F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Beautiful and Damned is the story of Anthony Patch and his wife, Gloria. Harvard-educated and an aspiring aesthete, Patch is waiting for his inheritance upon his grandfather’s death. His reckless marriage to Gloria is fueled by alcohol and destroyed by greed. The Patches race through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes——first in hilarity, then in despair. The Beautiful and Damned, a devastating portrait of the nouveaux riches, New York nightlife, reckless ambition, and squandered talent, was published in 1922 on the heels of Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise. It signaled his maturity as a storyteller and confirmed his enormous talent as a novelist.

The Beautiful and Damned

Introduction by Hortense Calisher Commentary by Edmund Wilson, Henry Seidel Canby, and Arthur Mizener Fitzgerald’s second novel, a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age, is a largely autobiographical depiction of a glamorous, reckless Manhattan couple and their spectacular spiral into tragedy. Published on the heels of This Side of Paradise, the story of the Harvard-educated aesthete Anthony Patch and his willful wife, Gloria, is propelled by Fitzgerald’s intense romantic imagination and demonstrates an increased technical and emotional maturity. The Beautiful and Damned is at once a gripping morality tale, a rueful meditation on love, marriage, and money, and an acute social document. As Hortense Calisher observes in her Introduction, “Though Fitzgerald can entrance with stories so joyfully youthful they appear to be safe—when he cuts himself, you will bleed.” Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

Alissa Minard

" …Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should decay too, and in that way they’re preserved for a while in the few hearts like mine that react to them…”

It seemed a tragedy to want nothing-and yet he wanted something, something. 

This book has me twisted up inside. It didn’t make me happy, not even a little bit but that’s what is fantastic about it. The characters are terrible people, but terrible in the everyday way which resonates with everyone. They make all the wrong decisions and I found myself begging them just to grow the hell up, but they never do.  The writing is gorgeous but closer to real life than anything I’ve read in a long while. 

Barbara Williford

A story full of rich, egotistical, self centered, narcissistic characters yet...you can’t stop reading hoping that something will change, somehow they will grow up and achieve a moral compass. But alas, they spiral completely out of control. A great read full of great detail.

Uahuu Tujendapi 

This book was soooo boring! I attempted to read it 3 different! Times! And I hated every second of it! This book just ain't it yall.

Sarah Escorsa

What a fantastic read! I've always liked reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's books and I actually enjoyed this one much more than "The Great Gatsby".

Jeni Enjaian

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading the book. Not only has it been a long time since I have read anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but it has also been my recent experience with classics that a reading becomes a hard slog through the narrative to the end.
This book far surpassed those expectations. Fitzgerald creates a compelling, realistic narrative. His narrative flows between styles and narrators easily and without causing confusion for the reader. In the end, however, I feel no sense of compassion in any way for either of the main characters. Their whole existence appears to be without meaning. In the end, neither one grows or changes from the immature you children they started the journey as.
Though not my favorite, Fitzgerald did create food for thought. Thus, this classic I recommend.

A captivating and glamorous tale of squandered talent that defined "The Lost Generation" of 1920s New York. Anthony Patch and Gloria Gibson are the golden children of the Jazz Age. They marry and embark on a life of glittering parties, lavish expenditure and scandalous revelry. When the money dries up their marriage founders. In this wistful novel Fitzgerald portrays the decline of youthful promise with devastating clarity.

Nona G

The 20s and 30s did great things for music, architecture and fashion. I'm a die-hard Art Deco fan and have always looked at the 20s as a sort of lost age of chivalry and taste. Everything after that, with the increase of industrialization and the need to recover after the war, feels dull to me. So I see that era as the last breath of aristocracy.

With this in mind and after a lot of time waiting on my shelf, I finally decided to tackle F. Scott Fitzgerald. He's the ultimate storyteller of the Jazz Age, or so we're told. He's a classic.

I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. It's such a love-hate relationship. It's definitely brilliantly written (though unevenly paced to the point of confusion and annoyance, towards the end) and perfectly accurate in describing the Jazz Age. It's great in portraying the life of the protagonists in such a raw way that it easily draws the reader in and doesn't allow them to get out. After the first chapter, which felt slow and tedious (more so because English is not my first language and it took me a while to get into the slang of those times), the novel drew me in rapidly. Dazzling, I think that's the best word I can find to express my feelings towards it. 

The society, one that does not exist anymore, is described with such accuracy that it feels alive. I have always had a fascination for times long past and for writings that pull me in completely. From this point of view, The Beautiful and Damned is a masterpiece.

