The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So a golden oldie for you this time! I should have said when I was making my new years' declaration that I need to get around to reading some more of what many refer to as 'literally classics'. Of course I have read some, but many escape me. I want to correct that. Fitzgerald is one of those names that gets thrown around in this category. I read Gatsby when that terrible, terrible Baz Luhrmann production was released. I really enjoyed it. I finished it in a day, not just because of its surprisingly short length but the sheer readability that Fitzgerald possessed. Unfortunately, this was around the time when I was finishing up multiple university assignments, so I never got around to reading anymore of his works.

Mr Fitzgerald himself

So last year, I found one of his novels in the latest charity box. I read Tender Is The Night at a strange time. Having only recently left university, I was finding it impossible to not read a book and try to critically analyse it at every stage. I guess you could call it a curse. Or else it just makes you look deeper into the themes that make a novel. The English graduates now for ever burden. Oh well. It'll wear off. Just think of it like when you first drive without an instructor. There you go. 

But anyway, we are here to talk about the book that I have just finished and returned on its journey to the next charity shop, entitled The Beautiful and Damned. I was shocked to discover that Fitzgerald in his life only wrote 4 complete novels, dying before he could finish his fifth one. I don't know why I assume that someone such as Fitzgerald who falls into that critically acclaimed classic category would have a huge catalogue of novels. I guess that just shows the impact that he had in such a short collect of full novels. Of course, the short story collection that he produced in his lifetime was a huge, broad selection. But I have never been a fan of short stories. They always leave me wanting more.

What striked me straight away about the book was the character names. I have never come across an author who thinks of the most brilliant names I have ever read. In previous books that I have read of his, who can forget the most brilliant name Dick Diver. What a name. Not anywhere would you find a name like that nowadays, he would never name it out of school. And that continues in The Beautiful and Damned characters such as Anthony Patch and Richard Caramel. Memorable, strong, distinctive, brilliant. And it's not just the names that are memorable. Each character, whether it is the tragic, hopelessly in love Dot, or the determined older character Adam Patch, each will leave an impression on you. 

Fitzgerald's second novel

He continues his flowing writing style and I found it hard to put the novel down. He has a way of describing a scene that I just would never think of, and I think is something rare to find in the literary world. The book follows the path of Anthony Patch, as he leads a lazy life of not working, and drinking and partying to an extreme excess with his wife Gloria. Fitzgerald writes in a period that both intrigues me and terrifies me. This society led culture that craves excess, extremity and lots and lots of liquor. But boy does he write about it well. You can feel the devastating effect that the lifestyle the two are leading are having not just on themselves, nut on their relationships with others as well as their deteriorating living conditions. 

 This feeling of devastation just does not relent throughout. Everything has an air of depression around it, with this constant reliance on the importance of liquor adding to this at every stage.  The plot eventually centres around Anthony and Gloria's fall from grace as they wait for a court case to be settled over inheritance that was taken away from them by Anthony's rich grandfather. There is always a sense of the inevitable throughout, that they will win the case, as the couple are always on the edge of no return but never quite. But I must say, it was hard not to want then to fall. The unlikable Anthony and Gloria always seem to get there way, and in the end do, despite all the suffering, which for most people would barely be scratching the surface of being poor. 

Fitzgerald fully deserves his title of being a classic literary author. For me, there is no one out there who can match the fluidity of his writing, his unique description or his tragic, unlikable characters. Whilst I usually struggle to get on with a book where none of the characters I particularly care for, I make the exception here. Fitzgerald was truly a master, and for me, this was his greatest work. Of course this may change when I get around to reading those short stories. Or that last novel of his I have left.

The Beautiful and Damned is published by many different publishing houses in the UK due its being out of copyright. The copy I read (pictured above) is publishing by Orion Books.