via The Guardian, here's Auden on Fitzgerald:

"I've been reading This Side of Paradise. Chester gave it to me. Those long conversations between the Princeton man and his girl. One simply can't believe that he cared for her in the least. All American writing gives the impression that Americans don't care for girls at all. What the American male really wants is two things: he wants to be blown by a stranger while reading a newspaper and he wants to be fucked by his buddy when he's drunk. Everything else is society."