The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

     The Beautiful and the Damned is Fitzgerald's second novel, following This Side of Paradise which brought him early fame.  Like most of Fitzgerald's works it explores the themes of aspiration, love, money, and decadence.
     Anthony Patch is a Harvard graduate who floats along doing nothing while waiting to inherit his grandfather's fortune.  In New York, he meets and marries Gloria, a beautiful, frivolous girl who is willing to live off his meager monthly income and join him in waiting for his windfall.  The grandfather, though sickly, hangs onto life and the Patches rapidly waste away what money they have.  Their lives revolve around parties and drinking.
     Ultimately, the novel exposes an idle, lethargic society seeking but never finding a cause or a vocation.  Anthony talks of writing but doesn't; thinks of getting a job but only lasts six weeks when he does.  Gloria's purpose in life had been to catch a husband.  That done, she is at a loss.  Gloria wants to get into movies through an old beau in the business but Anthony's jealousy makes him discourage this until it is too late. 
     When his grandfather finally dies, his death does not bring the wealth they had waited for.  Due to an impromptu visit he made to see the couple in the past in which he caught them giving a wild, drunken party, he disinherits Anthony and leaves the money to his manservant.  Anthony petitions the will but is told it may take years to resolve.
     Anthony has a brief stint in the army, but the war ends before he leaves training camp.  During this time, he has an affair with a young woman in the town where he is stationed.  When the war is over he returns to New York and Gloria and they fall back into their old life of parties and alcohol.  As they run out of money Anthony's dependance on alcohol brings him to moral and physical decline.  When he reaches rock bottom his fortunes change but it is too late.
     The relationship and marriage of Anthony and Gloria is largely based on Fitzgerald's life with his wife, Zelda.  Although Fitzgerald is now considered to be a great writer and The Great Gatsby is on every high school reading list, when he died he considered himself a failure.  Not until the 1960's did he achieve the acclaim he has today.  I found a contemporary review of The Beautiful and the Damned from the New York Times on March 5, 1922.  The reviewer had little good to say about the novel and ended with:  "The novel is full of that kind of pseudo-realism which results from shutting one's eyes to all that is good in human nature, and looking only upon that which is small and mean-a view quite as false as its extreme opposite, which, reversing the process, results in what we have learned to classify as "glad" books. It is to be hoped that Mr. Fitzgerald, who possesses a genuine, undeniable talent, will some day acquire a less one-sided understanding."

     Since he went on to write The Great Gatsby, one of my favorite novels, I'm glad he didn't.

~ Frances