The Far Side of Paradise
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 First US edition (1951) | |
| Author | Arthur Mizener |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Genre | Biography |
| Published | January 1, 1951 |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin (United States), Eyre & Spottiswoode (United Kingdom) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Awards | 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction (Finalist) |
The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a 1951 work by Arthur Mizener.[1] Published by Houghton Mifflin, it was the first published biography of American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and renewed public interest in the author.[2][1] It dealt frankly with Scott's alcoholism and depression as well as his wife Zelda Sayre's schizophrenia, including her suicidal and homicidal tendencies. The title alludes to Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel, This Side of Paradise, that launched him to fame.
In this landmark biography, Mizener first proposed the now popular interpretations of Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby, as a criticism of the American Dream and the titular character of Jay Gatsby as the dream's false prophet.[3][4] In subsequent decades, he popularized these interpretations in a series of talks titled "The Great Gatsby and the American Dream."[4] These interpretations of the novel are now often taught in high school and college classrooms without accreditation to Mizener.
Although Mizener's biography became a commercial success, Fitzgerald's friends, such as literary critic Edmund Wilson and others, believed the work distorted Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's relationship and personalities for the worse.[5][6] "Arthur Mizener had never known Fitzgerald," Wilson publicly wrote, "and did not in certain respects perhaps very well understand him."[7] Scholars deemed Andrew Turnbull's 1962 biography Scott Fitzgerald to be a significant correction of the biographical record.
The biography was published in two significant editions. The first edition was published in 1951, while the second edition was published in 1965. In the second edition, Mizener notes that "a good deal of published and of unpublished information about Fitzgerald has accumulated" since the 1951 edition.[8] This resulted in Mizener having to rewrite the 'last two chapters' of the book in order to include the story of Fitzgerald's relationship with columnist Sheilah Graham, after the publication of Graham's 1958 memoir Beloved Infidel, and to "include all the new information... published and unpublished, that is now available to me".[8]
Contents and themes
In the biography, Mizener became the first scholar to interpret Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby in the context of the American Dream.[3] "The last two pages of the book," Mizener wrote, "make overt Gatsby's embodiment of the American Dream as a whole by identifying his attitude with the awe of the Dutch sailors" when first glimpsing the New World.[3] He noted Fitzgerald emphasized the dream's unreality and viewed the dream as "ridiculous."[9][3] Mizener popularized his interpretations of the novel in a series of talks titled "The Great Gatsby and the American Dream."[4]
