New-York tribune., 1920-04-14
Books

The enthusiasm in many quarters
about F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side
Of Paradise" leaves us not only cold
but puzzled. Although the style Of the
book makes no appeal whatsoever to us,
we have not sufficient faith in our ear
to be surprised when many other critics
say that it is monstrously we'll written.
We are puzzled chiefly because such
number of reviewers find this novel of
Princeton life by a young graduate-he
is twenty-three, we Observation-Disclosures
tional. For instance, John V. A. Weaver,
in "The Chicago Daily News" quotes
with apparent wonderment and awe:
"On the Triangle trip, Amory had
great. current American phenomenon,
the Hpetting- party None of the Vic
toriar mothersand most of them were
Victorian-had any idea how casually
their daughters were accustomed to be
kissed. He never realized how
widespread it was until he saw the cities
between New York and Chicago as one
vast juvenile intrigue. Amory
found it rather fascinating to feel that
any popular girl he met before he
might possibly kiss before 12.'
AS Bunker Bean remarked, II can
imagine nothing Of less consequence"
Even so it is, perhaps, interesting to
consider the protest of Princeton un-
dergraduate who writes: Gas member
of the Triangle Club who took the
Christmas trip last year, I would like
to protest against Fitzgerald's descrip-
ton of 'petting' as a national institu-
ton. Although there was great deal
of liquor and much talk of wild women,
or, perhaps more accurately, much wild
talk Of women, l think 1 can testify to
the gentlemanly conduct Of a few dozen
members, and, of those whose shoulders
bore the imprint of blond hair and
powdered faces, none, l believe, was
later troubled by Mephistophclian vista
tions"
We are rather afraid that not few
undergraduates are given to the sin Of
not kissing and then telling anyway. It
seems to us that we knew one or two
such back in 1910. Still, Amory may
have cut just as wide swath from New
York to Chicago as he has led his
author to believe. 1t is, we fancy, a
trait of the very young to keep careful
statistics of the "rosc red dots over
I k11
Fitzgerald is little too old to be an
other Daisy Ashford, and yet still too
immature to qualify as an interesting
and faithful observer of life. We do
the mental reactions Of eighteen to
twenty-five are not valuable literary
material, but we do maintain that the
man Of that age usually understands
himself so imperfectly that he is seldom
qualified to describe himself. The self
consciousness of Fitzgerald is barrier
which we are never able to pierce. He
sees himself constantly not as human
being, but as a man in a novel or in 2
play. Every move is a picture and there
is a camera man behind each tree
~ am surprised" our correspondent
continues, "that you never mentioned
such nauseating love scenes as that
which contains the line: Ills lips moved
lazily over her face. "How good you
taste," he sighed"
1T Is bit thick, to be sure, and yet
we are rather more amused than nau-
seated. We fancy demoniac smile
fitted across the face of Fitzgerald as
he wrote that, and he murmured, "Ill
show these nid-Victorians what life in
the raw really isl
Perhaps 1t is this raw! rawl raw!
quality which chiefly disturbs our atten-
ton and browns our interest in "This
Side Of Paradise"
One factor which makes the novel
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