  A hollow, pale affirmative...

  The hour's up ... and roused from rest
  One hundred children of the blest
  Cheat you a word or two with feet
  That down the noisy aisle-ways beat...
  Forget on narrow-minded earth
  The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth."

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  Ness ʚϊɞ said on Dec 27, 2009 | Add your feedback

• Critical comment(s)/introduction:

  ...a timeless autobiographical novel of youth and alienation. It moves from tenderness to cynicism to hope with the grace and power that stamp [the author] as one of the greatest of American writers.

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  Your Sources said on Jul 31, 2007 | Add your feedback

• Critical comment(s)/introduction:

  Fitzgerald's first novel, [this book] (1920) was an immediate, spectacular success and established his literary reputation. Perhaps the definitive novel of the "Lost Generation,"...the young men and women of the 20s, described by [the author] as "a new generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all ... (continue)

  Fitzgerald's first novel, [this book] (1920) was an immediate, spectacular success and established his literary reputation. Perhaps the definitive novel of the "Lost Generation,"...the young men and women of the 20s, described by [the author] as "a new generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken."

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  Your Sources said on Jul 31, 2007 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (46)
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• English Books
• Paperback 288 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0684843781
• ISBN-13: 9780684843780
• Publisher: Scribner
• Pub date: Jul 14, 1998
• Dimensions: 1290 mm x 839 mm x 129 mm Just how big is that?
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Leather Bound, Library Binding, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, Libri Italiani, Svenska böcker

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