Coming of age. A term? A noun? A genre?
Probably my most liked theme after magic-realism. An overflowing number of such novels and movies cannot do the theme any justice as over the generations, decades, the centuries, coming-of-age is fundamental. It will always be there as a part of life, just with different kinds of youngster's vices/habits/vanity/substances. It will always involve the rickety personalities, lack of confidence, hatred on the family, comforting level of confusion, spontaneity, death, alcohol, the opposite sex, self-righteousness, education, and morbid happiness. It could focus on a span of only one year or two or three or a collection of years from pre teenage years all the way until 23? 24? 25? The beauty of our life is that we are and will always continue to be foolish throughout the breathing days and months and years until God takes us with him.
Today, I had the pleasure of finishing Fitzgerald's debut novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), thanks to friend Katherine who lent me the book, hooray!
I usually seem to always have a true hate-love relationship with many authors and novels of coming-of-age. My unstable imaginations and emotions combined cannot fathom the stupidity and teenage angst of certain parts of the plot and/or characters; thus, I always find certain novels absolutely horrid. A prime example of this would be "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Just how awful the protagonist is and why the tunnel has to even have any meaning to him growing out of his adolescent years, is unendurable. The exploitation of Stephen Chbosky's real experiences and acquaintances for the sake of writing a novel is also pretty darn intolerable. The contradictory issue here is now -- the fact that I must be some kind of a masochist when it comes to abusing my mentality -- that I enjoy detesting these novels. I enjoy that these novels that tick me off tick me off. I also have to accept what is good writing as good writing, and what is good plot a good plot, and what is a good book to make one go into an irrational fit of aggravation a good book. Right. So the point is, This Side of Paradise is quite special, as it never gave me that feeling once. In fact, at the end, I felt more of a pity for Fitzgerald, for he verified his insane level of vanity via this novel. You thought Gatsby exemplified vanity? No. Absolutely not.
Another afterthought flowered from this novel was that we complain about the lack of privacy in the online world these days, and yet, I felt like I could even make out Fitzgerald as a living person right now by reading his work. How personal one has to go into one's reality to produce a fictional work! Incredible. But this is for all sorts of art. For movies, for paintings, for song-writing, etc. If I ever write, the whole world gets to see right through me. I would become a human window. I won't even be translucent; I'd really be a window. Is this bravery? Or foolishness?
Anyways, some excerpts from This Side of Paradise where I found particular fondness:
1. ‘I’ll never be a poet,’ said Amory as he finished. ‘I’m not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don’t catch the subtle things like “silver-snarling trumpet”. I may turn out an intellectual, but I’ll never write anything but mediocre poetry.’ - p.83
2. I am afraid that I gave you too much assurance of your inevitable safety, and you must remember that I did that through faith in your springs of effort; not in the silly conviction that you will arrive without struggle. Some nuances of character you will have to take for granted in yourself, though you must be careful in confessing them to others. You are unsentimental, almost incapable of affection, astute without being cunning and vain without being proud.
Don’t let yourself feel worthless; often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don’t worry about losing your ‘personality’, as you persist in calling it; at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial golden warmth of 4 p.m.
If you write me letters, please let them be natural ones. Your last, that dissertation on architecture, was perfectly awful — so ‘highbrow’ that I picture you living in an intellectual and emotional vacuum; and beware of trying to classify people too definitely into types; you will find that all through their youth they will persist annoyingly in jumping from class to class, and by pasting a supercilious label on every one you meet you are merely packing a Jack-in-the-box that will spring up and leer at you when you begin to come into really antagonistic contact with the world. An idealization of some such man as Leonardo da Vinci would be a more valuable beacon to you at present. - p.102
3. Sorrow lay lightly around her, and when Amory found her in Philadelphia he thought her steely blue eyes held only happiness; a latent strength, a realism, was brought to its fullest development by the facts that she was compelled to face. She was alone in the world, with two small children, little money, and, worst of all, a host of friends. - p. 133
4. But there had been, near the end, so much dramatic tragedy, culminating in the arabesque nightmare of his three weeks’ spree, that he was emotionally worn out. The people and surroundings that he remembered as being cool or delicately artificial, seemed to promise him a refuge. He wrote a cynical story which featured his father’s funeral and dispatched it to a magazine, receiving in return a cheque for sixty dollars and a request for more of the same tone. This tickled his vanity, but inspired him to no further effort. - p. 193
5. ‘Let’s hear it,’ said Amory eagerly.
‘I’ve got only the last few lines done.’
‘That’s very modern. Let’s hear ‘em, if they’re funny.’ - p. 201
6. V. THE EGOTIST BECOMES A PERSONAGE
A fathom deep in sleep I lie
With old desires, restrained before,
To clamour life ward with a cry,
As dark flies out the greying door;
And so in quest of creeds to share
I seek assertive day again…
But old monotony is there:
Endless avenues of rain.
Oh, might I rise again! Might I
Throw off the heat of that old wine,
See the new morning mass the sky
With fairy towers, line on line;
Find each mirage in the high air
A symbol, not a dream again…
But old monotony is there:
Endless avenues of rain. - p. 236
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Other novels of similar ease of reading in the coming-of-age genre:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; Never Let Me Go; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; The Kite Runner; Tuck Everlasting (one of the ones on the Rachel's hate-love list); A Catcher in the Rye (one of the ones on the Rachel's hate-love list)
Coming of age movies to watch during spare time:
Kings of Summer (2013); Dead Poets Society (1989); The Virgin Suicides (1999); The Breakfast Club (1985); Moonrise Kingdom (2012); The Way, Way Back (2013); Almost Famous (2000).
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