F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920
Questions on the text, each answered in the book’s own words, with the minute you hear it.
Challenge a friend: 123BookWarThe text
Answer Another double-chocolate jigger
“He munched four of these, finding them of pleasing savor, and then consumed another double-chocolate jigger before ease descended upon him.”
Answer His derby
“He returned hurriedly to 12 University, left his derby, and, emerging bareheaded, loitered down Nassau Street”
Answer Allenby, the football captain
“including a large one of Allenby, the football captain”
Answer A hammer
“Got a hammer?”
Answer Andover
“Andover—where did you?”
Answer The Kenilworth
“At the Kenilworth Amory met Burne Holiday—he of the gray eyes was Kerry—and during a limpid meal of thin soup and anaemic vegetables”
Answer The Prince, the Daily Princetonian
“Not me—Burne here is going out for the Prince—the Daily Princetonian, you know.”
Answer Freshman football
“Why—yes. I’m going to take a whack at freshman football.”
Answer Allenby
“There at the head of the white platoon marched Allenby, the football captain, slim and defiant”
Answer He wrenched his knee
“he wrenched his knee seriously enough to put him out for the rest of the season.”
Answer Kerry, by a year
“The Holidays were rumored twins, but really the dark-haired one, Kerry, was a year older than his blond brother, Burne.”
Answer Diphtheria
“In December he came down with diphtheria, and some one else won the competition”
Answer Ivy
“Ivy, detached and breathlessly aristocratic”
Answer A sweaty bourgeois
“But just now, Amory, you’re only a sweaty bourgeois.”
Answer A family of Fatimas
“consuming a family of Fatimas with contemplative precision”
Answer D’Invilliers
“Well—go ahead. Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy D’Invilliers in the Lit.”
Answer Hearses and stale milk
“only you’ve got to think of hearses and stale milk when you read it.”
Answer The Twin Cities
“All from the Twin Cities.”
Answer The ‘My God’
“She took a nail scissors, clipped out the ‘My God’ and showed the rest of the letter all over school.”
Answer Mrs. Warren’s Profession
“For twenty minutes Amory sat consuming bacon buns and reading “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”
Answer “Marpessa,” by Stephen Phillips
“He spelled out the name and title upside down—“Marpessa,” by Stephen Phillips.”
Answer The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I’ve just finished a book of his, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ and I certainly wish you’d read it. You’d like it. You can borrow it if you want to.”
Answer Doctor Johnson and Boswell
“This caused mild titters among the other freshmen, who called them “Doctor Johnson and Boswell.”
Answer On the damp grass by the sun-dial
“Amory, pausing by the sun-dial, stretched himself out full length on the damp grass”
Answer I’m very damn wet!
“I’m very damn wet!” he said aloud to the sun-dial.”
Answer Boiling Oil, a Pirate Lieutenant
“stepped into a vacancy of the cast as Boiling Oil, a Pirate Lieutenant.”
Answer Louisville and Memphis
“Amory liked Louisville and Memphis best: these knew how to meet strangers, furnished extraordinary punch, and flaunted an astonishing array of feminine beauty.”
Answer Sally Weatherby’s cousin, Isabelle Borge
“for Sally Weatherby’s cousin, Isabelle Borge, was coming to spend the winter in Minneapolis while her parents went abroad.”
Answer Thirty-six hours
“sat in the train, and thought about himself for thirty-six hours.”
Answer Petting shirts
“Amory, in a burst of inspiration, named them “petting shirts.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), Book One, Chapter Two, from the Project Gutenberg transcription (#805) of the first edition. Public domain in the United States.