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 Six months
“She had been sixteen years old for six months.”
Answer The Minnehaha Club
“gaze down the broad stairs of the Minnehaha Club.”
Answer Her eyes
“He’s heard so much about you—says he remembers your eyes.”
Answer Baltimore
“It was ever so much colder here than in Baltimore; she had not remembered”
Answer A ‘Speed’
“She was a “Speed,” was she? Well—let them find out.”
Answer Froggy Parker, freshman at Harvard
“Isabelle manoeuvred herself and Froggy Parker, freshman at Harvard, with whom she had once played hop-scotch, to a seat on the stairs.”
Answer Auburn
“First, he had auburn hair, and from her feeling of disappointment she knew that she had expected him to be dark”
Answer ‘I’ve got an adjective that just fits you.’
“I’ve got an adjective that just fits you.” This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind”
Answer He’s a bum dancer
“He’s a bum dancer.”
Answer Twelve-eighteen
“Amory had stayed over a day to see her, and his train left at twelve-eighteen that night.”
Answer Babes in the Woods
“After the usual preliminary of “chopsticks,” one of them started “Babes in the Woods” and a light tenor carried the words into the den”
Answer That she doesn’t do that sort of thing any more; he asked and she said no
“No,” she answered. “I don’t do that sort of thing any more; he asked me to, but I said no.”
Answer ‘Fourteen angels were watching o’er them’
“Fourteen angels were watching o’er them,” sang Sally sleepily from the next room.”
Answer Cottage
“he slid smoothly into Cottage with Alec Connage and watched his suddenly neurotic class with much wonder.”
Answer The Nassau Inn
“This orgy of sociability culminated in a gigantic party at the Nassau Inn, where punch was dispensed from immense bowls”
Answer Original Sin
“Wake up, Original Sin, and scrape yourself together. Be in front of Renwick’s in half an hour. Somebody’s got a car.”
Answer Asbury Park
“In fact, it was stolen from Asbury Park by persons unknown, who deserted it in Princeton and left for the West.”
Answer Six
“Just the same, I can only cut six more classes, with over a month and a half to go.”
Answer Eight years
“Let me out, quick—I haven’t seen it for eight years! Oh, gentlefolk, stop the car!”
Answer Eight Bronxes, and a club sandwich and Juliennes
“Eight Bronxes,” commanded Alec, “and a club sandwich and Juliennes. The food for one. Hand the rest around.”
Answer Eight twenty-five
“Eight twenty-five.”
Answer Marxian Socialists
“You see, Amory, we’re Marxian Socialists,” explained Kerry. “We don’t believe in property and we’re putting it to the great test.”
Answer Kaluka, Hawaiian queen
“Name of Kaluka, Hawaiian queen! Let me present Messrs. Connage, Sloane, Humbird, Ferrenby, and Blaine.”
Answer A grocery clerk who made a fortune in Tacoma real estate
“his father was a grocery clerk who made a fortune in Tacoma real estate and came to New York ten years ago.”
Answer A dollar and twenty cents
“Kerry took up a collection for the French War Orphans which netted a dollar and twenty cents, and with this they bought some brandy”
Answer On the platform of the Casino, on a pile of rugs
“Kerry wormed permission from the watchman to sleep on the platform and, having collected a huge pile of rugs from the booths to serve as mattresses and blankets”
Answer That he is engaged
“Yes. Don’t say a word to anybody, please, but I am. I may not come back next year.”
Answer Along the Lawrenceville Road
“They found two unlocked bicycles in Holder Court and rode out about half-past three along the Lawrenceville Road.”
Answer The Ode to a Nightingale
“So Amory declaimed “The Ode to a Nightingale” to the bushes they passed.”
Answer Dick Humbird
“Dick was driving and he wouldn’t give up the wheel; we told him he’d been drinking too much—then there was this damn curve”
Answer A chemistry lecture at 8:10
“He was half delirious, and kept calling something about a chemistry lecture at 8:10.”
Answer At Cottage
“they rode up smiling Prospect Avenue, through the gay crowd, to have tea at Cottage.”
Answer Little golden slippers
“from the top of her shining hair to her little golden slippers she had never seemed so beautiful.”
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.