Fitzgerald's Cult of Disillusion

Here, and in many another passage keyed to the same pessimistic pitch, This Side of Paradise gave first widespread popular expression to that post-World War I disillusion that is now recognized as one of the twenties' most characteristic notes. For This Side of Paradise, published in 1920, was the Younger Generation's first best-seller. And as Glenway Wescott wrote of it not long ago, book which college boys really read is a rare thing . . . This Side of Paradise haunted the decade like a song, popular but perfect. It hung over an entire youthmovement like a banner.2 Fitzgerald had begun this first novel at the age of twenty, while he was still a senior at Princeton. The final version was accepted for publication by Scribner's two years later, in September, 1919, just a few days before his twenty-third birthday. What justified such pessimistic despair in this talented, alert young man of twenty-two? Was

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