However, as much as I raveled in the atmosphere of the book, I hated the characters. Take it all out of the era and you have a bland story with unlikable characters. As much as I don't like it, I could not help but feel glad for their unhappiness. Mean, yes, but when you place at the center of a novel two people who lack ambition and live for pleasure only, you cannot expect the readers to feel sympathy for them. Had they lived 100 years later, they would have been in therapy and most likely divorced. (It took me a while to grasp that Gloria could not really divorce Anthony, because she had no money of her own and no skills. 21st century feminist me judged her quite hard.)

As I said, I did enjoy to see them unravel and auto-destroy. In this, Fitzgerald is brilliant. He managed to capture the character's involution with absolute talent. The journey is not one of growth, it's one of destruction. And mean little me wanted a more bitter ending than the one we were given. However, I feel some justice has been served, in the end, as there cannot be absolute happiness.

I try (and not always manage) not to judge a book written in a different time by comparing it to current mores and philosophies. It's pointless to call it unfeminist, misogynistic and classist. Yes, it doesn't fit into this century and we would most likely judge people like Gloria and Anthony very roughly by today's standards. Just look at it as a great portrayal of times long past and a lesson of what not to revive ever again (the clothes and the etiquette, though, can come back, thank you!).

Geoff Dyer

Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling. Their marriage is a passionate theatrical performance; they are young, rich, alive and lovely and they intend to inherit the earth. But as money becomes tight, their marriage becomes impossible.

Stavros Kosmas

I am definitely a huge sucker for prose and this has been a very beautiful read at that and concepts like infidelity, narcissism, greed and other horrible attributes were portrayed very impressively in my opinion. But, DAMN, was the main character the biggest asshole on Earth. I was laughing at the end of the book, I simply couldn’t feel any sympathy.

Jawahir M

Description Summary: Like watching a tragic car crash, The Beautiful and the Damned features two MCs who are 50x worse than Regina George but Fitzgerald manages to save the book with his unique writing.

Score: 3/5

I expected more of a Bonnie and Clyde situation where I would find the book alluring, a bit dangerous and reckless. What I got well, I got a sad excuse of a couple who are completely shallow and hypocritical. I couldn’t care what happened to them and not at one point did I feel the need to feel sorry for them. I felt that a lot of the tragic circumstances that they’ve faced is due to their own doing. 

It’s weird but this isn’t a story you would enjoy, but I can’t help but keep going and going even though it got more morbid and grey with each page. It’s like a grim fascination similar to going to a zoo and observing the creepiest and ugliestiest animal; appalling but you’re too intrigued to look away. Here is where Fitzgerald’s writing wins and does the impossible: it actually made me 
  want
 to complete the book.

The writing is probably my favorite thing about this. He achieves a great balance and shift between a lyrical tone and more cynical outlook; this blend of the romantic and pessimist frankly is impressive.

Do I recommend? I would suggest The Great Gatsby rather than this one.

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) was born in Minnesota and educated at Princeton. His first novel, "This Side of Paradise" (1920), made him instantly famous. Shortly after he married the glamorous Zelda Sayre, and together they embarked on a life of big spending and party going. He published stories in fashionable periodicals such as the "Saturday Evening", "Vanity Fair" and "The Smart Set", in which he chronicled the mood and manners of the times; these were collected as "Flappers and Philosophers" (1920) and "Tales of the Jazz Age" (1922). "The Beautiful and Damned"(1922), a novel about a wealthy, doomed and dissipated marriage, was followed by "The Great Gatsby" (1925), the story of shady, mysterious financer Jay Gatsby, whose romantic and destructive passion for Daisy Buchanan played against a backdrop of Long Island glamour and New York squalor; the story is narrated by the innocent outsider Nick Carraway. "Tender is the Night" (1934) records, through the story of American psychiatrist Dick Diver and his schizophrenic wife Nicole, his own sense of impending disaster. He died in Hollywood, of a heart attack, after working as a screenwriter, leaving his last novel, "The Last Tycoon", unfinished.

The Beautiful and the Damned

Brittany Firmes

** spoiler alert **
           this book was... it was better than ok but not quite good. The complexity of Fitzgerald’s male protagonist as always was amazing. I do wish that Gloria’s character and backstory were developed more though. As for plot, it was just going through the relationship and like of Anthony and Gloria so there wasn’t much to the plot. However, I think that Anthony’s decent into madness was beautifully, amazingly written. Much better than Dick’s in TitN. The ending gave me chills.

MacCardle

Embellished with the author's lyrical prose, here is the story of Harvard-educated, aspiring aeshete Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria. As they await the inheritance of his grandfather's fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice. A devastating look at the nouveaux riches and New York nightlife, as well as the ruinous effects wild ambiion, The Beautiful and the Damned achieved stature as one of Fitzgerzld's most accomplished novels. Its distinction as a classic endures to this day.

The Beautiful and Damned

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