Jazz in F. Scott Fiztgerald's This Side of Paradise

Throughout the first two chapters of the second book in This Side of Paradise, there isn't much, if any jazz music actually played. At Rosalind's coming out party, Fitzgerald, acting through the narrator, briefly describes some of the music, but doesn't go into detail and doesn't even specify if it is jazz or not. So if there is no jazz music, nor even a mention of jazz music in this part of the book, then how could one be expected to talk in depth about the idea of jazz in this section of the novel. The only way left to approach this topic is to take a figurative, loose form of the word jazz and relate it to the events of the novel.

Jazz isn't perfectly rhythmic; it is up and down, hard and soft, improvisational, it doesn't stay in one place very long, always jumping through the notes and through different instruments. This is exactly like Amory and his life. The novel takes place during the Jazz Age, so a comparison between the elements of jazz and the elements of the time period can also be made. Amory starts out in the first chapter of the second book, called The Debutante, having just survived WWI. He is in good health and his closest friends are still alive and well. This can be seen as a good point in Amory's life. Not necessarily a high point, but a point where everything is in decent order and nothing is too worrisome or out of place.

This is like a part in a jazz song, maybe right after an improvisational solo, when the entire band starts playing again, and the sound becomes more smooth and rhythmic, until the next exciting diversion from the calm regularity. Amory doesn't let this overly regular, boring state continue much longer, as he finds himself completely in love with and loved by Rosalind, only a few hours into knowing her at her coming out party. This almost instant and sudden love for both of them is new and different from what they are used to. It is unexplored territory.

An improvisational duet, each playing off of the other one; more proper and standard at first and then relaxed and real, true feelings between the two, a harmony of sounds, a harmony in their love.

But of course, the subject of this text is none other than Amory and his related attributes to those of jazz, so without doubt the reader can expect something far from perfect resulting in their sudden love for each other. This love does last a few months at least, both of them head over heals, somewhere they've never been before. Until the question of money comes up again and again, and Rosalind's mother continues to encourage Rosalind to move on to a wealthier man. Rosalind is in love with Amory, but understands that to be the girl he loves she has to be rich, and therefore she couldn't marry him for a long time, until he became very wealthy. She ends up ending it, as she will move on to a rich man she likes, away from a poorer man who she loves.

One can almost hear this relationship as a piece of jazz; happy and steady to start, then a sad, lonesome saxophone, breaks away from the piano, think John Coltraine. Notes of sadness, loneliness, and the drinking. Amory takes what he calls the easy way and drinks himself out of three weeks, avoiding work and the thought of Rosaline through high balls at the bar. Then Prohibition starts three weeks later, and he can't even do that, although by this point he is past the need for alcohol, he has gotten past the initial shock of it. Up and down goes Amory's life; calm and steady to rocky and fast. Its as if he's dancing to jazz.

He's then bored again. Regular and bored, a mere five months after having met Rosaline. The tempo is calmer again, everyone playing together, right from the sheet music, no improvisations, no exciting solos, or duets. Just sitting at home reading novels and discussing politics and the present society with Tom. A piece of mail from Monsignor Darcy that responds to a letter written to long ago to remember. At the end of the second chapter Amory goes to visit an uncle, and the tempo of the jazz music his life begins to change again, as he finds Eleanor, who is good enough to get at least a month of his life. With the cycle of controlled randomness in full swing, Amory continues his life of jazz moving from moment to moment, often without transition, as his life goes in every direction, again and again.